Page 106
"She wears your jersey to school." He almost smiles. "My jersey's in the back of her closet. Yours is on her."
I laugh. I can't help it. Kowal's mouth moves, almost like he's laughing too.
"When I saw you in the room," he says, "after Nashville, after that piece of garbage said what he said, sitting there in your gear with your head down. I thought, that could be her. In a few years. That could be Maya, sitting there, with a whole room of guys not looking at her." He picks up a piece of toast. "So I tapped your pads."
"I noticed."
"It wasn't much."
"It was a lot," I say. "Coming from you."
He eats the toast. He chews.
"Whatever you and Hale are," he says. "I don't care. I mean it. I don't care about any of it. I've played with that man six years and I've never seen him play like he does this year. I've never seen him laugh like he does this year. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it." He stands up with his plate. "Keep it down, though. The walls, I mean."
He walks away.
I sit there with my oatmeal going cold and my face on fire and I don't know whether to laugh or cry, so I do a little of both, into a napkin, by the window, where nobody can see.
On the bus to the arena, Owen's in the second row with his headphones on. I'm in the back with Sorel. We don't sit together on buses. That's one of the rules we never wrote down.
I text him.
Kowal.
I watch the back of his head. He doesn't move. Then he pulls his phone out of his pocket.
What happened.
He sat with me at breakfast.
And?
He's not going to say anything. To anybody.
A long pause. The three dots come and go twice.
How do you know.
He said so. He said the walls are thin.
Another long pause. In the second row, I watch Owen put his hand over his face.
Oh my god, he types.
He's had the room next to ours 4 or 5 times. Columbus. Toronto. Philly.
Stop.
He said keep it down.
Rémy. STOP.
I'm laughing into my sleeve. Sorel leans over to look at my screen and I shove his face away.
His daughter's gay, I type. She's 14. She has a poster of me.
This time the pause is longer. The dots come and go three times.
