Page 20

We're not on the ice.

"Yes," I say.

He doesn't look away. Neither do I. The bus goes over a bump and the light from a passing truck slides across his face and off again.

"Six," he says, finally.

"Yes."

He turns and looks out his own window. I pull my hood down further over my eyes and pretend to sleep.

I don't. Neither does he. I can tell by his breathing. It doesn't slow down the whole way home.

6

DANE

We get back to Birch Street at two-fifteen in the morning.

At five-twenty-nine, the pucks are on the blue line.

He's there before me. He's sitting on the bench in full gear, the same as yesterday, the same as every day this week, but he hasn't slept. I can see it from the tunnel. His face has gone that gray color guys get on long road trips, and he's sitting too straight, like if he leans back he won't be able to get up.

"Morning," I say.

"Yes."

He goes out to the line. I go to my crease. I scrape my ice, tap my posts, and drop into my stance, and I look at him across a hundred feet of clean white and I think about a hand that wouldn't let go.

I've thought about it all night.

Marrack's glove off. The smile. The way Lindqvist's shoulders went up while it was happening, like a kid bracing for a slap, and then came down slow when it was over. The way he left the ice without stopping, straight down the tunnel, which you don't do. You don't leave your team on the ice in the handshake line. You wait. Everybody knows that.

I've seen guys leave a handshake line mad. I've seen guys leave it crying, after a season ends. I've never seen a guy leave it like that, like he was getting away from something.

And then on the bus. You played scared. I said it to get a rise out of him. I wanted the mouth. I wanted goalies don't get opinions. I wanted him to fight.

He said yes.

"Whenever you're ready," he says from the blue line, and his voice cracks on ready.

That's not yes.

I let him come.

The first one goes in.

He comes in hard and fast and pulls it to his backhand at the last second and roofs it over my blocker shoulder, top shelf, the water bottle on top of the net jumping. It's the kind of goal you'd see on a highlight reel. It's the kind of goal I haven't let in on a breakaway in a year.

He doesn't celebrate. He skates back to the line.

The second one doesn't. I read the shoulder drop and get my pad down and he puts it right into me.

The third one goes in. He beats me five-hole with a shot so hard it buries in the back of the net and stays there.

Two.

He's skating different this morning. There's no show to it, no chirping, no lazy loop past my crease. He's just coming at me with everything he's got, his face behind his visor gone hard and flat. He looks like he wants to put the puck through me and out the other side, through the boards, through the building.