Chapter Thirteen
The Russian team had taken over one end of the hotel bar by the time Matvei returned.
He heard them before the elevator doors opened onto the lobby.
Music played from speakers mounted beneath the dark wooden shelves behind the bar, but the players had grown loud enough that it no longer mattered.
Several tables had been pushed together near the windows.
Empty plates, half-finished beers and glasses filled with something stronger covered the surface between them.
Russia had beaten Finland in Helsinki on Christmas Eve.
Nobody intended to treat the night like an ordinary tournament win.
A defenseman near the end of the table saw Matvei first and lifted both arms.
“There he is.”
The others turned.
Someone began applauding. Someone else asked whether Matvei had gotten lost between the arena and the hotel. Their captain raised a glass and demanded to know why the goaltender had abandoned the team bus after beating the host country.
Matvei removed his coat.
“I walked.”
“We know you walked,” the captain said in Russian. “The question is why.”
“Because I have legs.”
That answer satisfied nobody, though it was close enough to the version of Matvei they expected that the questions became insults instead. He was antisocial. He believed team transportation was beneath him. He had become too important after one win.
None of them asked whether he had walked alone.
Matvei gave them no reason to.
He hung the coat over the back of an empty chair and lowered himself into it. A beer appeared in front of him almost immediately, delivered by one of the younger forwards who had apparently appointed himself responsible for ensuring no teammate remained sober enough to remember the evening clearly.
Matvei took the glass.
The beer was cold.
His hands were still warm.
That should not have been possible. He had spent more than half an hour outside and crossed the final stretch of road without gloves because he had removed them to warm Tessa’s fingers.
He could still feel the shape of them.
They had been much smaller than he expected, though he had never had a reason to consider their size before she placed them in his.
When he enclosed them between his palms, her fingers barely reached beyond the center of his hand.
Her skin had been cold enough to concern him, the tips red after he pulled off the gloves she continued insisting were adequate.
Nothing she wore was adequate.
Her coat was thin. Her gloves were useless.
Her scarf covered half her face without protecting the rest. By the time they reached the harbor, her nose had turned red from the cold, and she had become so focused on pretending she was comfortable that she stopped speaking whenever the wind struck them.
He had known she was small.
The knowledge had always been relative. Everyone looked small when Matvei stood beside them. In the locker room, Tessa existed behind a recorder and notebook, separated from him by the distance she maintained around every player.
Under his arm, she had felt different.
She fit against his side with the top of her head beneath his shoulder.
When he pulled her closer to block the wind, he could feel the tension leave her body before she remembered she was supposed to resist him.
Her steps shortened to match his. One hand remained trapped between their coats while the other stayed inside her pocket.
She had been warm by the time they reached the hotels.
Matvei knew because he had made her warm.
The thought remained with him longer than it should have.
“Belly.”
Matvei looked up.
The captain sat across the table watching him.
“What?”
“I asked if the second goal was screened.”
“Yes.”
The captain waited.
Matvei took a drink.
“Very detailed. Thank you.”
“You saw game.”
“I was on the bench.”
“Then why ask?”
The captain shook his head and turned toward the player beside him.
Nobody appeared to notice that Matvei had missed the beginning of the conversation.
Good.
He drank again and tried to pay attention.
The team discussed Finland’s power play, the turnovers Russia needed to correct and the United States game waiting after Christmas.
Coaches had allowed them to celebrate the win, though the morning schedule remained posted near the elevators.
Most players would take the day off. An optional skate had been arranged for anyone who wanted it, along with access to the weight room and training areas.
Matvei already knew he would go.
Sitting inside the hotel for an entire day had never felt like rest. He preferred movement, even when coaches told him not to skate. A workout, treatment and video would keep his body from stiffening before the next start.
The United States played differently from Finland.
More direct. More speed through the neutral zone and forwards willing to shoot without waiting for a perfect lane.
Russia had struggled with its defensive-zone exits in the opener.
Against the United States, those turnovers would become chances before the defense had time to recover.
Matvei should have been thinking about that.
Instead, he remembered the way Tessa looked at him beneath the streetlight.
Her hands had been held between his. He had lowered his face to warm them, expecting her to complain or make another argument about how she had not needed help. She said nothing.
When he looked up, her eyes had moved to his mouth.
Only for a second.
He had seen it.
Matvei had spent enough of his life reading shooters to recognize the difference between where someone looked and where they intended to go. Eyes revealed decisions before the body acted on them.
Tessa had looked at his mouth.
Then she pulled away.
He had let her.
The correct decision should not have irritated him.
“Drink.”
A shot glass appeared beside the beer.
Matvei looked toward the teammate who placed it there.
“No.”
“It is Christmas.”
“Not in Russia.”
“It is Christmas in Finland.”
“I am Russian.”
“You are in Finland.”
Matvei pushed the glass away.
The teammate pushed it back.
Their captain reached across the table and took it.
“Leave the goalie alone. We need him conscious.”
“I am conscious.”
“Physically.”
Laughter moved around the table.
Matvei lifted one hand in response.
This version of him required no thought. In Russian, jokes arrived before he examined whether anyone might misunderstand them. He could interrupt, argue and insult without searching for words simple enough to survive translation.
Tessa had seen that version during the availability.
He knew because he saw her watching from the back of the room before she approached his table. She had looked almost surprised when he laughed, as though she had been given proof of something Viktor must have told her months earlier.
Then she walked over, and he had returned to English.
Not entirely.
Speaking with her had become easier. He no longer translated every answer before offering it, though the habit remained when recorders appeared. She understood when he used the wrong construction. She waited long enough for him to correct himself without doing it for him.
On the walk, he had forgotten about English several times.
He spoke and trusted her to follow.
That was more dangerous than touching her.
Matvei looked toward the hotel windows. Snow moved beyond the glass in slow, scattered flakes. Across the street, lights glowed in the windows of Tessa’s hotel.
He had watched her enter before crossing the road himself.
She had turned back once.
He told himself he had waited only because she was unfamiliar with the city and likely to become trapped between the first and second set of lobby doors. Given her performance with the rideshare app, the concern had not been unreasonable.
He did not tell himself the explanation was convincing.
A teammate began another toast. Players lifted their glasses, and Matvei raised his beer with them.
To the win.
To Russia.
To beating the United States.
To a tournament that would last less than two weeks and be remembered much longer by whichever team finished with the trophy.
Matvei drank.
The beer tasted different now that it had begun warming.
He placed it on the table and looked across the street again.
Tessa’s hotel windows revealed nothing.
He wondered which one belonged to her.
Then he became annoyed with himself and turned back toward the team.
Matvei woke on Christmas morning before the alarm.
The room remained dark, though a thin line of gray light showed around the curtains. He lay still for several minutes, listening to the hotel heating system click beneath the window and the occasional sound of a door closing somewhere along the hallway.
His head felt clear.
He had finished the beer and refused everything offered afterward. Several teammates stayed in the bar long enough that they would regret the optional practice schedule even if they had no intention of using it.
Matvei sat up and checked his phone.
Messages filled the screen. Friends in Russia had watched the Finland game and offered varying levels of useful analysis. Most agreed that Joona’s goal had been preventable. One had sent a photograph of the puck passing beneath Matvei’s glove with several circles drawn around the open space.
Joona had sent nothing.
That was unusual enough to be deliberate.
Matvei opened their conversation.
Lucky goal.
The reply arrived before he set down the phone.
Scoreboard says goal.
Matvei typed:
Scoreboard says Russia win.
Three dots appeared.
Next game I score two.
You do not play Russia next game.
Next time.
Matvei smiled.
He left the message unanswered and opened the tournament schedule. Finland would play Czechia that evening. Russia faced the United States the following afternoon.
Tessa would be at both.
Matvei got out of bed.
He ate breakfast downstairs, ignored several teammates who looked physically offended by daylight and left for the arena shortly after nine. Russia had arranged a vehicle for the few players attending the optional session, but Matvei declined it.