He ended the call and sat in the cold blast of artificial air, pressing both palms against the steering wheel until the leather creaked. His phone rested on his thigh, screen dark. He should call Phil. He should have a plan, a counter, a next move that proved he was still worth something to a team with better weather and more than one decent club.
His fate wasn’t going to change if he avoided making the call.
Phil picked up on the third ring with the studied calm of a man who’d already heard the news. “Leo. Yeah, I know this has to be a blow. I’ve been on the phone all morning.”
“So get me out of it.”
“It’s done, kid. The trade’s executed. Port Haven holds your rights now.”
“Then get me somewhere else. You’ve got contacts. Make some calls, let things settle, and?—”
“That’s the play, yeah. Let things settle. Give it a few weeks, let me feel out the landscape, see who’s got cap space and roster needs.” A pause carried the weight of everything Phil wasn’t saying. “But, Leo… Teams want to see you settle in. The optics of you refusing to report, or showing up with one foot out the door, that won’t help either of us.”
“So I’m supposed to go to Wisconsin andpretendI want to be there?”
“You’re supposed to go to Wisconsin and play hockey. Which is what you do. The rest, we figure out.”
Leo stared at the concrete wall of the parking garage. A pipe dripped somewhere overhead, arrhythmic and irritating. Orlando in August. He was going to miss it—the heat that made your clothes stick, the way the sky went pink and gold at dusk, the drag brunch spot on Mills Ave where the bartender knew his order, the gym where nobody blinked at two men spotting each other too close, the whole gorgeous ecosystem of a city where he could be exactly who he was without having to worry about who might take offense.
Wisconsin. He’d been once, in college. A tournament in Milwaukee. He remembered cheese, cold, and a surplus of flannel.
“I’m driving,” Leo said.
“To Wisconsin? That’s like?—”
“Eighteen hours. I know.”
“Fly. I’ll expense it.”
“I’m driving.”
If he flew, someone else controlled the altitude, the route, the arrival time. Leo had just lost control of everything else. He could have this. Driving would at least give him the illusion of choosing to go rather than being cast aside with nothing more than a few signatures.
Phil sighed. The sigh of a man recalculating. “Fine. Drive. But check in when you get there.”
“Yeah.”
He ended the call. Sat for another minute in the blast of AC, staring at his dashboard. Then he drove back to his apartment and packed.
The first fourhours were an escape. Leo cracked the windows on the highway and let the noise fill the car, music loud enough to feel in his molars. South Florida fell away in his mirrors—the strip malls, the Publix parking lots, the specificgreen of trimmed palms against bleached sky. He didn’t think about anything except the road.
Somewhere around Gainesville, the radio played a song he’d danced to at Pulse’s memorial night, and he turned it off.
He stopped for gas outside Valdosta, splashed water on his face in a restroom that smelled like bleach and bad decisions, and bought an iced coffee that tasted like it had been brewed during the previous administration.
He texted his mother.
On the road. Will call when I get there.
Then silenced her thread so he wouldn’t be bombarded with even more messages about what a stupid decision it was to drive across the country alone.
Tennessee. The landscape started to shift—greener in a way that looked like someone had adjusted the saturation. He passed through Nashville without stopping. By Kentucky, the light had changed. Softer. Less aggressive. The sun in Florida hit you like it had something to prove. Here it just hung there, doing the minimum.
He drove through dinner on gas station jerky and a protein bar that stuck to his teeth. His back ached. His right knee, the one that swelled after hard practices, throbbed in rhythm with the road seams. He made it to a Holiday Inn outside Louisville, ate a room service burger that was mostly bread, and fell asleep watching SportsCenter with the volume low enough that it was just noise. His phone buzzed twice on the nightstand. He let it sit, not in the mood to talk to anyone.
He was back on the road by nine, coffee from the lobby that was barely tolerable, and the landscape kept flattening. Indiana was gray and endless. Illinois wasn’t better. He crossed into Wisconsin by late afternoon, and the GPS started recalculating every few miles, which he tried not to take personally. The highway narrowed to two lanes without warning. He passed a farm. Another farm. A gas station that was closed. An open bar, neon beer signs glowing in the windows of what looked like somebody’s living room.
Port Haven announced itself with a green sign at the town line:WELCOME TO PORT HAVEN—POPULATION 5,347—HOME OF THE LAKESHORE STAGS. Below it, a smaller sign from the Rotary Club. Below that, a hand-painted plywood addition:ANTLER UP.
