Chapter 26 Steele
Coach Wallace taped the printout next to the whiteboard just after seven. Wallace believes in letting information sit in a room before the room fills with opinions about it.
The board reads:
I stare at it for three seconds longer than necessary because that's how long it takes for my brain to shift from we won the quarter-finals, to we have to win two more games to play for the Cup.
I'm already here before anyone else arrives.
We won the final game to beat the New York Bears in the quarters, but now we have to do the same with Seattle Strike in the semis. Best of three and game one is on Saturday.
"Seattle," Keane says, reading the board with a coffee in his hand and his gear bag over his shoulder. He sips and says nothing else.
"Seattle," I confirm.
"Young team."
"Very young team."
Keane nods once. That's the conversation.
Between the two of us, four words contain the entire tactical analysis that other teams would spend a meeting on.
Seattle Strike are young, which means they're fast and hungry and haven't lost enough to be afraid of losing, and they got to the semis not through talent alone but through persistence, which is the most dangerous thing an underdog can carry into a three-game series.
Crew arrives at seven twenty-two. Drops his bag and reads the board.
"Huh," he says.
"Huh, good or huh, bad?" I ask.
"Huh, interesting." He sits down and starts tapping his stick with the attention of a man who is already watching film in his head. "They beat Portland in two games. Portland had the better roster."
"Portland got lazy."
"Portland got comfortable," Crew corrects. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" Keane asks.
"Absolutely. Laziness is a character flaw. Comfortable is a tactical error. And we can't afford either."
At nine, the film room is cold and smells of coffee and the remnants of someone's breakfast burrito.
Marilyn sits in the second row with her tablet and a legal pad, wearing reading glasses she only wears when she thinks nobody is looking at her instead of the screen.
Ares Wilder, the assistant coach, leans against the wall with a coffee and a stat sheet covered in his own annotations.
Coach Wallace stands at the front with the remote, scrubbing through Seattle Strike's last three games with the speed of a man who has already watched them twice and is now watching them a third time for the benefit of the room.
"Their first line is fast," Wallace says.
The screen shows Seattle's forward line in motion.
Driffield, number twelve, a kid who can't be older than twenty-two, drives the neutral zone with a low, wide skating stance that generates speed from his edges rather than his stride.
He doesn't look as if he's trying. He looks as if ice is the natural surface for his body to move over.
"That's their weapon," Crew says from beside me. He hasn't taken his eyes off the screen. "The transition speed. Watch the breakout."
Wallace rewinds and plays it again. The Seattle breakout is clean. A D-to-D pass behind the net, a stretch pass to the winger streaking through the neutral zone, and suddenly the puck is in the offensive zone before the opposing defense has finished their change.
"Three seconds," Crew says. "Goal line to blue line in three seconds. That's elite."
"Their power play is middle of the pack," Wilder says, glancing at his stat sheet. "Twenty-one percent conversion. Nothing special. Anderson runs the point, but Sanders does the damage. Their penalty kill is third in the league."
"They're disciplined," Wallace says.
"They're scared of making mistakes," Wilder replies. "There's a difference."
"Speaking of discipline," Marilyn says, not looking up from her tablet. "The press is already running the Cinderella angle on Seattle. Every reporter in the building will want the underdog story. Don't give them quotes that sound complacent."
She pauses and looks up. Looks directly at Even Steven in the back row.
"Steven."
Even Steven straightens slightly.
"You and I still have a bet running," she says, holding his gaze over her reading glasses. "I already know the perfect omega. She's lovely."
The room laughs. Even Steven doesn't laugh.
“I won’t lose.”
"Good. Keep your stick on the ice and your hands to yourself," Marilyn says pleasantly, and looks back at her tablet.
"What about their goaltender?" Keane asks from the back row.
The footage cuts to Vaughn Carson. He's not spectacular, but he's consistent. And consistency in a semi-final series is worth more than brilliance.
"He's good," Wallace says. "Not great. Good."
"Good is enough if the defense is tight," Crew says. "And their defense is tight."
He's studying their blue line the way I study a winger's first step, by watching patterns, timing, tendencies.
Seattle runs a left-side lock that funnels traffic to the outside. Nichols on the right side plays an active stick. Their gap control is better than it should be for a team this young.
"They're coached well," Crew says. "Someone taught them structure."
"Their coach is Danny Cairns," Wilder says. "Second year. Former defenseman. Played eight seasons with Vancouver before his hip forced him out. He coaches the way he played and he was one of the best."
Wallace turns off the projector. The room goes bright.
"Here's what I know," he says. "Seattle is the team nobody expected to be here, which means they've already exceeded expectations, which means they have nothing to lose. We have everything to lose. That's the gap we have to manage."
He looks at me. Then at Keane. Then at Crew.
"We're faster than they are," he says. "We're more experienced. We have better special teams. But they're hungrier, and hunger wins the series. So we match their hunger, or we go home."
The room is quiet.
"Okay, time to get on the ice," Wallace says.
Practice is harsh.
Nobody talks and everybody works. The drills have an edge that wasn't there last week.
Keane runs the forward group through a cycle drill that punishes sloppy puck handling.
Crew and Brooks work the defensive rotation until the transitions are seamless, each gap closed with the perfection of two men who work together so well they could be pack mates.
I skate hard. Harder than I need to, probably. Not for the semi-finals.
Today the tension is just for me.
The hallway conversation with Knox. Remi walking out the door.
The sound of the elevator and me running to catch her before I knew I was going to let her go.
She came back the next morning smelling like bourbon and chocolate and orange.
She smelled of him. The brother who vowed he'd never let an omega get under his skin.
I have to stop thinking about them.
And I do.
For ninety minutes, none of that exists. There is only the puck and the boards and the sound of edges cutting ice and the cold air filling my lungs.
Kane Moretti chips a puck past me during a scrimmage play, and I reverse and strip him cleanly at the hash marks. Moretti swears and I grin because this is the language I understand, the language that doesn't require a man in a dark suit telling me about biology.
"Good hands," Crew says, skating past.
"Always."
After practice, Wallace pulls Crew aside.
I watch from across the room, unlacing my skates.
Crew stands with his helmet under his arm and his hair damp, and his expression neutral, the way it always is when he's processing something.
Wallace talks for ninety seconds. Crew's jaw tightens.
Wallace claps his shoulder. Crew walks back to the bench.
"Brooks and Rider again?" I ask, keeping my voice neutral.
"Rider and Brooks." Crew sits down, starts pulling tape off his stick. He doesn't look up. "Wallace wants Rider's speed against Seattle's transitions. Says I'm too physical for their style."
I nod. He nods. That's it. No argument, no protest, no visible cracks.
But his hands pull the tape harder than they need to.
The ice has cleared as we exit the locker room. The Scorpions' session is over, but the rink isn't empty.
I stop at the tunnel entrance. Crew stops beside me.
Small figures are on the ice. Junior figure skaters.
Maybe eight or ten of them, none taller than the boards.
They move in that unfinished way young skaters have.
Like I had once, with ambition and a lack of refinement.
Their bodies are still trying to figure out the relationship between blade and balance.
A coach stands at center ice calling out drill sequences. The kids respond with varying levels of expertise and zero levels of self-consciousness.
And sitting in the stands, third row up from the glass, is Remi.
She isn't watching us. She's watching them. Her eyes are tracking the ice. I turn to look, she is watching one kid in particular. A girl, maybe eight years old, dark ponytail, a pink jacket, who is attempting a spin that keeps dying two rotations in.
The girl tries again. The spin wobbles.
I smile, turning back to Remi and notice her body mirrors the attempt unconsciously, the slight rotation in her shoulders, the shift of her weight, the muscle memory of a woman whose body spent years doing exactly what that little girl's body is trying to learn.
She looks happy.
Not the cautious happiness of Remi accepting affection. Not the overwhelmed happiness of Remi in bed between two alphas. Something simpler. She is happy because she is watching the thing she loves.
We walk up the tunnel stairs. When she sees us her face shifts into a massive smile.
"How was practice?" she asks.
"We found out we're playing Seattle Strike in the semis," I say.
"I know. Marilyn texted me." She pauses. "They're fast."
"You watched the film?"
"Marilyn sent clips." She shrugs. "I like hockey now. Apparently."
Crew sits down beside her. Presses his mouth to her temple. She leans into him.
"You've been watching the skaters," Crew says.
"They come every day during your rest period." She nods toward the girl in the pink jacket, who is attempting the spin again. Still dying at two rotations. "She's dropping her right shoulder. That's why the rotation stalls."
Crew looks at me. I look at Crew. Neither of us says anything, but the look contains everything.
Remi stands up. Brushes off her jeans. Adjusts the strap of her bag over her shoulder.
"Knox is coming for dinner tonight," she says.
I groan.
Crew smiles.
"He offered to bring wine," she adds, watching me, and waiting for the reaction she knows is coming.
"Knox doesn't drink wine," I say. "Knox drinks bourbon, neat, because Knox has to make even his beverage choices feel like a power statement."
"He's bringing wine." She grins.
"He's going to sit in my kitchen and drink wine and look at me and wonder how to get rid of me."
"You're being dramatic," Remi says.
"What time is he coming?" Crew asks.
"Seven o'clock," she says. "And be nice."
"I'm always nice."
Crew smiles wider.
I look at the ice. The girl in the pink jacket tries the spin again. Three rotations this time. She wobbles on the landing but she stays up, and the coach claps once, and the girl's face breaks into the joy of someone who has just done a thing she didn't know she could do.
"She dropped the shoulder again," Remi says, watching. "But she committed. That's the important part."
But all I’m thinking is that Knox is coming for dinner. My brother. In my apartment. At my table. With my pack.
Our pack.
I groan again, quieter this time, and follow her out.