Chapter 8 Kieran
Chapter eight
Kieran
The numbers were excellent.
I knew this because Thompson, the GM, said it twice, once while sliding a printout across the table, and again while pouring coffee before any of us asked.
Term, AAV, incentives. Clean columns. The offer was better than projected, which meant someone upstairs had decided I was worth overpaying to keep quiet and compliant.
"This reflects the organization's commitment," Thompson said. "Not only to your present game, but to your role here long-term."
Long-term.
I picked up the printout. Read it the way my father taught me, slowly, with no visible reaction.
The number landed comfortably. It was money that would solve problems I didn't have and reinforce a future I was planning to leave.
"This is strong," I said. "I appreciate the thought that went into it."
Thompson leaned back. Satisfied.
"I'd like some time before I commit."
He blinked, barely perceptible, and then recalibrated. "Of course. Due diligence."
"Yes."
"Your agent mentioned wanting to see how the season develops. We respect that."
He didn't respect it. He was accommodating it. That was different.
We stood. Handshakes. Firm grip, correct duration.
In the hallway, the glass walls caught my reflection. Charcoal quarter-zip. Good posture. A man reviewing a life-changing financial offer with the composure of someone ordering lunch.
My father called as I climbed into my car.
"Kieran."
"Dad."
"Heard the numbers came in."
I leaned back against the headrest. "They did. Strong offer."
"How strong?"
I gave him the terms. I didn't quote the precise dollar figure. He had ways to find that out through his own channels within the hour.
"That's significant. And your read on the room?"
"Confident. Accommodating my timeline. They want it done before the trade deadline."
"Smart." A pause calibrated to sound thoughtful. "What did you tell them?"
"That I'd take some time."
"Time's reasonable," he said. "You want to see how the season shapes up. Make sure the fit is right."
He'd supplied my reasoning for me. Handed it to me pre-assembled. It was how he'd handed me skating drills at six and forechecking systems at twelve.
Here's why you're doing what you're doing. Doesn't that feel better than uncertainty?
"Something like that."
"Your mother sends her love. She saw the highlights from last week. Said you looked sharp."
His pivot was seamless. Contract strategy to maternal warmth in one sentence. Mom's observations came via Dad's voice. That was how most family communication traveled.
"Tell her thanks."
"Let's reconnect after the road trip. No rush on the decision, but don't let the window drift. Windows have a way of closing."
"I know."
"Love you, kid."
"Love you too."
The call ended. I set the phone on the passenger seat.
He didn't ask me what I wanted. Instead, he asked for my read on the room. He'd confirmed the offer was strong and reminded me that windows close.
At no point did my wishes enter the conversation.
They never did.
Practice ran hot that afternoon.
Coach Markel had watched film from our most recent loss and decided the problem was soft neutral-zone coverage. He didn't say it in a speech. He said it by designing drills that punished hesitation with contact.
Three-on-three, tight space, boards in play. Win the puck or get hit by someone who wanted it more.
Heath played the way he always played in drills that involved traffic. He went to the hard areas. And he wasn't tentative about it. He drove to the net front, established position, and kept his stick active.
The drill cycled. My group rotated off. Heath's group rotated on.
I stood at the boards with a water bottle, watching.
Heath collected a pass along the wall and turned up ice. Standard transition. Head up, feet moving. Garrett, one of our third-pair defensemen, stepped up.
The hit was clean. Legal. Garrett closed the gap and caught Heath mid-stride with a shoulder through the chest. Heath had been turning his hips to protect the puck when the contact arrived. His skates left the ice.
He went down hard. Shoulder first, then hip, and then the back of his helmet cracked against the ice. The echo carried throughout the facility.
The drill continued around him for two seconds before anyone registered he wasn't getting up.
I moved. One automatic stride.
I caught myself on the second stride. Stopped. Gripped the boards with a gloved hand.
Across the ice, Heath lay on his side. His legs had drawn up, which meant consciousness. It also likely meant the hit had hurt but had broken nothing crucial. With a glove off, he pressed his bare hand flat against the ice, the way you'd press a palm to a cold countertop to steady yourself.
Rook was already there.
Crouched beside Heath, one knee on the ice, and a hand on his elbow. There was a brief exchange. A question. Heath shook his head once and then nodded.
Rook helped him up. Hand on the elbow, steadying. Heath found his edges, rolled his shoulder twice, and picked up his stick.
The drill resumed.
I unclenched my hand from the boards.
Nobody else reacted the way I did. Varga hadn't moved. Cross glanced over and returned to his route. Pratt tracked it like a goalie—still.
Rook's response was professional. Visible. Entirely unremarkable. A veteran checking on a younger player after a hard hit.
Mine would not have been unremarkable.
If I'd reached him first, they'd have seen Kieran Mathers sprinting across the ice for Heath Donnelly with an expression I wasn't confident I could have controlled.
Markel blew his whistle. Line change.
I vaulted over and skated hard. Took the first puck battle. Drove the net and buried a wrist shot that Holloway never saw.
I was sharper for the rest of practice. Meaner with myself. Every rep precise. I punished my body how I always did when it had nearly betrayed me.
At the end of practice, Heath stretched near the boards, rolling his arm in slow circles. I skated past on my way to the tunnel.
What I saw was smooth rotation until the final ten degrees, where something hitched. Soreness. He'd feel it tomorrow. He'd play through it without mentioning it, because Heath Donnelly played through things the way other people breathed.
***
The aquarium was different after hours. Staff thinned to maintenance and the animal care team. The overhead lights dropped to nighttime settings, and the exhibits shifted from spectacle to habitat. The animals no longer had to perform for crowds. They simply lived.
I changed in the volunteer locker room. Jeans. Long-sleeved shirt I didn't mind getting wet. Sleeves rolled past my elbows. Phone silenced and left in the locker.
No one here called me Mathers.
Water testing first. Caribbean Reef gallery. Ninety thousand gallons. At this hour, the light inside the tank was the only light in the gallery, and it turned everything blue.
Salinity. Temperature. pH. Alkalinity. Calcium. Magnesium. Each number recorded in my handwriting, which was neat here in a way it was nowhere else. On team paperwork, my signature was a controlled scrawl. On these logs, every digit was legible.
The numbers described a world that we understood through measurement.
If the alkalinity drifted, you adjusted.
If the calcium dropped, you dosed. Cause and effect operated on a timeline you could observe, and the animals inside the system either thrived or they didn't, and you could tell which by paying attention.
I finished the reef panel and moved to the beluga habitat.
Ansel found me before I found him. He surfaced near the observation window, melon tilted, watching me set up the test kit with the same mild curiosity he brought to everything.
"Appetite's been good," I said. Low voice. The tone you'd use in a library or a church. "Lena said you ate the entire tray yesterday. That's progress."
I ran the water panel. Everything within parameters.
Months ago, before the new season and before Heath, I'd stood at this same window and told Ansel I was gay. Not dramatically. Factually.
The beluga continued his circuit, and the water chemistry didn't shift. The world absorbed the information without rearranging itself.
I hadn't repeated it since. The confession wasn't the point. The silence that followed was—the extraordinary, liberating silence of having said a true thing to a living creature who offered zero judgment.
I said nothing tonight. I watched Ansel move through the water while I thought about practice. Heath going down, and my instinctive first stride.
"Night," I said to Ansel as I picked up my clipboard and capped the pen.
He was already moving away. Circling toward the deeper section of the pool where the light didn't reach.
In the volunteer locker room, I changed back into my clothes and retrieved my phone.
Heath: You good?
No preamble and no context at 8:52 PM on a Tuesday evening.
He wasn't asking where I'd been. He was checking in.
Kieran: Yeah. You?
By the time I reached my car, he'd replied.
Heath: Shoulder's stiff. Nothing major.
The hit.
Kieran: Ice it.
Heath: Already did. Twice.
Kieran: Good.
A pause.
Heath: Watched some film. My net-front positioning in the second drill was off. Half a step too deep. That's why Garrett caught me turning.
He'd already sorted it. That was Heath. He absorbed a hit hard enough to crack his helmet on the ice, and then he went home and found the frame that showed what he'd done wrong.
Kieran: You were in position. Garrett timed it well. That's on him, not you.
Heath: Both. I gave him the angle.
I turned the key.
Heath: How was your night?
Kieran: Quiet. At Shedd. Ran some water tests. Fed the fish.
Heath: How's the beluga?
My hand tightened around the phone. Heath remembered Ansel specifically. I'd mentioned him only once, on a team bus, sandwiched between sea turtle photos.
Kieran: Good. Eating well. Lena says his energy's up.
Heath: That's good.