Page 121

Mistake.

I said it. I heard myself say it. In front of Pruitt, and Nadia, and Priya, and Moretti.

In front of him.

Nadia lets out a long breath and starts typing. "Okay. Okay, good. We go with no comment on baseless rumors. We don't dignify it. Priya, we'll do a short line for the morning skate, the same one for both of them."

Pruitt's nodding. He looks relieved. "Good. Rémy? Anything to add?"

I finally look at him.

He's sitting still in his chair. His hands are folded in his lap. His face is completely empty. I've never seen his face empty before. Not once, not in eight months. Even asleep, his face is always doing something.

"No," he says. "Nothing to add."

"Good. Then go get ready for morning skate. Both of you. For God's sake, stay out of hallways."

In the corner, Moretti uncrosses his arms. He looks at me. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. I can hear it anyway.

Don't do it twice, son.

I catch up with him in the stairwell.

He took the stairs from the top floor, and I follow him, and I catch him halfway down, on a landing somewhere near the tenth floor. It's concrete, painted white, with a metal railing and a light buzzing overhead.

It looks exactly like the stairwell in Santa Monica.

"Rémy."

He stops. He doesn't turn around.

"I had to," I say. "You know I had to. It's the Final. It's the middle of the Final. They'd have made it about us. Every question, every interview, every game. It wouldn't be about hockey anymore. Your contract. The league. The comments. Do the math, they said. They'd have⁠—"

"You said mistake."

"I said it was a mistake to be in the hallway."

"You said mistake, Owen." He turns around. His eyes are dry. That's the worst part. He isn't crying. "In front of Pruitt. In front of Moretti. You looked them in the eye and said it was a mistake."

"That's not what I meant."

"Rule four," he says.

I don't say anything. I can't.

"If you ever call it a mistake in front of anybody, it's over." He says it flat. Like reading off a card. "I wrote it down. On your building's notepad. You said okay. You said I won't. You said it's not a mistake."

"Rémy, listen to me. We need to stop."

He goes still.

"Just for now," I say. It's coming out fast. I can't slow it down. "Just until the Final's over. We can't—not in hotels, not at my place, not anywhere. We need to focus on hockey. Just hockey. If there's another picture, if Varga's friend has the video, if anything else gets out, it's over, for both of us. For you. You've got your whole career. I've got—" I stop. "I've got three games. Maybe four. That's all I've got left. I can't lose them to this."

"To this," he repeats.

"You know what I mean."

"I know exactly what you mean." He's quiet. He looks at me, and I can't read his face at all. For the first time since I met him, I can't read anything in it.