“Tell the hallway I said hi.”
“I’ll do that.”
I leaned down and kissed him. He held the back of my neck a second longer than usual and then dropped his hand to the mattress. I looked at him sprawled across the bed and thought what I did every night on the road:he’s mine, and I’m leaving the room.
I unhooked the chain, cracked the door, and checked the hallway through the gap. It was empty except for a room-service tray outside 913. I stepped out, and the lock clicked shut behind me.
I let myself into my dark room. Before I turned on a light, I sent the text, standing with my back against my door.
Rook:I’m back.
I undressed for the second time in twenty minutes and lay down. I was almost under when the phone lit up the ceiling.
It wasn’t Varga or the team chat. It was Mark.
Mark:Good news—Kovac’s editor greenlit the career piece. He’s hoping to lock your second session before Thanksgiving, I’ll send dates. FYI he’s also doing his due-diligence calls around the room this week. Standard stuff for a profile. Night.
I read it twice.Around the room.
I lay with the phone facedown on my chest and listened to the heating unit cycle on.
***
The bus to morning skate left at 9:30, and Trier was complaining before it cleared the parking garage.
“Nobody answers,” he said, dropping into the seat across the aisle from me with his phone in his hand. “I have called twice. I am paying this woman to live in my apartment, and she cannot send one photo of the cat.”
“It’s 8:30.”
“The cat is awake. It has been awake since five. The cat wakes her up; that’s half of what I’m paying for.” Philadelphia went by gray and wet. It was garbage day on Broad Street. “She’ll send one photo at noon. It will be a picture of the cat asleep. What does that prove? Anyone can photograph a sleeping cat. I want proof of life.”
Six rows up, Varga was holding court over the back of his seat. He kept Rafe and one of the young defensemen pinned in place.
“Oh—hey, this writer called me yesterday,” Trier said. “Kovac. The one doing the thing on you.”
“Yeah,” I said without facing him.
“Twenty minutes. He was very professional and asked good questions, wanting to know what you were like in the room and how you related to young guys.” He waved the phone. “I told him about Columbus, when you played the whole third period on a broken skate blade. He liked that.”
“Probably.”
“And he asked who knows you best in the room. I said that’s easy; it’s Varga. I saidthose two are like an old married couple.“ Trier laughed, delighted with his line. “You fight about the thermostat. I told him if he wanted to understand you, Varga’s the guy to call.”
Two seats ahead, somebody snorted. Varga’s head popped up over his seatback.
“He’s right, you know,” he announced to the bus at large. “I know everything about this man. I know his blood type, and he shared his mother’s chowder recipe. If Kovac calls me, the piece will write itself.”
“I hope they don’t give him your number,” I said.
“Mark already gave him my number, old man. This is America. Information is free.”
“Tragic,” I said, and turned back to the window. The team laughed and moved on to whatever was next. Trier showed Rafe a photo of his cat sleeping.
We pulled in under the visiting rink. I exited the bus with everyone else, down into the concrete cold of the loading tunnel.
Inside, the visiting locker room smelled like all of them: rubber, bleach, and forty years of other teams. I found my stall and started my morning in the usual order. I was lacing my right skate when I felt it. Varga was across the room, looking at me. He had Rafe half-listening to him.
When I looked up, he tilted his head slightly.You good?
