11. Cole #3
"The statistics are impressive," Marco says. "But what I saw tonight goes past statistics. The way he looks for you before he looks for the puck. You're good for him, Cole."
My grip adjusts at my side.
"He's good for me," I say.
"I know." Marco's mouth shifts. "He's a lot."
"Everyone worth knowing is a lot."
Marco studies me, his smile still in place while his eyes move over my face. "You've grown up well, Maddox," he says. "When you're in New York after graduation, call me. I'll take you both to dinner."
"Both?"
"You and Dante." His gaze slides across the lobby. "Bring Maya too. I've known her for years, but I'd like to get to know the journalist behind those pieces."
"What do you mean?"
"Like she sees what the scouts miss." Marco's smile returns. "He sends me everything she publishes."
He reaches into his jacket, produces a card, and slides it into my hand. Heavy stock presses against my palm, embossed with Marco Voss and a New York number.
"New number," he says. "Private line. The dinner offer is real. Anytime."
He claps my shoulder, the same gesture he used with Dante on the carpet, brief and physical.
"One more thing," he says, already turning.
"Yeah?"
"Dante's been carrying a lot alone for a long time. He shouldn't have to."
His eyes hold mine for one beat longer than the sentence requires.
"Make sure he doesn't."
He walks back toward Dante and the scout. I slip the card into my pocket.
Maya appears from the concession stand carrying two drinks, ice rattling softly in the cups.
She chooses the direct path past the tunnel and past Dante, the route that puts his body in her way. Across the tile, her boots click softly. Her shoulder passes close enough to almost brush his sleeve.
Her pace changes, slower and more measured, and her chin lifts. It is the same lift I saw on the carpet. The flush that climbed her neck in the dining hall is back, visible above the collar of her coat.
Dante's hand pauses mid-handshake with the scout. Half a second. His gaze tracks her across the lobby, and his jaw works once before he smooths it out. Then he finishes the handshake cleanly and keeps talking.
Maya keeps walking. She reaches Zoe near the windows and hands her one of the drinks, keeping the other. Zoe says something. Maya laughs. The sound carries across the lobby, and Dante's head turns a fraction.
Half an inch. Toward the laugh. Then back to the scout.
A beat reporter from the Globe approaches Maya near the windows. Young. Tie loosened. He angles toward her with the posture of a man starting a conversation he's been rehearsing. His hand extends. She takes it with her free hand, the badge on her lanyard catching the light.
Across the lobby, Dante excuses himself from the scout mid-sentence. The scout waits, tracking him for half a second. I watch Dante cross the floor. His path aims at the space beside her. He stops three feet away, facing the windows, coffee in his hand.
His attention stays on the windows, on the blank space in front of him.
The reporter's sentence dies mid-word. His gaze cuts from Maya to Dante, to the number on the back of Dante's warm-up jacket and the name above it.
Dante's feet are planted shoulder-width apart, his body angled just enough to block the reporter's line to her.
The reporter's hand drops. He takes a half-step back and recalculates the geometry of who she is standing next to.
"Good game tonight," the reporter says to Dante.
The conversation he had been building for Maya reroutes entirely.
"Thank you," Dante says.
The reporter moves on. Maya's eyes stay on the windows.
"I was handling that," she says without turning.
"Handling what?"
"Whatever you just did by standing there."
"I'm standing here because I want coffee."
"You already have coffee."
Dante looks at his cup. It is full. She's right.
"I wanted to be closer to the coffee," he says. "In case I need more."
She turns. Her eyes narrow. The flush stays high on her throat. She walks away. Dante watches her cross the lobby. The reporter is talking to someone else now, his body angled away from them.
Dante sips his coffee. His face is blank, but his jaw works once through the stillness, the same micro-tell he shows on the bench after a bad shift. He returns to the scout seamlessly, the conversation resuming as though it never broke. The whole thing took forty seconds.
Dante turns toward her laugh the way he turns toward puck movement on the ice, before thought, before strategy.
Serena is sitting with Suzanne near the booster tables, her hand on Suzanne's arm while Suzanne laughs at something.
My father stands behind them with a coffee in each hand, content to hold the cups and wait for the conversation to find a seam.
At the same table, Genny has a program spread open in front of her, tracking the conversation between two boosters and Addison near the tunnel.
Her eyes move between them, sharp and quiet.
The lobby hums around me. Dante's head turns half an inch toward a laugh he'll never admit he heard. Maya's flush is still visible above her collar.
My hand opens. Closes. Opens again.
I slip it into my pocket beside the card and keep it there.