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Jace looks at me. Then he looks at the house across the street, at the snow on the roof, at anything but me.

"D," he says. "I'm going to ask you something, and I don't care what the answer is. Okay? I really don't. I just want to know what to say if somebody asks me."

My stomach goes cold.

"Is something going on with you two?"

I could say no. I've said fine and nothing to people for a year. It's the easiest thing in the world.

"It's not your business," I say.

Jace nods slowly. Like that's an answer. It probably is.

"Okay," he says. "Then if somebody asks, that's what I'll tell them. It's not their business." He pushes off my car. "For what it's worth, he's good for the room. He's good for you. You've been less of a robot since Christmas. Even Kasper noticed, and Kasper doesn't notice anything that isn't on a screen."

"Jace."

"I'm going. I'm going." He holds his hands up. "Captain's job. Had to ask."

He walks off across the lot. Halfway to his truck, he turns around and walks backward a few steps.

"And for the record," he calls, "I always thought the card table was a little much!"

I keep a notebook.

I've kept one since I was fourteen. Every shot I face in practice, every shot in games, every morning session since September. Where it came from. Where it went. What the shooter's shoulders did. Nobody else has ever seen it. Nico knows it exists. He calls it the Book of Grudges.

Tuesday night, I'm sitting on my bed with it open on my knees, entering the morning's session. I write 1: low blocker, in. 2: five-hole, in. 3: glove high, save. 4: off post, in. 5:—

I stop.

5: wide right, approx. one foot. Open short side.

I look at it.

Then I flip back a page.

Thursday, before Hollis. 5: wide right, approx. one foot. Open short side.

Back another page. Last Tuesday. 5: wide, glove side. Open.

Back. Back again.

I go through two months of mornings with my finger on the page. Every session since the night at center ice. Since Nico.

Four separate mornings, he's put the first four past me. And four times, the fifth one has gone wide.

Not saved. Wide.

Theo Lindqvist doesn't shoot wide. I've been writing down his shots since September. In five months, not counting the morning he fired all five into the corners to make a point, he's missed the net on a breakaway six times. Four of them are on these pages. Four of them are the fifth puck, on the four mornings he could have won.

I sit there with the notebook open on my knees.

Through the wall, I can hear him. He's on the phone with Nico. They talk every night now. He doesn't hide it anymore. I can hear him laughing—not the room laugh, the real one, soft—and then his voice going up at the end, asking something.

He's missing on purpose.

He could have been done with me four times. He could have skated to center ice and thrown his stick in the air and said five, Josip, say it. No more orders. No more mornings. He's been waiting for that since the first day. Then you leave me alone. All of you.