Better.
Not ready. Better.
After twenty minutes, the hip is angry enough to have legal representation. I blow out a breath through my nose and skate to the boards. Isaac follows, still fresh enough to be irritating.
"Thanks," he says.
"Don't thank me until it works."
"Still. Thanks."
I nod because nodding is easier than receiving gratitude.
High above the rink, behind the management glass, someone moves. I know the shape before I let myself look. Caleb Wren stands in the suite with his laptop open, tie loose, glasses reflecting the ice. He is watching practice. He is not watching my file because my file is not his anymore.
He is watching me.
I should look away first.
I don't.
The glass holds between us. Management above, players below. Clean division. Documented boundary. The kind of structure Caleb respects and I understand.
Isaac taps his stick against the ice. "Again?"
I look back at the kid. At the blue line. At the lane that will open and close whether we are ready or not.
"Again," I say.
CALEB
The management suite glass is designed to make watching feel neutral.
It fails.
From here, the ice is clean and legible, every lane visible, every rotation identifiable. The glass filters the sound, turns the scrape of skates and impact against boards into a muted, professional version of itself. The suite exists for people like me: evaluators, executives, scouts, the people who need the game at enough distance to believe distance improves judgment.
Distance is useful. It is not immunity.
Nolan is at the far blue line with Isaac Hale. They have been there for twenty-seven minutes. I know this because I noted the time when Callahan left them alone, then told myself I was tracking Isaac's post-practice workload and not the length of Nolan Cray's patience.
I am permitted to evaluate Isaac Hale. Isaac is a development asset. Twenty-one, left-shot defenseman, emergency call-up, strong AHL trend line, high ceiling if the decision-making catches up to the skating. His file is mine.
Nolan's file is not.
This distinction is clean on paper and almost impossible on ice.
Isaac plays Nolan's position. Isaac's mistakes are the kind Nolan corrects. Isaac's development affects the depth chart that affects the trade-deadline options that affect Nolan's roster future, which is exactly why Alderman called me into his office yesterday and said, "Hale is yours. Cray is mine."
Four words. Procedure restored. Boundary maintained.
Then he looked at me over the top of his reading glasses and added, "If a report on Hale becomes a report on Cray, rewrite it before I see it."
"Understood," I said.
I understood.
Understanding has not stopped me from watching Nolan's hands.
