Chapter Thirteen #3
Tessa lowered her eyes toward the sidewalk.
“You said that already.”
“You do not believe.”
“I believe I’m capable.”
“Different.”
She looked at him again.
Matvei understood the difference because he lived inside it. He knew he was capable of playing goal in the NHL. He had proven it for years. Believing he was good had become more difficult after the previous season, even when the evidence returned.
Tessa seemed to recognize something in his silence.
“Did you believe you were still good last year?” she asked.
Matvei’s first instinct was to reject the question.
No recorder existed between them.
That made the answer harder, not easier.
“Sometimes,” he said.
“And the other times?”
“I knew before.”
“Before the games?”
“Before last year.”
Tessa waited.
Matvei exhaled slowly.
“When game is bad, you know one game. Then another. Then you think maybe this is game now.”
“Did you think that?”
“Yes.”
The admission did not feel as sharp as he expected.
The cold air made everything around them seem cleaner. Their footsteps, their breath and the distant sound of a tram became the only movement along the street.
“What changed?” Tessa asked.
“Summer.”
“With your old coach?”
“Yes. He does not care about NHL.”
“He doesn’t?”
“He cares if feet are wrong. If eyes are late. Not if newspaper says I am finished.”
Tessa smiled faintly. “That sounds useful.”
“He says I play like someone watches.”
Her expression softened.
“Were you?”
“Always someone watches.”
“I know.”
“No.” Matvei looked at her. “Not like reporter. Everyone. Coach, fans, team. I think about what happens if goal. Then goal happens.”
Tessa absorbed the answer without reaching for anything to record it.
“What did he tell you to do?”
“Stop puck.”
She laughed again.
Matvei smiled.
“He says stop trying to prove you stop puck,” he continued. “Just stop.”
“That sounds obvious.”
“Yes.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
They reached the harbor section where the wind became stronger. Tessa pressed the scarf closer to her face.
Matvei waited for the denial.
“I’m cold,” she admitted.
The honesty pleased him more than it should have.
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to sound happy about it.”
“I tell you.”
“You’ve told me roughly thirty times.”
“And still bad coat.”
Tessa moved closer before he could put his arm around her.
The change was slight, perhaps only an effort to use him as a windbreak. Her shoulder brushed his arm.
Matvei looked down at her.
She kept her attention ahead.
He placed his arm around her.
This time, there was no discussion.
Tessa settled against his side more quickly than she had the night before. Her body remained tense for one step, then softened. Matvei’s hand rested against her upper arm, and he felt the small movement of her breath through both coats.
He should have been cold.
He was not.
“What do you miss?” she asked.
“From Russia?”
“Yes.”
Matvei thought of answers he gave reporters. Food. Friends. Language. Places where winter meant something.
Those answers were true.
They were not complete.
“Being nobody,” he said.
Tessa tilted her head to look at him.
“You were drafted sixth overall.”
“Before.”
“When you were a child?”
“When I go outside, nobody knows. I play, go home. If bad, only coach angry.”
“Now everyone is.”
“Yes.”
Tessa smiled against the scarf.
“What else?”
“Food.”
“Of course.”
“Good food.”
“Halifax has good food.”
“Some.”
“That is deeply offensive to the city you play for.”
“They know.”
“Do you ever think about going back when you’re done?”
Matvei had thought about it often and reached no answer.
“Maybe.”
“You don’t know?”
“Halifax is home too.”
The statement surprised him after he said it.
He had spent eight years resisting the word. Halifax was where he played. Where he owned a house, drove familiar streets and knew which restaurant remained open after late games. Russia was home.
At some point, without asking permission, Halifax had become one too.
Tessa looked ahead.
“Can you have two?”
“Yes.”
Her answer came quickly enough that he wondered which two places she carried.
“You?” he asked.
“What?”
“Where is home?”
“Halifax.”
“Only?”
She considered it.
“My apartment is in Halifax. My job is there. Nina’s there.”
“That is list.”
“It’s home.”
Matvei waited.
Tessa sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe home is wherever all the things you can’t leave are.”
“Work?”
“That sounds depressing when you say it like that.”
“You say.”
“I know.”
He felt her smile more than he saw it.
“Why no boyfriend?” Matvei asked.
The question came before he decided whether to ask it.
Tessa’s steps changed.
Only slightly.
Matvei kept his gaze ahead.
“That is personal,” she said.
“You say ask anything.”
“I did.”
“So?”
She was quiet long enough that he assumed she would refuse.
“I work too much.”
“Excuse.”
“Probably.”
“What real answer?”
Tessa pulled her free hand from her pocket and adjusted the scarf.
“I haven’t met anyone I wanted to make room for.”
The words entered him slowly.
Matvei’s arm remained around her.
“And you?” she asked.
“No girlfriend.”
“I gathered.”
“You ask why?”
“Do you want me to?”
He did not know.
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“Hockey.”
“Excuse.”
Matvei looked down at her.
She smiled.
He understood the trap only after entering it.
“Probably,” he admitted.
“What’s the real answer?”
The truth was more complicated than language.
Women had existed. Relationships long enough for people to use the word. None survived the season, the travel or Matvei’s instinct to retreat whenever something required more of him than he knew how to give.
He did not trust easily. He disliked explaining himself. He had spent much of his adult life around people who wanted access to the player and became disappointed by the man’s silence.
“I do not know how,” he said.
Tessa’s expression lost its teasing.
“How to date?”
“How to make room.”
The connection between their answers remained unspoken.
His hand shifted slightly against her arm.
Tessa looked down.
Matvei wondered whether she was thinking about the same thing he was, the space between their bodies reduced to nearly nothing while both explained why they had left no place for anyone else.
“You made room for Joona,” she said.
“He is teammate.”
“You still did.”
“He needs help.”
“That doesn’t mean you had to be the one who gave it.”
Matvei considered this.
Joona had arrived young, proud and overwhelmed in ways he attempted to hide. Matvei had recognized them because he once carried the same fear into every conversation. Helping him had not felt like a choice.
“He is easy,” Matvei said.
“He would be thrilled to hear that.”
“Do not write.”
“I left my recorder in my bag.”
“You remember.”
“I remember everything.”
Matvei believed her.
The thought should have made him more careful.
Instead, he asked, “What you remember from last night?”
Tessa looked up.
The question removed the remaining ease from the conversation.
Her face had already reddened from the cold, but he saw another change beneath it.
“The walk.”
“All?”
She held his gaze.
“Yes.”
Matvei’s fingers tightened slightly around her arm.
He remembered her hands. Her eyes moving toward his mouth. The pause that might have become something else if either of them had moved.
Tessa remembered too.
They continued walking, though neither looked away immediately.
Her boot struck ice.
The movement happened quickly.