“How,” I say.
“Hm?”
“How are you changing it back?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I changed it. You changed it back. I did not see you touch it.”
He glances at the screen. At the golden retriever in the referee uniform. Back at the clip. “That’s a great photo,” he says. “Very authoritative.”
I put the tablet face-down on the table. Continue the session from memory. I have the clip data memorized because I retain everything. He will not win this.
At the end of the session, I write in his file: one additional infraction.Conduct unbecoming of a professional.I turn the notebook to show him.
He reads it. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Can I keep this?”
“It’s your file.” He pulls out his phone and photographs it.
“Tuesday we’re doing on-ice decision-making. Six-thirty. Don’t be late.”
“I’ll be early.” He says it to my back. I keep walking. I push through into the hallway without answering, and the door closes behind me, and I stand there for three full seconds in the fluorescent solitude before my feet agree to move.
His ninety-third percentile reaction time. The word useful in his mouth. The way he took notes. I’ve been doing this job long enough to sense when a player is being real. When barriers vanish entirely. And I know what it costs me when I care. I walk. Heels on the concrete. Even rhythm. When I get to my car, I find it. My lock screen is his team photo again. I sit there for a full minute before I start the engine.
Three days later, at seven a.m., Piper texts me with three crying-laughing emojis to inform me that theConduct unbecoming of a professionalinfraction is on hisnightstand. It’s framed. He has shown it to the entire team and at least two equipment managers.
I add a second infraction to his file.Display of official documentation without consent.He photographs that one, too.
Chapter Twelve
Toni Amato
Early morning the tunnel is empty except for an older security guy. “Morning, Ms. Amato.”
“Morning.”
“Stevens already asked if you were here.” I pause.
Security guy sips coffee. “Man’s having a rough month.”
I correct his edge work at ten forty-seven a.m.
At eleven fifty-eight, he cross-checks a man who barely touched him.
The ref’s arm goes up before the echo dies. With serene acceptance of his choice, Max skates toward the sin bin. He sits. He looks at me across the ice.
Not angry.
Communicating.
I write in my notes:11:58. Cross-checking penalty. Preceded byedge correction at 10:47. Interval: 71 minutes. Correlation: present. Causation: investigating.I know exactly what this is.
He sits for two minutes. His team kills the penalty. He comes back out and plays cleanly for the rest of the practice. When Coach blows the final whistle, Max skates to the boards and stops in front of me with a spray of ice that reaches my boots.
“That was unrelated,” he says.
“It was seventy-one minutes after I corrected your edge work.”
