Then I hear Mollie's voice in the corridor and I get up.
Konstantin stands in the hall, his pads stripped away, wearing his sweaty undershirt and hockey pants, his skates swapped for tennis shoes. Same as us, except I have abandoned shoes in favor of a pair of slides. Mollie looks up and her gaze brightens.
“You’re here! Can you guys talk to me for five minutes about the game?”
I slide Konstantin a look. He purses his lips, but he’s already nodding, fiddling with the removable part of his cochlear implant. She fiddles with her phone and mutters under her breath. I elbow her, pointing to Konstantin.
It’s not fair of her to mumble where he doesn’t even have a chance to read her lips.
She flushes. “Oh, right. Sorry. If you can’t see me, you might not be able to hear me. Duh.”
Konstantin arches both of his brows. “I heard you fine. You said, ‘fucking piece of shit’.”
“Oh.” Mollie laughs. “Yeah. Sorry. That was about my phone, not you. You’re lovely.”
I cough. She glances at me with wide eyes. “You’re all lovely. All the, um, hockey players.”
I give her a thumbs up. “Very smooth.”
“Shh.” She glances at her shot list, switching to professional mode. She has a story she's telling, and she just needs the footage to prove it. "Two penalty calls in the first two periods," she says, looking between us. "Walk me through it."
I give her the diplomatic answer. "We're still building chemistry. Two centers on the same line means we both want to own the same real estate. We'll figure it out."
“I’m sure.” She nods, then looks at Konstantin. “Anything to add?”
He rubs the back of his neck. "We kept arriving at the same place at the same time, which is either very good or very bad depending on whether there is a puck involved." He pauses, smirking faintly. "Tonight, it was mostly very bad."
“It’ll get better, though,” I add. “It has to.”
Mollie laughs, genuinely, the way she laughs when something surprises her. She tries to school her expression back to a professional one, and mostly fails. "And the third period?"
"Better," I say.
"We stopped fighting each other," Konstantin says, "and started fighting them instead." He glances at me. "Progress of a sort."
I don't say anything to that. He's not wrong, which is its own problem.
We answer a few more questions, then Mollie thanks us. A look passes between us. I wonder if I should expect her to come back to my hotel room, or whether I should text her.
The girl’s not a mind reader, but she is adorable, especially since she flushes directly under my gaze.
Konstantin notices. Of course he notices. He's been noticing things since he arrived.
"You're very good at this," he tells her. "The content. You make it feel like a real conversation instead of an interview."
"That's kind of the point," she says, giving him a lopsided smile.
I glare at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Odd, because usually when a big hockey player looks at you like you’re a dead man walking, you take note.
"It works." He smirks at her. "Maybe you can teach me your secrets over dinner sometime?"
I’d been holding myself back, but his question makes me snarl. "Back off, Kuznetsov."
Konstantin looks at me. Then he looks at Mollie. Something flickers in his expression, quick and unreadable.
"Maybe I was just being friendly," he says.
“You weren’t, and you know it.” My hands curl into fists. Just like that, I’m ready.
