Page 134 of Puck You Both

The first comment under Patrick's post landed at nine-sixteen and says, "nice cup?" An innocent. A lamb. A person from a gentler time.

At nine-twenty-seven, the dots were officially connected for the first time, resulting in somebody’s post with three screenshots, side by side, with red circles on them.

Then, the great unraveling:

Isn’t that G’s bathroom?, under Wall’s post, along with Patrick’s old mirror selfie.

I swear I saw Moreau with that cheesehead, under Patrick’s.

WHY IS WALL'S WATCH ON THE SINK???? under mine.

It took the internet eleven minutes to crack what two hockey rosters couldn't in eight months.

I scroll through the avalanche with my heart going way too fast for a man sitting perfectly still on cold porcelain. The reposts, and the reply chains, and the omnipresent all-caps realization still sweeping the hockey world at two in the morning.

THE GOALIE WAR WAS FLIRTING?!

The edits are already up. Somebody took the faceoff clip, the famous one, eleven million views of my boyfriends insulting each other, and captioned it Foreplay. There's a slowed-down version with piano, and one with a French ballad over it.

And their junior final. The fluke goal, now dubbed The meet-cute.

I press the towel to my mouth so the sound I make doesn't wake them.

Both official accounts are silent. Not a word from the Vipers, not a word from the Wolves, and it's perfect, exactly the right type of nothing, except the Wolves social admin, whoever that beautiful maniac is, posted a single orange heart with no caption at nine-forty-one and logged off. People are already writing tributes. By morning he'll have a folk song.

My thumb drifts to the search bar, and I tap in my own name, but stop myself at the last second.

I know how this goes. I've run this play before, after every trade rumor, every "energy guy" segment. You search your name and somewhere in the pile there's the one take, the why is he there, or the makes sense for the goalies but, and that’s the one that finds the soft place within you every time.

Not tonight. Tonight I'm not handing anyone the flashlight.

I delete my name one letter at a time and go back to the piano edit instead.

"It's the middle of the night."

I jump while still sitting.

Patrick's in the doorway, eyes half open, hair doing things the internet will never be allowed to see.

“You want to give me a heart attack?” I whisper-shout, then grin. "They decoded us in eleven minutes."

"Mm."

"Don’t you ‘’mm’ me. There are edits, Patrick. There are—"

He cuts me off with something Polish that definitely isn’t a compliment, takes my phone out of my hand, sets it on the sink next to Wall’s watch, and steers me back to bed by the shoulders.

From the dark, without moving, Wall mutters, "Eleven minutes was my over-under."

***

THE MEDIA ROOM on Thursday night has its usual smell of burnt coffee and cable insulation, except today it's full-full, and everybody in it is pretending they're here about Detroit.

Nobody is here about Detroit.

I'm on the podium next to Patrick because our PR head decided to pull a funny. The first few questions are real hockey questions, asked by real professionals, and then a guy in the third row clears his throat, and I know what’s coming before he opens his mouth. I know that specific throat-clear. He's about to attempt the name.

"This is for, ah. Mr. Gres... Grezko..." Papers shuffle. "Griee... Mr. Moreau’s—" A pause with a whole cliff in it. "—partner."