Page 19 of Line Change

“Still pretty,” he says when I look at him. He presses a towel to his lower lip and grins around it.

The cut isn’t deep enough to need stitches, which is all I was checking. “Do you need a trainer?”

“You offering, Saint Pope?” He spits red into the towel, and I look back at the ice.

Nobody scores in overtime. The shootout goes four rounds. Caleb gets one. Arizona answers. Fraser rings his attempt off the post and comes back swearing at the puck like it made the decision personally.

Bobby goes last. He comes in wide, changes pace twice, and pulls the puck across the crease after the goalie commits. It slides inside the post.

We win.

Everyone pours over the boards. Bobby disappears under gloves and helmets near the net, yelling loud enough for me to hear him through the crowd. Fraser hits my side on the way past and hooks an arm around my shoulders, dragging me with him.

“Try looking happy,” he says against my helmet.

His arm is still tight around my shoulders when I say, “We shouldn’t have needed a shootout.”

“There he is.” His hand squeezes the back of my neck once before he lets go. The contact lasts less than a second. I feel it all the way down.

The interview after is exactly what I expect. We stayed patient. Bobby made a great move. Two points matter. We have to be ready for the next one.

The reporter asks if the team is finally responding to the leadership I brought from Miami. I tell him Caleb leads this team and everybody in the room has been working. He asks whether tonight proves Seattle’s season has turned around. I tell him it proves we won tonight.

Then I see Fraser heading down the hall toward the locker room.

His helmet is in one hand. Sweat has soaked the collar of his base layer and darkened the material between his shoulder blades. The tattoo on his neck vanishes under the shirt, then appears again when he rolls one shoulder. I know where the line goes now. My dreams have invented the rest of it so often that some part of me expects the ink to keep running under his clothes exactly as I’ve seen it.

I wonder whether it does.

I look back at the reporter. “Anything else?”

By the time we reach the hotel, the win has made everybody loud. Bobby is reenacting his shootout move in the lobby without a stick or puck. Caleb tells him to stop before he takes out a lamp. Half the team heads toward the bar. The other half crowds into the elevators with plans to change first.

I wait for the next one. Fraser waits too.

The doors open. We step inside, and the rest of the team disappears behind us in a crush of voices and bad decisions. Fraser presses his floor. I press mine. They’re the same.

“You know we’re allowed to celebrate wins,” he says. He’s taken off his tie and opened the top two buttons of his shirt. The edge of the tattoo curls out beside the hollow of his throat.

“I celebrated. On the ice.” I keep my attention on the changing floor numbers.

“I was there. You looked like Bobby had scored against us.”

“I congratulated him.” I also let fourteen men hit me against the boards, but Fraser would probably decide that lacked enthusiasm too.

“Did you file the paperwork?” His gaze slides over me, looking for something else to use.

I glance at him. He’s leaning against the mirrored wall with his jacket hanging from two fingers. His hair is still damp from the shower. The shirt fits closely across his chest and pulls a little at his upper arms.

“You seem invested in how I celebrate,” I say. He’s been needling me since his shoulder hit mine in the lobby. He could’ve taken the crowded elevator with Bobby. He waited for this one instead.

His mouth lifts. “Maybe I’m trying to figure out what gets Saint Pope excited.”

The elevator starts up. I face the doors. “Winning.”

“We did that. Didn’t seem to work.”

“It worked fine.” The number for the fourth floor lights, then the fifth. Fraser keeps watching me instead of the doors.