Page 45 of Puck You Both

I close the laptop lid. My reflection disappears. The fact stays.

Later, cleaned up and horizontal on the couch in the dark, I open my phone.

The call link came in at seven fifty, in a new thread containing both Milwaukee numbers, and at the time I filed that under efficiency. It's becoming clear that I file things wherever they'll affect me the least.

At the bottom of the thread, the empty message field waits.

I tap it. The keyboard pops up, and the cursor blinks.

I let it blink.

For now.

Chapter 9

THEO

THE CALL-UP TAKES my spot in the fourth-line rush at nine-twelve in the morning, and by nine-fourteen I have introduced him to the boards.

Gently.

Well. Gently by my standards.

His shoulder hits first, then the rest of him, puck squirting loose beneath his skates. I hook it away, turn up-ice, and hear Coach Berg’s whistle before I make it across the blue line. “Moreau.”

I coast into the circle. The call-up peels himself off the glass behind me, looking surprised but structurally intact. “Yes, Coach?”

Berg tries to drill a hole in my soul with his eyes. “Morning skate.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then why are you checking like he stole your identity?”

I look over at the kid. He’s six-two, twenty-one, and fresh from scoring nine points in six games down in the AHL. He also has my right winger and my center on either side of him for the next rush.

“Did you?” I ask.

The kid shakes his head fast.

“All cleared up, coach.”

Somebody chokes behind a glove. Berg closes his eyes for one long second, then points me toward the other line. “Again. Less murder.”

“No promises.”

“That sentence is why you lead the team in fines.”

Technically, I lead the team in fines for the things I say while hitting people, which is its own category of excellence. I lead the Vipers in hits too, by fourteen, and those are legal. Mostly. Being five-ten in a league where defensemen are assembled in aircraft hangars means I don’t get to approach contact with uncertainty. I go in low and fully committed, and bigger men hit the ice trying to work out which law of physics filed a grievance.

On the next rush, the call-up gets half a stride on me. I catch him before the red line, lift his stick, steal the puck, and feed it to Lindqvist without breaking pace.

Our captain accepts the pass with Swedish calm. “Very restrained,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“I was speaking to him.”

The call-up laughs. Traitor.