"Jules," I say, just to say it, just because I get to now. His name fits in my mouth like it's been there a while, like I'd been saving the spot. He doesn't answer, but something in his face gives. The smallest thing. Then his hand crosses the console and finds the back of my neck, brief and certain, gone before the next light. Nothing careful in it. Nothing managed. Just a hand that knows where it's going.
I drive the four blocks to nowhere in particular, in no hurry to get either of us home. Somewhere behind us the building is still letting people out into a spring night, eighteen thousand of them carrying what they watched, the round we were never supposedto take. They got the half that happened on the ice. The other half rode home in a quiet car with the windows down. That one stays ours, the way the names do, the way everything does once he's handed it across and I've decided to keep it.
?
ROUND 2: BOSTON
Press Conference Transcript #2
PRE-SERIES MEDIA AVAILABILITY
REPORTER: Coach, the same panels that called you the easiest out had Tampa winning that series. Yet, the Firebirds won it. Any satisfaction in that?
COACH BOUDREAUX: We won a round. There are three more. I'll have my satisfaction in July.
REPORTER: Avi, does beating Tampa change how this team sees itself?
IKONEN: No. We knew what we were before the panels did. Boston's strong. We'll be strong too.
REPORTER: Boston's been built to win now. Deep, experienced, physical. Where's your edge?
IKONEN: We've been underestimated in every game we've played this season including against Tampa. We're comfortable there. That's the edge.
REPORTER: Lundy, you carried the load in net all series against Tampa. But Soucy got the third period of Game 3 in his playoff debut and looked sharp. What did you see from him?
LUNDMARK: I saw a goalie who was ready. People look at a backup and see the games he doesn't play. I see a guy who prepares like he's starting every night, whether he is or not. He gave up one in twenty minutes in a playoff building and never flinched. That's not a backup having a nice night. That's a playoff-ready goalie.
REPORTER: High praise.
LUNDMARK: It's accurate. I watch him work. He earns it.
REPORTER: Is there a scenario where the net becomes a conversation?
COACH BOUDREAUX: We've got two goalies we trust. That's a problem most teams in this league would like to have. Next question.
REPORTER: Coach, prediction for the series?
COACH BOUDREAUX: We win it. Write that on a panel.
Chapter 9: Soucy
Game 3 in Boston. Series knotted at one apiece.
We dropped Game 2 at home on a late deflection. The plane ride was quiet. You could hear the flight crew whispering about turbulence that never came.
Lundy sat across the aisle reading a paperback with the spine cracked so hard it was two paperbacks. I pretended to sleep. Didn't.
Hotel rooms on the road all smell the same. Recycled air and industrial clean.
Lundy drops his bag on the wrong bed. The one closer to the bathroom. He looks at me like he's daring me to say something about it.
“You always take the door side,” I say.
“Not tonight.” He moves the bag to the floor. “Tonight I’m taking the one you didn’t pick.”
Small, stupid thing to do with a bag. It lands harder than it should. What he's actually saying is I rearranged my pattern for yours.
Nobody does that.
