Chapter 3
Abbott
Nico Varis had a tell when he was watching game film.
He leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, and mouthed along with the Finnish commentary he was hearing in his head, the private running play-by-play that he'd never entirely been able to suppress. He didn't know he did it. I'd never told him.
We were in the film room, just the two of us, breaking down a power play sequence from last season's playoff run.
Nico had asked for the session. He was trying to improve his positioning on the right half-wall, which was a specific enough request that I respected it immediately.
Most players asked for vague things, Make me better.
Show me what I'm doing wrong. Nico walked in and said, "My release point is three inches too high on half-wall entries against an umbrella PK. Show me where I'm bleeding time."
The film room was dark with theatre-seating, the big screen throwing blue light across our faces. It smelled like the air conditioning system and faint coffee residue from whoever had last used the space.
I ran the sequence at half speed and pointed.
"There. You're loading before the pass arrives. Your stick is set when the puck is still in transit, which gives the penalty killer a read on your lane."
"I see it."
"Load late. Catch and release in one motion. Your hands are fast enough — you don't need the head start."
He nodded, eyes on the screen. I ran it again. And again. The fourth time, he said, "Hayes does this. Loads late, releases fast. His shot chart from that series was insane."
"Hayes has different hands than you," I said. "But the principle is the same. Watch his hips here."
I cued up Hayes's footage because it was relevant.
Nico had asked. I happened to have it bookmarked in the system, along with approximately forty other Hayes clips that I used for various film study purposes.
It was entirely professional—not at all the digital equivalent of the mental catalogue I carried around.
"There," I said, pointing. "Watch his hips. He doesn't load until the puck is on his tape. The release looks fast because the preparation is invisible."
Nico watched it three times. "His hands are unreal."
"His timing is unreal. The hands are good. The timing is what makes them look supernatural."
I knew this because I had spent a disproportionate amount of my professional life studying the way Jamie Hayes played hockey—from the net, from the bench, from this room. The difference between a good player and a player like Hayes was the gap between intention and execution.
Most players thought about what they were going to do and then did it. Hayes skipped the thinking part. His body understood things his brain hadn't consciously processed yet.
I did the same thing in net. The difference was that nobody ever looked at a backup goalie the way they looked at the man who fed the captain.
Nico watched the clip one more time and nodded before he left.
I sat in the dark for another minute, staring at a freeze-frame of Jamie Hayes mid-release, his weight shifting through his hips the exact millisecond before the shot.
His face focused with the intensity he brought to competitive play.
This wasn't the version of him warming a room but attacking one.
I closed the file and turned on the lights. I stood there for a moment in the sudden brightness, blinking. My phone buzzed.
It was Marty again.
"Sacramento just became Denver," he said, without preamble. "Different team. Better team. They want a starter for next season and they're willing to talk now."
"Denver."
"Denver. Last year's Western Conference finalists. Their number one tore his ACL in training camp and they need someone who can step in. Your game film from the playoff run last year has them very interested. This isn't a rebuild, Clay. This is a contender."
I stared at the blank screen. Denver was a contender—not a rebuilding project where I'd be the best goalie on a bad team, but a legitimate organization with playoff infrastructure and a window that was open right now.
"What's the timeline?"
"Trade deadline. They want this sorted before February. If the Storm don't match or counter, they'll push for a deal. We're talking about starter money, Clay. Two years, maybe three, with a number that respects what you're worth."
What I was worth. I knew what I was worth as a backup. I'd been calculating it for years. The backup number was about being reliable and replaceable, defined by the gap between you and the starter. Denver was offering to calculate my worth differently.
"I need time," I said.
"You have time. Not infinite time, but time. Think about it."
I hung up and sat back down in the film room chair. The screen was dark. The room was quiet.
Denver.
My cousin Marcus had come out at thirty after a decade of the same calculation I'd been running, the one where you weighed the cost of honesty against the convenience of silence.
Silence kept winning. He'd spent years thinking he had to be alone.
I'd watched him go through it. I'd watched the toll it took, the way he got smaller when he was constantly editing himself.
I'd made my own calculation. The math wasn't identical, but the principle was the same. Some doors were easier to leave closed.
I'd had relationships with women—good ones, some of them.
Kara, in college, was smart and direct. Leah after that, who lasted two years and noticed before I did that I wasn't all the way in.
"You're somewhere else," she'd said one night.
It wasn't angry, just observant. "I don't know where, but you're not here. "
I hadn't known where either. Not then.
I knew now. I'd known for a while.
Jamie Hayes.
There it was. The thing I'd been sitting on for years, waiting for a moment that might never come.
I had catalogued every piece of data, the laugh, the car rides, the mug, the way his shoulder felt against mine, the exact cadence of his voice when it softened into his private self.
I had all of this information and I had done nothing with it—because I had never had enough evidence that the door opened from both sides.
Denver was asking me to decide whether it mattered.
I stood up and walked out of the film room. Morrison passed me going the other direction and gave me a nod. I nodded back.
Our team dinner—Korean barbecue—was at eight.
Hayes had organized it. Hayes organized everything.
The group chat had gone out four days ago with the restaurant, the time, and a note that said Volkov: yes, they have the spicy pork you like.
Bishop: yes, there's parking. Mikkola: this is mandatory (not really, but also yes really).
The man could run a logistics operation for a small country.
The restaurant was loud and warm, dense with smoke from the table grills. Hayes had reserved the back room and was already there when I arrived, seating everyone. He'd put me next to him.
He always did.
We had twelve people around a table with the grill sizzling.
Volkov was arguing with Bishop about the optimal meat-to-rice ratio.
Eriksson was saying something to Theo that made Theo's whole face light up.
Kieran was at the far end of the table, eating and watching the room.
Nico was beside him, and at some point Nico said something low that made Kieran's mouth curve into a gentle smile.
They'd been living together for almost a year.
The room was buzzing with the team's energy.
Mikkola was at the end of the table, still a little uncertain—but less rigid than he had been.
Hayes had seated him between Nico and Eriksson.
Strategic. The Finnish connection on one side and Eriksson's steady warmth on the other.
The kid didn't know he'd been placed. He just knew he was comfortable.
Jamie worked the table, paying attention and turning conversations toward people who hadn't spoken yet. He made sure Mikkola had someone to talk to, and then ordered extra banchan because he'd noticed Nico eyeing the kimchi but not reaching for the last piece.
He leaned toward me at one point, his shoulder pressing against mine. "You're quiet tonight."
"I'm always quiet."
"You're quiet-er tonight. Different quiet." He studied me with those eyes that saw so much of me. "Everything good?"
A direct question—from Hayes, who was the best in the league at asking indirect questions that got you to reveal things you weren't ready to share. The direct version meant he'd already noticed something and was giving me the chance to talk about it.
"Everything's good. Long film session."
"With Nico? He said you were helping him with his release point."
"He's got good instincts. Just needs to trust his hands more."
"You're good at it." He said it simply, the way he said things that were true—not flattery, more observation. "The film work. Guys come out of sessions with you and they're better. You know that, right?"
I looked at him. The grill light caught his face from below, warm and uneven. His expression was genuine—the easy smile he gave everyone. Just Jamie, looking at me, seeing me the way he saw everyone, which was more than most people bothered to see anyone.
"I know that."
"Good." He turned back to the table and yelled at Volkov to stop hoarding the pork belly. Then he refilled my water glass from the pitcher, not making a production of it, just doing it—the way he did things for people automatically, without asking whether you needed it. He already knew.
But it was impossible to tell the difference between he does this for everyone and he does this for you.
Because he did it for everyone. There was no evidence, none, that the mug on his shelf or the seat beside him at dinner or the way his shoulder pressed against mine was anything other than Jamie being Jamie.
I sat there amid the noisy team with the knowledge that Denver was offering me what I'd wanted for ten years, and that the man sitting next to me, close enough that I could feel his body heat, was the reason the math had stopped being simple.
And I said nothing.
And when Hayes stole a piece of meat from my plate without asking, I let him, because there wasn't a single thing Jamie Hayes could take from me that I wouldn't gladly give.