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It's slow, and it's sure, and it tastes like salt. I put my hands on his chest, both of them, flat, right over his heart. Same place. It's always the same place.

The building goes completely, perfectly silent.

Then it explodes.

I've heard a lot of loud things in my life. Opening night. The ping. The goal horn in Denver. The roar when the red light came on two minutes ago.

This is louder than all of them.

When I open my eyes, the whole team's standing around us in a circle. Webb's crying so hard he has to lean on his stick. Sorel's got both hands over his mouth. Kowal's staring at us with no expression at all, and then he raises his stick over his head and bangs it on the ice. Twice.

Then everybody does it. The whole team. Sticks on the ice, loud and together, in a circle around us, with the confetti coming down.

Owen's forehead is against mine. He's breathing hard.

"Rémy," he says.

"That's one."

"Rule one. My list. I stand next to you." He's laughing and crying at the same time. "That's what this is. I'm standing next to you. Everybody can see."

"You're barely standing," I say. "You're standing on one leg. Gus is holding you up."

"Gus is holding me up," Owen agrees, and behind him, Gus, who has in fact grabbed him by the back of the suit jacket, says, "I got him, kid. I got him."

I laugh. I can't stop. I put my face in his neck, in the collar of his good suit, and I laugh until I can't breathe, and he holds on to me with his one free hand like I'm going to roll off the edge of the world.

They bring out the Cup on a table with a white cloth, the same way they brought out the conference trophy. A man in white gloves carries it. It's huge and silver and it's catching every light in the building.

The commissioner calls for the captain.

Brandt skates forward. He's got the C on. The commissioner holds out the Cup to him, and the photographers crowd in, and everybody's waiting for him to lift it. That's how it works. The captain lifts it first.

Brandt looks at the Cup. He looks at the commissioner.

Then he turns around and skates back to us, to where Owen's standing on one leg and one crutch with Gus holding his jacket and me holding his arm.

"Cap," Brandt says. "Your turn."

"Brandt, it's yours. You wore the⁠—"

"I wore it for four games," Brandt says. "You wore it for six years. You got us here on one leg. You lift it." He almost smiles. The parking-garage smile. It looks different now. It looks real. "Just don't touch the conference trophy on the way. I heard it's bad luck."

Owen looks at me.

"I can't lift it," he says. "Not on one leg. It weighs thirty-five pounds."

"I know," I say.

I go get it.

The commissioner gives it to me. I carry it back across the ice, both arms around it. It's so heavy. It's so much heavier than it looks. I get to Owen, and I lift it up, and he puts one hand on it, next to mine.

We hold it up together.

The crowd's so loud I can't hear anything else. The confetti's still coming down. The flashbulbs are going off so fast it's like standing inside lightning.

Up in section 112, my mother's standing on her seat, which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed. Next to her, my father has his toque in his hand and he's waving it over his head, around and around.