Page 3

"It's this season."

"Is that a yes?"

"It's a season."

I step off the tape.

The room is loud when I get back. Somebody has the pregame playlist going, the one Brandt picks, which is the same fifteen songs from 2011 in the same order. Webb is sitting in the stall next to mine with his phone in one hand and a roll of tape in the other, not doing anything with either.

"You're famous," he says.

"I've been famous."

"Not like this. You're on a gossip site my wife reads. There's a photo of your boat." He turns the screen toward me. "Is that your boat?"

"That's a boat."

"It says it's your boat."

"Webb."

"Nice boat." He puts the phone down. His voice drops, because Marcus Webb has been my partner on the penalty kill for six years, and underneath all the noise he's the only one in this room who ever asks me anything real. "You good?"

"I'm good."

"You got the shot?"

"Getting it."

"Then you're not good yet." He tears a strip of tape with his teeth. "After, then."

The door at the far end bangs open.

Rémy Castel comes in the way weather comes in. He has one earbud in and he's singing along to something in French, loud and off-key, a coffee in one hand and his gear bag slung across his chest. The ends of his hair are bleached almost white. His laces are pink. He's six-one and all legs, and he walks like the floor is lucky to have him.

"Bonsoir, bonsoir," he says to the room. "Opening night, boys. Who's nervous?"

"Turn it off, rookie," Brandt says from across the room, not looking up.

"It's one earbud."

"Turn off the one earbud."

Rémy takes it out, holds it up so Brandt can see, and puts it in his pocket with a little bow. A couple of the younger guys laugh. Brandt doesn't. Kowal, who's been in the league twelve years and has the personality of a parking garage, just watches him cross the room with no expression at all.

I know that look. I've been in rooms that went cold like this, a long time ago, when somebody didn't fit. I remember the guy it happened to. I remember not saying anything.

Rémy drops his bag in the stall on my other side. Of course that's where they put him.

"Captain," he says.

"Castel."

"Question."

"What."

"Is it true you eat the exact same pregame meal every time? Chicken, white rice, one banana, nothing else, since you were a junior?"