Page 118 of Puck You Both

Wall finally looks up, considers him for what feels like three business days, then shakes his head. "That's annoyingly good."

Patrick lets go and Wall spins immediately, taking the exit.

The bottle lands on Patrick.

He answers before it even stops moving. "I don't floss every day."

We boo him in stereo.

"We've seen your bathroom, Patrick," I say. "You own a water flosser with a named setting."

"Try again," Wall says.

"Fine. Sometimes I let Theo win at darts."

"LET me?" I'm off the floor before the sentence ends. "February third, six-two. February tenth, four-one. Last Tuesday I took you down from eighty-seven while Wall watched! How do you even have the chutzpah—"

Patrick takes a slow drink. I stop. He looks perfectly innocent over the rim, which is exactly how I know nothing about this was innocent.

"Okay. No. I see what you did. That's not a secret, that's a provocation, and I refuse to be—" February tenth is still shouting inside my skull. "Okay, I'm a little derailed—"

"Real one," Wall says.

I sit back down. The darts matter isn't over, but it’ll have to wait.

Patrick looks at the bottle, and I watch his entire face change in real time. The composure is still there, technically, but he's running it by hand now.

"A real one." He breathes in. "Everything I've won feels like nothing happened." He lets it sit there for a moment. "A forward makes something. A goal exists. People jump, the stands make a sound, there's a thing that happened and it's his. My best nights are nights where nothing happens. You're perfect, and the scoreboard says zero, and it's just... flat."

I wanted one vulnerable fact from him tonight. A manageable bruise, something I could kiss away until it stopped hurting. He's handing us something different.

"I never wanted to be a goalie."

A double "What?" rings out from Wall and myself simultaneously.

"I wanted to be a forward. I was one. Until I was thirteen. Spring tryouts. They posted the lines and my name wasn't on them. Coach pointed at the net and said I was big and I didn't panic." His mouth starts toward a smile and quits halfway there. "That was the whole scouting report: big, doesn't panic."

Beside me, Wall has gone very still.

"My dad drove me home that day and I told him I got a new position. I never told him I didn't choose it. He still doesn't know. So I got good at it, because what other choice did I have? Best version of a thing I never picked. And it's fine."

The fine comes out thin, fails him where we can all hear it, and he closes his eyes at the sound.

"But it's flat. It's been flat for seventeen years. I'm thirty, I'm in a contract year, and some nights I do the math to see what it adds up to if it ends next season." He looks down at his clasped hands. "A steaming pile of nothing-happeneds."

My hand finds his ankle this time.

Every answer crowding my mouth feels too easy. I could list the saves people still talk about, and the games he stole outright, and the shooters in our division who rebuild their whole approach when his name shows up in the lineup. But I don’t think that’s what he’s asking for right now.

Then Patrick lifts his eyes to Wall. "Only one thing has never felt flat."

Wall stops breathing.

"Nobody watches goalies, they watch goals," Patrick says. "Ask anyone in any bar the score of any game, and they'll tell you who scored. They will never tell you who stopped the other twelve." He's talking straight at Wall now. "The only person who ever kept count of me was you. You knew my numbers to the third decimal, and tracked my starts, and spat my name wrong and it was its own thing. Being hated by you was the most attention my career has ever gotten. Including from myself."

Wall's jaw locks.

Patrick takes a swig from his beer bottle, then sets it down with care, the last thing left for him to arrange.