Page 77 of Omega’s Forward

“Yeah.”

He starts counting on his fingers, gives up, and sits down on the bench like his knees quit. “I need a minute.”

“This is why you smile at your phone!” Linus shouts out like a man winning a bet, and judging by the way Ozzy’s head whips around, he is.

JP says nothing. He’s known for a year. He sits in his stall re-lacing a glove that doesn’t need it, grinning at the leather.

“Third thing.” I wait for it to settle. “The hearing last year. I stood in this room and told some of you that ownership called the league and pushed for more games. That came from Cade Dorn, and it was a lie. The truth is the opposite. Eight was on the table, and Rourke called to argue it down. I got four. I spread the wrong story in here, so I’m putting the right one in here. If you’ve been carrying a grudge for me, you can set it down.”

It goes quiet in a different way. Ozzy looks at Marchetti. Marchetti looks at the floor. More than a few of them are replaying a certain afternoon in this same room, when a cold little omega in a gray suit told us he’d sell, and we all decided what he was inside of five minutes. I know, because I’m replaying it too.

Sacco pushes off the doorframe. “Anything else? Triplets? Trade request?”

“That’s everything, Coach.”

“Good.” He looks at me a beat longer than he needs to, and then past me at the wall. “Gordie’s grandkid,” he says, mostly to himself. He clears his throat like the words went down wrong. “Video in ten. Bring your legs tonight.”

He’s gone before anybody can look at him.

“Wait.” Ozzy’s still got the one sock in his hand. “Does this mean the owner’s coming to the summer barbecue? Do we bow?”

“You don’t bow,” JP says, finally, standing up. “You make sure there’s something on that grill that isn’t burnt. He’s carrying the future of this franchise.”

The room lets go all at once — noise, tape balls, somebody starting a pool on the due date before I’m out the door. My kid isn’t born yet and already has a betting line.

I don’t stop smiling all through video, which everyone agrees is deeply weird of me.

That night the club’s comms director calls me at home, very polite, very tired, to ask how I’d like to handle the announcement, and I tell her the truth: he lands in three weeks, he’ll be at games, we’re not hiding and we’re not doing a sit-down interview on a couch. She’s quiet for a second and then says that’s the easiest celebrity call she’s had all year.

*

Everett lands on a Tuesday and I still can’t believe it when he does. I was planning on going over there again as soon as I could, but apparently Everett can be as spontaneous as I have been because one morning I wake to a message that simply has a flight number and arrival time.

I’m at arrivals an hour early with a cap pulled low, which fools nobody. Two kids in Barons sweaters clock me inside ten minutes and ask if it’s all true. Everything’s true, I tell them, and sign their shirts. Their mother takes a photo of the three of us that is definitely already online.

Then the doors slide open and there he is. Coat open, because the coat doesn’t close anymore.

Whatever I had ready to say is gone by the time he reaches me.

He lets me take exactly one bag. “The rest is shipped. Don’t fuss.” Then, quieter, into my jacket, where nobody in international arrivals can hear it: “Hello, you.”

The house changes fast after that. His suits go up next to my flannel and every morning the closet looks funnier to me. The guest room stops being the guest room: crib against the long wall, a chair by the window that took him two weeks and a spreadsheet to choose. The moose painting stays in the garage. I’ve got plans for the moose painting. I’m waiting for my moment.

I come home from the Christmas road trip and every soft blanket I own has migrated into our bed, along with three of my hoodies. He watches me notice it and lifts one eyebrow, pre-loading for a fight.

I know better than that. I sleep that night with his back against my chest, inside the walls, and nobody mentions the walls.

The relinquishment gets signed and witnessed properly his first week back. He reads it through twice at the kitchen counter, folds it into its envelope, and puts it away in his side of the closet. Neither of us brings it up again.

The December homestand he watches from the couch, feet up, doctor’s orders about crowds and stairs, texting Priya his notes like the league’s least qualified scout. We win five straight. I bring him the game puck from the fifth one because I am apparently seventeen years old about him and always will be, and he rolls his eyes and puts it on the mantel, front and center, where it still is.

*

The night it happens is a Saturday in January. Home ice, first place on the line, the whole city chewing its nails.

It’s also the first time he’s watched from the box since the news broke. The cameras have been hunting him all season, and during warmups they finally get him: up on the board, forty feet tall, coat open, unmistakable.

I’m supposed to be doing edge work. I stand at center ice looking up like a tourist until JP skates by and whacks my shin pads.