I let it ring twice before answering.
“How is she?” Silas asks.
“Stable.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
I believe that too. The world is apparently full of inconvenient truths today.
“We need to discuss the optics before Game Six,” Silas says.
“No,” I say.
Silas pauses. “No?”
“My mother is in cardiac recovery. I left a game. The league fined me. The team won. Those are the facts. I am not dressing them up.”
“Ryan, nobody is asking you to—”
“You are.”
I look through the glass at Peyton with the twins. Lily is showing her something on a phone. Emma has one hand tucked through Peyton’s arm like that is where it belongs.
“I’m done making family emergencies useful,” I say.
Silas’s voice cools. “That sounds like Peyton’s language.”
“No. It sounds like mine when I stop letting other people borrow it.”
Another silence. Longer.
“Game Six,” Silas says finally.
“I’ll update Sully.”
“Ownership will expect you back.”
“Ownership can expect whatever it wants.”
I end the call before Silas can turn it into a negotiation.
My hand shakes once afterward.
I hate that less than I expected.
I find Peyton near the cafeteria, coffee in one hand, her phone in the other.
“Media has it,” she says before I ask. “The fine. You leaving. Half sympathetic, half asking if a captain should walk.”
“Let them.”
She studies me. “That easy?”
“No.”
That earns me a tired smile.
“Progress,” she says.
