6. Roman
Simon Kavanaugh didn't sit.
Everyone else in the availability room had claimed chairs, with notebooks open and phones recording. Simon stood near the back wall, arms crossed, posture relaxed but deliberate.
He was in his fifties, maybe older, built lean in a way that suggested he’d once played something himself and never quite stopped carrying that discipline. Dark coat, no logo. Sensible shoes.
Kavanaugh wasn't scanning the room or checking his phone. He was watching me as if he'd already written the story and was only here to confirm the details.
A beat writer from the Sun-Times opened with something about ice time distribution. I gave him the standard response. Systems. Trust. Letting the game come to you.
Simon didn't take notes.
The questions rotated through the usual rhythm. Line chemistry. Pace compared to my previous team. Adjustments to Chicago's defensive structure.
I kept my answers clean and professional. Nothing that would land in a headline.
Then Simon spoke.
"Roman." His voice carried without volume. "Walk me through your decision-making process under pressure."
I sat forward slightly.
"You mean in-game?"
"Yeah." He shifted his weight. "When the play's collapsing and you've got half a second to read it."
I thought about the question instead of delivering a stock answer.
"You stop trying to force the read," I said. "You let the gaps show you where they are."
"And if the gaps aren't there?"
"Then you create them. Or you wait until they open."
"Patience or instinct?"
"Both. At the same time."
Simon nodded once.
The other reporters kept asking questions, but I sensed Simon's attention sharpening. He wasn't fishing for mistakes or building controversy. He was assembling something.
Ten minutes later, a younger reporter asked about settling into Chicago.
"You feel settled here? Like this is home now?"
Before I could answer, Simon cut in.
"You play like someone who expects to be here awhile."
The room was silent for half a beat.
I held his gaze. "Yeah. I do."
"Why?"
My stock answer would have been something about Chicago, the city, or the Breakers legacy.
Instead, I told the truth.
"Because I know where to look now."
Simon's expression didn't change. He adjusted.
"Meaning?"
"On the ice," I said. "I know where my teammates are going to be. That kind of trust doesn't happen overnight."
"But it happened for you."
"Yeah."
He nodded slowly. "That's good. Continuity matters."
The word landed softly.
Continuity—something teams talked about when projecting into the future.
The session wrapped a few minutes later. Standard exit questions. Travel schedule. Injury updates.
Simon pushed off the wall and headed for the door before most of the others had closed their notebooks.
He was done.
I stayed in my chair while the room emptied. Answered a few follow-ups from a radio guy about special teams. Smiled when expected.
Finally, I stood and headed for the tunnel.
Continuity.
I didn't expect to be in Chicago for the long haul because of the franchise or my contract. I expected to be here because Grady was here. Because the ice made sense when he was on it. Because I knew where he'd be two seconds before he arrived.
That wasn't ambition. It was orientation.
I pushed through the tunnel doors and stopped.
That hadn't been an interview.
It had been a framing exercise.
Simon Kavanaugh didn't write hot takes or manufacture controversy. He identified patterns.
Warm air hit me as I entered the locker room, damp with steam from the showers and the faint bite of adhesive.
I walked in forty minutes before the video review. Half the team was already there, in various stages of changing or sitting in their stalls scrolling through phones. The equipment staff had left fresh practice jerseys folded on the benches.
Grady sat three stalls down, retaping his stick. His hands moved in smooth, practiced motions—unwrapping the old tape, and smoothing the new layer down with his thumb.
I dropped onto the bench in front of my stall and started unlacing my shoes.
Across the room, a rookie defenseman—Petrie—argued with someone about whether Chicago deep-dish counted as pizza or tomato pie.
Hayes walked past, already changed, heading for the water station. "Video in twenty," he called over his shoulder.
I pulled off my shirt and reached for the practice jersey. The fabric was soft from a hundred washes; the Breakers logo faded but was still sharp enough.
Three stalls down, Grady finished with his stick and set it carefully against the wall.
He stood and stretched, rolling his shoulders once, the fabric of his shirt pulling tight enough to show the shape beneath.
I remembered the weight of those muscles under my hands, how his body had gone still when I touched him there.
He grabbed his water bottle and walked out.
I finished changing and followed a few minutes later.
The video room was already dark when I walked in. Rows of chairs faced a massive screen mounted on the far wall. Most of the team had claimed seats—some guys sprawled out, others sitting forward with notebooks.
Rourke stood near the front with a remote in one hand, talking quietly to one of the assistant coaches.
I took a seat in the third row. Hayes was two spots over. Seb sat directly behind me, and Luke settled in beside him a moment later.
Grady was already in his usual spot in the second row. He didn’t look around. I saw the back of his head, the precise line of his fade, and the set of his shoulders.
Rourke clicked the remote, and footage from our last game filled the screen.
"Breakouts," Rourke said. "Let's start with what worked."
The first clip showed Hayes carrying the puck behind our net. Grady moved up the boards. Hayes hit him clean. Grady pivoted and sent it cross-ice to someone else. Textbook.
"Good reads," Rourke said. "Next."
The second clip started the same way. Hayes retrieving, but this time I was the outlet. I took the pass at the blue line, cut inside, and accelerated through the neutral zone.
The defender committed. I slid the puck back to Grady, who'd kept pace on the weak side. He took the shot. Goal.
"There," Rourke paused the footage. "That's trust. Wilder knows Volkov's staying with the play. Volkov knows Wilder's going to find him."
Someone muttered agreement while Rourke advanced to the next clip.
This one I remembered. High-pressure situation. The other team's forecheck collapsed hard. I had the puck along the boards with nowhere to go.
On screen, I pivoted, scanning. Grady was already moving, reading the lane I needed. I threaded the pass through two defenders. Grady caught it clean and carried it out.
"That's chemistry," Seb said from behind me. "It's not a system. It's knowing."
Rourke nodded. "Right. You can't teach that. You just recognize it when it's there."
He played three more clips. All of them featured Grady and me connecting, always instinctively.
On screen, Grady’s skating was controlled power. His jaw stayed set behind the visor, eyes calm and unblinking even as the play collapsed around him.
He was beautiful on the ice. Devastating in the fundamentals—position, timing, and restraint.
The footage froze on a frame where we were both in motion, the puck between us mid-pass.
"This," Rourke said, "is what we build on."
In the glow from the screen, I looked over.
Grady had already turned his head. He looked at me without flinching, and his awareness landed. He didn’t look away while the footage played above us, displaying what we already knew.
Then he faced forward again.
It had been enough.
The meeting ended ten minutes later. Rourke covered a few more sequences, then dismissed us with a reminder about tomorrow's practice.
The lights came up. Guys stood, stretched, and headed for the door.
I stayed in my seat for an extra moment, letting the room clear. Grady was already gone.
Seb stopped at the end of my row. It was only a moment. He said nothing, then followed Luke out.
I didn’t rush after them. I gathered my bag, stood, and made my way out with the last few stragglers.
The parking garage was cold and cavernous, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
I walked toward my car with my bag over one shoulder, keys already in hand. Most of the team had cleared out. A few vehicles remained scattered across the level—Hayes's truck near the elevator, Petrie's Civic by the exit ramp.
And Grady’s car. A dark Volvo, chosen for reliability, not admiration.
I stopped.
He was sitting in it. Engine off. Sitting there in the near-dark with his hands on the steering wheel.
Not doing anything.
I lost my rhythm for a beat. Every instinct told me to walk over. Tap on the window. Ask if he was okay. Say something that would bridge the distance between us.
I stood there for five seconds. Ten.
Then I walked to my car and got in.
Closed the door. Set my bag on the passenger seat and stared at the steering wheel the way Grady was staring at his.
I started my engine. The sound echoed off concrete, loud in the enclosed space.
In the rearview mirror, Grady's headlights came on.
I put my car in reverse and backed out slowly. Shifting into drive, I headed for the exit ramp.
Behind me, Grady pulled out.
We drove in the same direction. Lake Shore Drive north, traffic light, the city dark against the darker lake. His headlights were two cars back.
For six blocks, Grady followed. Then his turn signal came on, and he exited toward his neighborhood.
I kept going.
In the rearview mirror, his taillights disappeared.
Chicago looked different in winter twilight. The skyline cut sharply against the darkening sky, glass and steel catching the last of the light. I continued north on Lake Shore Drive , then cut west through neighborhoods I'd learned by navigation app and repetition.
I passed through Streeterville, then into River North. Restaurants glowed warmly behind their windows. People walked fast with their heads down against the wind. A guy sold flowers on a corner even though it was eighteen degrees.
The city didn't care whether I belonged. It kept moving at its own pace.
I turned into the garage beneath my building; the door closing behind me with a hollow thud. Grabbed my bag and rode the elevator up alone.
I unlocked my door and stepped into the loft apartment. Exposed brick. Industrial windows. It looked good in photos but felt a little empty when I was alone.
Most of the furniture had come with the lease. I told myself it was temporary until I learned the city better.
Low-slung leather couch. Glass coffee table. A dining table I never used. I didn’t cook, and eating takeout alone at a table felt worse than eating it on the couch.
The kitchen was open-concept and spotless. I barely touched it.
The only warmth was the plant.
It sat on the windowsill above the sink, a succulent the woman at the shop had promised was impossible to kill. I bought it the second week I was in Chicago.
It was still alive, but barely. The leaves looked grayish and slightly shriveled. I kept forgetting to water it, and then overcompensated by drowning it.
I pulled a protein shake from the fridge and twisted the cap off. Drank it standing at the counter while traffic noise filtered up from the street below.
My phone sat on the granite next to my keys.
Should I text Grady? Make sure he understood what the look meant? Ask if he was okay?
I stared at the phone.
The shake was gone before I registered drinking it. I rinsed the bottle and set it in the dish rack.
My phone buzzed.
It was a group text from two of the younger guys making plans for dinner tomorrow. I sent back a thumbs-up and carried the phone to the couch.
Opened my thread with Grady.
Stop pretending you don't want this.
Every part of me wanted to reach out. Give him something concrete to hold on to so he'd know I wasn't playing games or testing boundaries.
I wanted to say something decisive. Name it. Fix the shape of it.
That's what I'd always done. Moved fast. Claimed space. Named what I wanted before anyone else could define it for me.
I leaned back against the leather and stared at the ceiling. The apartment settled around me. Quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the occasional car horn from the street.
Waiting for Grady was hard. It was like standing still while the play developed around me, trusting the gaps would open instead of forcing them myself.
Maybe it was working. He'd looked at me in the dark and didn't look away. That mattered more than words.
I placed my phone face down on the coffee table.
I chose patience. I could wait for Grady to catch up, give him space to figure out that wanting me wasn't the same as losing control.
The apartment grew darker as the sun dropped behind the skyline. I didn't get up to turn on the lights.
I sat there, how Grady had sat in his car before driving away alone.
Both of us in the dark.
Both of us waiting.