Page 187 of On His Team

Gianna: I’m never calling you babe again btw.

I grin.

Me: Okay, babe.

There is a longer pause.

Gianna: Frick it.

I put the phone down, smiling.

By the time I get to the rink for team meal, the clinic is completely gone. The registration tables are gone. No sponsor banner. No children dragging bags down the hallway. The building is back to game day. Camden signs. Staff moving equipment. Music somewhere deeper inside the rink.

The whole thing reset in a few hours.

I pass the secondary entrance and think about Gianna standing there this morning with a clipboard, giving three people directions at once. Then I keep walking.

There is hockey to play. Friday’s loss is still sitting in the room. Nobody says much about it. Ohio State beat us two-one. Percy made thirty-five saves. Benson scored our only goal. That is enough information.

We are 17-12-2.

Numbers get less interesting the deeper into February we go. Every game matters. That’s the part that matters.

Coach goes through the same clips we have already seen. Their forecheck. Their weak-side winger. The way they collapse low when we get possession behind the net.

He pauses a sequence from last night and points at the center of the screen.

“Look at the middle.”

Nobody says anything. He rolls the clip. We retrieve. Their first man comes hard. Second man drops. Our winger is open high. We rim it anyway. Turnover.

Fuller pauses again. “Look at the middle.”

His eyes go around the room.

“If they give it to you, use it.”

I look at the screen. Something about that lands harder than it should. Maybe because Aspen has been saying the same thing to me in twenty different ways since January. Second look. Don’t decide the play before the puck gets there. Stop defaulting to safe. Use the middle. I understand all of it.

Warmups are sharp. Blue is loud, Stanley looks wired, Benson is Benson, and Percy barely speaks.

I skate my normal laps and keep my breathing even.

When I glance into the stands, I find Gianna before I find anybody else. Lucy is beside her. Mara on the other side.

Gianna sees me looking. She lifts both hands and points at me. Then she mouths something I cannot hear.

I shake my head.

She exaggerates it.

SCORE. A. GOAL.

I laugh.

Mackey skates past. He follows my line of sight, sees Gianna, then looks at me.

I skate away before he can say anything.