Third period. Tie game. Detroit’s fourth line runs Fuze after the whistle. Not hard, not a suspension play, but the grinding persistence of a team that wants to win by two a.m. and has decided to play the man rather than the puck. Fuze goes down. Gets up. Gives me the look that means your call. I move toward Detroit’s number eighteen. Amato appears between us. Not dramatically. He simply positions himself as if he had read the play just four seconds before it arrived. He’s between me and number eighteen with the calm authority of someone who has stood between larger problems than this. His eyes find mine. Three seconds.
The same from the hallway. A verdict delivered without words. This time there’s a message in it I didn’t have the context to read before:I know who you are.I sense what you’re about to do. And I know something else now, too.I turn away. Number eighteen gets a two-minute roughing minor. We score on the power play. Trey buries it from the half-wall and the building comes apart and I’m first over the boards and I should be celebrating and I am, I’m celebrating, but the back of my neck is still warm from Frank Amato’s three seconds and what was in them.
After the final whistle, during the handshake line, I pass him at center ice. He’s already looking at his scoresheet. I keep moving.
“Stevens.” I stop. Turn. Amato stands at center ice with his scoresheet in one hand and his helmet in the other, standing with the stillness of a man who chose this moment. “The hooking call in the second.” His voice isthe same off-ice as it is on. It’s level, designed to carry exactly as far as he intends it. “You knew it was coming.”
It isn’t a question. “Yes,” I say.
He holds my gaze for one beat. “That’s a start.” He turns and skates toward the officials’ room. I stand at center ice for longer than I need to and stare at the space he just occupied. Trey finds me there, already stripped of his helmet, and follows my eye-line to nothing.
“You good?” I don’t answer. I leave for the tunnel.
That’s a start.A few words. Delivered at center ice, in a building full of people who couldn’t hear them, to a man he officially has no reason to address after a clean game. Frank Amato just told me he’s watching. Not the file. Not the stats. Me.
I shower. Dress. Text nobody. Sit in my stall until the room empties. Amato’s assessment this season is the most terrifying I’ve received from the most unfortunate source. I sit in my stall and let it sink in.
Chapter Eleven
Toni Amato
I change my outfit twice the next Monday before I catch myself and stop.
I know exactly what I'm doing and I need to stop. I am a professional. My purpose here is to complete a job. One of my three perfectly suitable blazers will be sufficient, and my hair will be up. The events in that sauna were nothing more than steam, ambient heat, and a man looking like that in a towel.
I’m wearing the green one. The blazer. Done. By eight-thirty, I regret every career choice that led me here. My father calls early because he operates within military confines.
“My Antonia, you forgot to call me on our usual day. What happened yesterday?”
“Sorry, Daddy, I was extremely busy at the rink yesterdaywith practice and the game. Then, after I attended the press conference.”
“My girl is out there making a name for herself in the NHL. I’m so proud of you. Are you keeping all those unruly hockey players in line? The Guardians are no strangers to on-ice infractions, especially Max Stevens. Did you know he leads the league in penalties?” I freeze.He knows.“Make sure you’re not making the same mistake again, sweetheart. You know what I always say about patterns, Antonia.”
“I remember. Listen, I have to get dressed for work now to be on time.”
“Love you, darling, your mother would be proud. Goodbye.”
The Guardians’ practice facility reeks of testosterone and two other things I’ve catalogued since week one: the industrial adhesive spray they use on tape jobs, which coats every horizontal surface within ten feet of the locker room; the chemical smell of the ice resurfacer exhaust that backs into the corridor from the Zamboni bay every forty minutes on the dot.
The arena has its own clock. I’ve learned to read it. The first resurfacer run at five-forty-seven a.m. means the overnight crew is wrapping up. Gerald at the east entrance switchesfrom his crossword to Wordle at eight a.m. exactly. The PA system does a test tone at eight-fifteen that the players have stopped registering and I haven’t. The supply delivery comes Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the corridor outside the equipment room smells like new rubber and cardboard for approximately forty minutes after it arrives.
There is a superstition I’ve observed but not yet documented professionally: no player taps the fourth stall from the left in the away locker room during warm-ups. I’ve watched three separate games where this happened. Nobody explained it to me. I’m not sure anyone remembers why it started. They do it anyway. Ritual becomes architecture.
Sticks clatter somewhere beyond the hallway. Music pounds through the weight room wall hard enough to rattle the framed team photos. I stride toward the training studio with my tablet tucked under my arm, expression set to professional woman immune to nonsense. Inside, I arrange resistance bands, mobility ladders, balance discs, and video screens for the session. I set up the room the way I always do. Resistance bands on the left rack. iPad on the table. Two chairs angled toward the monitor. Mine has my notes on the seat. His is twelve inches to the right.
Twelve inches. I stop measuring and feel briefly insane.
Today’s objective: Behavior correction, impulse management, decision-making under pressure.
Today’s likely reality: Max Stevens in gym shorts, operating at full chaos capacity. The door swings open before I finish settingthe cones. Speak of the menace.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that when a player is invested in something, they stop showing up late. Max has been on time every session. Not early. Not late. Exactly on time, like a man who looked up what the line was and stood right on it.
Today he’s three minutes early, which means the line moved.
He walks in carrying coffee and chaos. Gray training shorts hang low on his hips. Black T-shirt stretched over broad shoulders. Damp hair from the shower. He smells like fresh soap and clean laundry. I do not catalogue this.
“Morning, coach.” Max clocks both chairs and sits in mine. Not the other one. Mine. With my notes on it. He shifts once, presumably feeling the notepad beneath him, and does not move. I look at him. He looks at the monitor.
