Page 91 of Offside

“Kovac had his own man.” I tapped my stick on the ice. “Run it again.”

Cole groaned with his entire body. Full theatrical commitment, the full performance of someone wronged by a cruel universe, and two of the younger defensemen completely lost it. Eli said nothing, which was Eli’s version of laughing.

“Are we running it or are we grieving?” I asked.

We ran it. It clicked. “I’ve been saying for years that I am extremely coachable. Nobody ever listens.”

“Nobody listens because you spent four minutes arguing,” Theo said from the far side of the ice, not looking up from his own footwork.

Cole pointed at him. “I was processing.”

“In French we have a word for that.”

“What word?”

Theo’s expression was serene. “Whining.”

The laughter that rolled through the group was loose and genuine. Not polite, not performed, the real sound of men who’d been in close enough quarters long enough to find each other funny. I let it run for a beat before pulling them back into position. I’d been on teams with more talent than this one. I hadn’t been on many teams with this quality. Men who’d started to trust each other, and I was aware enough not to take it for granted.

After the power play drills, I skated past Theo. “You’ve been the best guy on the ice all week.”

Theo glanced at me sharply. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not. I’m telling you because it’s true and because Calloway is going to move you back to the power play unit if you keep it up. You should know that’s coming so it doesn’t blindside you.” I kept moving. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

I didn’t wait for a response. I could feel Theo deciding what to do with that behind me, filing it, and that was enough.

During the water break, I drifted to the boards where Eli was standing apart from the group, big and self-contained, not unfriendly. Not unfriendly, just a man who didn’t feel the need to fill silence with noise.

“How’s Iris?” I asked.

“Good.” Eli drank. Wiped his face. “She keeps asking about coming to a game.”

“So bring her.”

Eli looked at me sideways.

“She’s old enough to remember it,” I said. “Get her a jersey with your number on it, sit her in the family section, let her watch her dad work.” I took a pull from my own bottle. “She should know what this looks like. You on that ice, in front of seventeen thousand people. That’s her dad. That matters.”

Eli was quiet for a moment. The warmth in him was always there. Kept on a tight leash, visible only if you knew where to look—and I knew. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Maybe.”

It wasn’t a no. With Eli, that was a yes.

The locker room after practice had the loose, easy energy I liked best. Hard work finished, nobody needing to perform anymore. Cole was doing something elaborate with his stick tape that had two of the younger defensemen in genuine hysterics. Theo was already in the shower. Griffin was staring at his phone with a focus that had absolutely nothing to do with game film, and I clocked it and kept walking without comment.

I sat at my stall and took my time with my skates.

The team left for Calgary in the morning—last trip out before the holiday break. Nine days, seven games. Two nights in Calgary, Edmonton, two nights in Vancouver, down to Seattle, San Jose. The western swing was always brutal, the travel relentless, and this one fell at a moment when the Sidewinders had real momentum we couldn’t afford to bleed out in cramped charter seats and four a.m. wake-up calls.

I was ready for it. The road had always suited me. Everything compressed down to the rink and hotel and the next game, nothing else requiring my attention.

This was the first time I’d sat in a locker room before a road trip and been aware of what I was leaving.

I took my phone out and made the arrangements I’d been turning over since I woke up that morning. The intention was already decided. I’d know what to do next when the time came.

I pocketed my phone and went to shower.

She was in the corridor outside the training room when I came out, clipboard against her hip, talking to Dom about somebody's hamstring in her professional voice. The one she used in this building.