Page 74 of Puck You Both

The building stands. My mind goes quiet.

Fastest man on their roster, in full flight. I know where he's going before he does it. Glove side, high.

I get all of it.

Leather snaps shut around the puck, the crowd cheers, and Theo coasts through my crease on the follow-through, close enough that only I hear him under the noise. "Rude."

One more tap on my pad, invisible to every referee ever born, and he's gone, back to his bench, shaking his head, delighted. Delighted. About being robbed. That tap is going to live in my head all night and he knows it. I check the clock like the clock can save me.

The horn goes at one-nothing. Shutout. In the private ledger I've kept against Patrick since juniors, the shutout column ticks over to me, by one, and I intend to have that read at his funeral.

The handshake line, set up specifically for the campaign’s sake, waits at center ice, cameras stacked along the glass. I move down the row of Vipers on autopilot, glove taps, mumbled good-games. Then the line feeds me Patrick.

His hand closes around mine and the building goes somewhere else.

His eyes hold. Mine hold back. The handshake runs a second long, then another, and then his thumb crosses the back of my hand.

In front of the cameras. In front of both benches. In front of God.

I manage to keep my face in rivalry mode. I break the grip and keep moving down the line while the back of my hand goes on reporting the thumb like it's still happening.

Skating off, I make the mistake of checking the glass by the family section. Leila Washington, wine in hand, watches me over the rim. She raises the glass an inch. To me, specifically.

At my stall, the phone holds one notification.

Theo: disgusting display. unfollowed. blocked. anyway come over saturday

Around me the room is shutout-loud, Becker lobbying for a steakhouse over somebody's speaker. I read the message twice and sit there in half my gear, smiling at my phone like an idiot.

The shutout gets to be my cover.

***

MEDIA TAKES FOREVER. Somebody asks about the save on Theo and I produce thirty seconds of coach-speak while a French accent in my head says encore.

Washington intercepts me in the hallway after and tips his head toward the equipment room. And that, of course, is the exact moment my phone lights up in my hand.

P.G.. Incoming call.

The phone is face-down against my thigh faster than any save I made tonight. Washington's eyes drop to it.

"Spam," I say.

Not one to probe, he leans on the workbench between the sharpeners. "Leadership conversations for next season are happening. Your name is in them. Deep in them."

Against my leg, the phone buzzes again. I press the button blindly, sending the call to voicemail.

"The league won’t put a letter on a goalie," Washington continues. "That doesn’t mean we can’t decide who us."

The panic cuts out. All of it, gone, and the room suddenly very quiet in my ears.

Washington watches me take it, patiently, and something climbs my throat. I swallow it and give him what's left. "Okay," I say.

There’s no point in getting my hopes up. Guess I’ve been burnt one too many times in the past.

Washington nods. "That's what I told them you'd say."

His hand lands on my shoulder on the way out. At the door, he throws over his shoulder, "Answer your spam."