29
ZACH
The locker roombefore Game 2 is loose. We won Game 1 two days ago. Guys are getting dressed, music playing—the usual pregame routine that hasn’t changed since October. Except now there’s a sharpness underneath the jokes. It's the way a team gets when they’re up in a series and can feel the other team starting to doubt.
I open my bag and pull out the container that Mackie put in there this morning. Ten chocolate chip, sea salt cookies. The ones she’s been making me before games. I mentioned once that I liked chocolate. She took that single data point and built an entire system around it, because that’s what Mackie does. She left them on the counter with a sticky note that said “eat two before warmups, save the rest for after, don’t share” with the word don’t underlined twice.
I pop the lid, take one out, and bite into it. I close my eyes for half a second because they’re perfect. They’re always perfect. For about three seconds the locker room disappears. It’s just me and a cookie my girlfriend made.
“What’s that?” Dex is at my shoulder. He’s staring at thecontainer and before I can close the lid he reaches in and takes one.
“Those are mine?—”
“Holy shit.” Dex takes a bite then closes his eyes and almost moans. He holds the cookie up. “Brody. BRODY. Get over here.”
Brody materializes. Takes a cookie. Breaks it in half and passes the other half to the guy behind him and suddenly there are hands everywhere, guys reaching across stalls, breaking cookies in half and passing pieces down the bench, and my ten cookies—my ten personal cookies that my girlfriend made for me and explicitly told me not to share—are gone in under a minute. I’m holding the remaining half of my original cookie, watching professional hockey players fight over crumbs. I can hear Mackie’s voice in my head and I’ve failed her in six seconds flat.
Rodriguez watches the whole thing from his stall grinning like a man watching a nature documentary unfold exactly as narrated.
We winGame 2 and the locker room after has that reckless joy that only comes from being up 2-0 in a series where you know you’re the better team.
Jack’s standing in front of me, still in his base layer, sweat drying on his neck, and he’s got that post-game looseness that makes him look ten years younger.
“Good game, kid.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey.” He leans closer. “Where’d you get those cookies?”
My hands stop. Because Jack Anderson is sitting three feet away asking me about his daughter’s cookies and I can feel every drop of blood in my face draining at once.
“The—the cookies?”
“Yeah. Brody gave me half of one.” He’s not suspicious, justcurious. It’s almost worse. “Really good. Tasted like someone browned the butter. My wife does that trick. My daughter does it too.” He shrugs. “Whoever made those knows what they’re doing.”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I can feel Mackie’s name forming on my tongue like a reflex. I’m two syllables from ending my entire life when Rodriguez appears behind Jack’s shoulder like a guardian angel in compression shorts.
“He made them,” Rodriguez says.
Jack turns. “Who made them?”
“Z bakes.” Rodriguez drops this with the conviction of a man stating the earth is round. “It’s his thing. Been doing it since juniors.”
I stare at Rodriguez. Rodriguez stares back. The message is clear: go with this or die.
“Since juniors,” I confirm, because apparently I bake now.
“Huh.” Jack nods slowly. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a baker.”
“It relaxes him,” Rodriguez adds. “Like meditation. With flour.”
Barrett walks past. Stops then reverses and he nods once at me.
“Almardon. Make more. Bring them for 3 and 4.”
He keeps walking. Rodriguez waits until he’s out of earshot and turns to me with pure, unhinged delight.
“You heard the man.”
