In the Crease (Phoenix Sidewinders Hockey)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Ryan

Thursday practice ended at five, and by five forty-five we were all at the Tap Room, which was how most Thursdays ended.

It was the kind of place that had been around long enough to stop trying—sticky tables, a jukebox that still took quarters, a bartender named Carl who knew our orders and poured them without being asked.

I had a beer and half a basket of fries and watched Griffin hold court at the big table like he’d been doing since freshman year, which wasn’t far from the truth.

The story he was currently telling happened in October and had not improved with time so much as expanded. Petey Marsh—our second-line winger and the most credulous person I’d ever shared a locker room with—was laughing too hard to drink. Griffin’s real measure of success.

“Lindy.” Griffin pointed at me across the table without breaking stride. “Tell them what Kowalski said after.”

“I wasn’t listening.”

“You were absolutely listening.”

“I was thinking about the power play.”

“He was listening,” Griffin told the table. “He just doesn’t want to be involved.”

“Correct,” I said, and drank my beer.

Petey wheezed. Davo Hartstrom shook his head.

He was the kind of guy who’d heard every version of this story and still listened to all of them, which said something about either his loyalty or his threshold for repetition.

Hartley, the freshman D-man we’d picked up in November, was trying very hard to look like he was keeping up.

He wasn’t. But that was the thing about first-years—they came in performing confidence and somewhere around February the performance dropped and the real thing started growing underneath it.

I’d been that kid. It passed, and what came after was better.

Griffin dropped into the seat beside me when the table broke into its own arguments.

“Good practice today,” he said.

“Petey’s gap coverage is still a problem.”

“I know. He’s leaving the weak side open every time the play goes behind the net. If we’re up against anyone with a decent backdoor option, they’re going to make him pay for it.”

I looked at him.

“I’ll handle it,” he said. He stole a fry. “Tomorrow.” Another fry.

I let it go. Four years had taught me the one thing worth knowing about Griffin Callahan—he wasn’t careless, he just ran on a different timeline than everyone else.

He was a goalie, which meant he processed everything from the back of the play looking forward, and it made him look like patience one day and delay the next and was always eventually right.

That last part had taken me longest to accept.

Outside the windows, the last gray light had gone, and the street was dark and wet with snowmelt, the kind of February night that reminded you the cold wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

Such was life in Minnesota. I had film to review and a call with my agent, Audrey, in the morning I needed to be sharp for.

Three teams were interested, one she was still negotiating, and the fourth possibility she’d mentioned once and declined to elaborate on, which meant either it was a long shot or she was managing me. Probably both.

I also had a beer, and my best friend was stealing my fries, and there was no reason to rush any of it. Life was good.

“Maren gets in tomorrow,” Griffin said.

“I remember. You mentioned it Tuesday.”

“Did I?” He seemed surprised. “I mentioned a lot of things on Tuesday.”

“You mention a lot of things every day.” I grinned at him and met his eyes. His sister was coming to visit for the weekend, just to get away for a couple of days and catch up with Griffin.

He acknowledged me with a shrug. “She flies in around four. I was going to get her, but Hendricks added a goalie session, and I can’t get out of it.”

“I can get her.”

“Yeah? Are you sure? Airport pickups are a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

He looked at me for a moment and I watched his face transform with a huge shit-eating grin. “She’s going to walk out of that terminal, get hit by the cold, and be personally offended by it. Like Minnesota did it on purpose.” He almost smiled. “I’m sorry I’m going to miss that.”

I laughed. “I’ll describe it for you.”

“She’ll also ask twenty questions in the first ten minutes. Just so you’re prepared.”

“It’s fine.” I was curious to spend the car ride with her. Griffin talked about her a lot; they were close.

“Precious cargo.” He pointed a fry at me. “But I owe you one. She’ll like you. She reads people fast.”

“It’s just an airport pickup.”

“I know,” he said, like that wasn’t quite what he meant. “We’re taking her to Jensen’s Saturday.”

“Obviously. Will she want to play?”

Griffin laughed, the real one—a roar that came from his chest. He was cackling. “She doesn’t skate.”

“She grew up going to your games and she doesn’t skate?”

“Uh, no. She watches. She’s been watching since she was old enough to sit still, maybe before then, and she’s better at reading the plays than half the guys on the ice.

But she doesn’t skate. Never wanted to. It’s not like Arizona is swimming in frozen ponds.

There weren’t even that many rinks back then.

Why do you think I came all the way up here for college?

” He said it the way he said most things about his sister—with fond certainty.

“She’ll stand at the edge and have opinions about everyone’s positioning; probably tell us all about injuries she thinks people are hiding.

She’s in pre-PT, she’s got a thing for reading bodies and movement. Jensen’s crew is going to love her.”

“So she’ll fit right in.”

“Exactly.” His face softened as he talked about her, and his smile got wider. “She’s never seen a real Minnesota winter. She thinks she knows what cold is because she looked it up. She doesn’t.”

“Have you ever tried teaching her to skate?” I was baffled that they were both into sports, and Griffin would be making hockey his career just like me, and she didn’t skate. Maybe it wasn’t weird. My sister skated. But she grew up in Minnesota too.

Griffin laughed again. “I mean, yeah, but no.”

I gave him the keep going gesture with my hand.

“She doesn’t want to learn. You’ll see on Saturday.”

“Has your family always lived in Phoenix?”

“Born and raised. I’ll be interested to see what shoes she shows up in. The girl owns more sandals than winter days.” He shook his head, affectionate about it. “It’ll be an educational weekend.”

I’d been getting stories about Maren Callahan for four years—Griffin talked about her freely and with his whole chest, no editing.

She was sharp, stubborn in the good way, someone who would argue a point until she won it or found a better one.

Someone who showed up to every home game Griffin ever played in the juniors and high school, and spent the whole time actually watching, not scrolling her phone.

I also had one actual memory of her, from a game in Minneapolis about two years back.

Griffin’s parents and sister had made the trip, and after the game a group of us ended up at a sports bar a few blocks from the arena—the kind of place with too many TVs and baskets of fries and everyone still buzzing from the win.

I ended up across the table from Griffin’s dad, Tom Callahan, and Maren.

I wasn’t paying close attention until her voice cut through the noise—certain, direct, telling her father the holding call in the third was wrong and “here is exactly why.” Tom was nodding, getting a word in where he could.

She wasn’t asking his opinion. She was correcting the record, like she’d been watching the rulebook as closely as the puck and had notes.

I laughed. I caught it before it got all the way out and went back to my food but I laughed.

That was the only real memory. One conversation, ten seconds of it, two years ago.

I also had a photo. A Callahan family Christmas group shot Griffin had texted around when his parents got a new dog, two winters ago. Maren had been in the background, mid-laugh at something outside the frame, hair loose. I’d registered it and scrolled on.

I thought about the photo now and put the reminder away and finished my beer.

“Sal’s for dinner tomorrow?” I asked.

“Already texted Jensen. He’s in.”

I set down my empty glass.

Another round came. The neutral zone debate escalated to the point where the table next to us looked over twice.

Davo put something on the jukebox nobody asked for—Springsteen, which sparked an argument from Petey that lasted until someone changed it.

Hartley got pulled into a conversation with the older guys and held his own with careful competence that meant he’d been paying attention all year.

I caught Griffin’s eye across the table.

He gave me the smallest nod. The kid was going to be fine.

I thought about the after. What would happen to our little group after graduation.

Griffin and I were both four months from a draft that was going to scatter all of this routine I’d grown accustomed to—the Tap Room on Thursdays, the pond on Saturdays, the apartment and its rhythms and the comfort of four years in the same building.

Four years becoming phone calls and reunions on road trips.

That was the right progression. I hadn’t let myself sit with it yet.

My mind kept drifting to the airport tomorrow.

Not to her, exactly. Just to the airport. The pickup. The forty minutes back to campus.

I put it away and ordered another round.

Griffin was at the end of the bar around nine thirty with two women, which was his natural habitat—easy and lit up, completely at home in his own skin. The woman closer to him was laughing. The other one, a blonde in a jacket that had no business being in Minnesota in February, kept looking my way.

I looked at my beer.

She looked again.

I finished the beer and signaled for the check.

He appeared at my shoulder ten minutes later.

“Her name is Kayla,” he said. “She asked about you.”

“Calling it a night.”

“Lindy.”

“Audrey calls at eight.”

He studied me with the patience he reserved for situations he’d already figured out. I didn’t give him anything.

“Terminal two,” he said. “Four o’clock.”

“I know.”

He pointed at me—the point that meant we’re coming back to this—and I said good night to Petey and headed for the door.

Outside, the cold was immediate and clean, the kind that cleared your head whether you wanted it to or not. I walked the three blocks home with my hands in my pockets, breath coming out in a steady cloud.

The apartment was quiet. I moved Griffin’s gear bag from the hallway to his room out of habit—this was the arrangement, the unspoken deal we’d had since sophomore year—and stood in the kitchen with the lights low.

I thought about the Audrey call. Three real possibilities, one long shot. I set it down and thought about Jensen’s pond instead, the density of it when the cold held steady week after week.

Because it was late and I was tired and some thoughts just surfaced on their own, I thought about a Christmas photo and a voice I’d heard once through the noise of a game.

Sharp. Sure of herself. Right about the call.

I put that away too and went to bed.