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"He's not my kid."

"He's in the stall next to yours."

"That was your call."

"That was my call." He folds his arms. "Management loves him. The merch people want to marry him. The old guys in that room want to put him through a wall, and so does every team we play. I need him on the ice and I need him out of the papers."

"So tell him."

"I'm telling you." He looks at me a long moment. "We've got enough of you in the papers."

He walks away before I can say anything back, which is how Moretti wins every conversation.

My phone buzzes one more time while I'm taping my stick. I almost don't look. It's Laurel.

Saw the Tribune. That wasn't me. I swear it wasn't. I'm sorry. Good luck tonight.

I read it twice. Twelve years of her texts before games, and it still reads like her, the rhythm of it. I type I know it wasn't, delete it, type Thanks for saying so, delete that too.

Thanks, I send.

I put the phone face-down and finish the tape.

The building is sold out. The anthem singer holds the last note long enough that the crowd starts cheering over her. I stand on the blue line with my helmet under my arm and my knee cold and numb, and I think what I always think during the anthem, which is nothing. Seventeen seasons and I've never once had a thought during the anthem.

Across the ice, Varga is staring at our line. Not at me. At the kid.

Rémy notices. He blows him a kiss.

"Jesus Christ," Webb says under his breath.

The puck drops. My line takes the opening shift, and we grind it into their corner for forty seconds, and nothing happens, which is exactly what's supposed to happen on an opening shift. I come off and drop onto the bench, breathing hard, and Moretti taps Rémy's shoulder.

He goes over the boards like the ice owes him money.

It takes eight seconds. Our defenseman chips the puck up the wall, and Rémy picks it off his skate without looking down. He should dump it. Any rookie with any sense dumps it in. Instead he cuts inside, straight at Varga, and Varga lunges, and Rémy is just not there anymore. He's gone around him so clean that Varga's stick hits nothing but air. He cuts across the top of the circle and snaps it high, glove side.

It hits the crossbar and rings out over the glass.

No goal. The whole building groans.

Rémy throws both arms in the air anyway.

He's celebrating. He missed and he's celebrating, spinning in a circle at the hash marks, pointing up at the bar like it did something beautiful, and nineteen thousand people who were groaning a second ago are on their feet, screaming for a shot that didn't go in.

"Did he just celebrate a miss?" Webb says.

"Yeah."

"Is that allowed?"

"I don't know."

Rémy's line comes off. He climbs over the boards and drops onto the bench right beside me, soaked and flushed and laughing. He smacks my glove with his.

"Did you see that?"

"You missed."