Page 49 of On His Team

Stanley scores before intermission.

Minnesota answers.

Owens gets one in the second, but Minnesota gets another late, and by the third it feels like every shift is happening at full speed.

Blue hits a post. The whole bench reacts. Then Minnesota dumps the puck behind our net. And somehow, out of ten skaters moving at once, my eyes find Rowan.

I don’t decide to watch him. I just already am. He moves the puck to my brother, and I watch as Benson carries it to Theo. Theo shoots.

Goal!

I make a noise before I remember I am standing beside Donovan and technically working.

He glances at me.

I straighten.

He shakes his head.

The game goes to overtime.

Blue wins it from the left circle.

4-3.

The Camden bench empties.

Minnesota’s building turns furious.

Somebody throws a drink at the glass. Stanley waves at them until Benson grabs the back of his jersey and drags him toward the tunnel.

I am going to remember this forever.

Then Donovan hands me a laundry cart.

Right.

Work.

By the time we finish, it’s close to midnight. My feet ache. There’s a bruise on my hip from one of the cases. My hair smells like the equipment room. I’m so hungry I’ve moved past hunger and into irritation.

I’m still smiling. Not because the day was perfect. It wasn’t. Donovan caught things I missed. I screwed up four things yesterday and didn’t even realize two of them were wrong until he corrected them.

But when Cole got sick, Donovan called me.

Me.

Because I built the list. Because I knew the room. Because when he needed somebody to know what was packed into twenty-two cases before those cases left Michigan, I did.

I stand in the middle of the equipment room for a second with both hands on the laundry cart and realize nobody working this side of the building has asked me where Benson is all day.

Nobody needed an introduction before giving me something to do. Nobody cared whose sister I was. They just needed me to know my job. I don’t know why that gets me as much as it does. Maybe because Benson has always been the easiest way to explain me.

Camden is his school first. Hockey is his world first. Even when people mean nothing by it, I’m used to somebody connecting the dots for them.

Benson Reeve’s sister.

Tonight, nobody needed the dots connected.