7. Grady
Ipicked up a container of Greek yogurt and checked the expiration date.
The grocery store was bright and relentlessly organized. Produce arranged by color gradient. Prepared foods in glass cases lit like jewelry displays. Background music curated to suggest sophistication.
I'd come here because it was three blocks from home and I needed protein. Something simple. Food that didn't require decisions beyond opening a container.
My legs were heavy from bag skates. Rourke had run us hard, punishment for a sloppy third period two nights ago.
I moved through the aisles efficiently. Chicken breast. Eggs. The yogurt. Pre-cut vegetables I'd probably forget to eat before they wilted.
No one recognized me. A few glances, but it was little more than the generic assessment people gave large men in athletic wear. I wasn't wearing team gear. Dressed anonymously in a black hoodie and workout pants.
I turned the corner into the bakery section and nearly walked into Roman Wilder.
He stood in front of the bread display with a baguette in one hand and his phone in the other, reading something on the screen. He wore jeans that fit well, with a navy jacket over a white T-shirt.
"Grady."
Not captain or Volkov.
My name, spoken as if he'd been expecting to run into me.
"Roman."
I considered continuing on my path to the checkout. We weren't required to engage in small talk outside the rink.
Instead, I stopped.
"Didn't know you shopped here," I said.
Roman nearly smiled. "Still exploring the city."
"This is a little far outside your neighborhood."
"Yes." He set the baguette in his basket. "But I heard the bread's good."
He moved how he did on the ice. Balanced. Sure-footed.
I’d seen that ease in practice drills and during games—how he tracked space without looking, never unsure of where he fit.
Here, in a grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon, it didn’t disappear.
If anything, it was harder to miss.
The produce section hummed with customers behind us. A cart rolled past, its front wheel wobbling as it crossed the tile. A woman in yoga clothes examined avocados with surgical precision.
"How's the hamstring?" I asked.
Roman had pulled up slightly in practice yesterday. Nothing serious. He'd waved off the trainer and finished the drill.
"Fine. Tight, not pulled."
"You ice it?"
"Yeah."
Our conversation was professional. Safe. Ordinary locker-room talk.
Except we weren't in the locker room.
We were standing in the bakery section with natural light pouring through the windows. No uniforms. No rules.
"Good," I said.
Roman shifted his basket to his other hand. His shoulders stayed level. Relaxed.
"You got what you needed?"
I looked down at the yogurt container still in my hand. The eggs. Chicken wrapped in plastic.
"Yeah."
Roman nodded toward the checkout. "I should—"
"Right."
He moved past me, close enough that I caught something cool and dry—iris and wood—nothing accidental about it.
Then he stopped.
I turned.
Roman looked at me steadily.
“See you tomorrow, Grady.”
My name.
“Yeah.”
He walked away, unhurried, his basket swinging as he turned the corner toward the checkout lanes.
I walked to a different checkout lane and paid for my groceries. The cashier was efficient and bored. I swiped my card and collected the bag without speaking.
Roman hadn't pushed. He didn't reference his unanswered text or demand anything from me.
He was simply living. In Chicago. In my city. Shopping for bread and running into me without apology or awkwardness.
***
My condo was too quiet when I walked in.
I'd forgotten to adjust the thermostat again. The air had that stale quality of a space left empty all day.
I unpacked the groceries methodically. Yogurt in the fridge. Chicken in the freezer. Eggs beside the milk.
I'd bought a pre-made salad from the deli section. Pulling a fork from the drawer by the sink, I ate standing up.
Kale, quinoa, and grilled chicken that tasted like the plastic container it came in. After eating half of it, I sealed the container and put it back in the fridge.
My phone sat on the counter. Seventeen notifications. Most of them the group chat.
Petrie had sent a meme about Rourke's whistle. Hayes responded with a skull emoji.
One notification was different. It was a news alert from a Chicago sports app.
Kavanaugh: Evolution in Motion—Roman Wilder and the Breakers' Next Phase
I stared at it for three seconds before opening it.
The column loaded quickly. Simon Kavanaugh's byline sat beneath the headline, accompanied by a photo of Roman mid-stride during warmups. Jaw set. Eyes forward.
I leaned against the counter and started reading.
There's a moment in every franchise's trajectory when potential becomes presence. When the future stops being theoretical and starts taking up space in the present tense.
For the Chicago Breakers, that moment arrived the day Roman Wilder stepped onto the ice at Lakeshore Forum
Wilder's adjustment to the NHL has been swift and, frankly, surgical. The tape doesn't lie. His possession metrics are elite. His zone entries create advantages the Breakers have lacked for years. He plays with the kind of instinctive intelligence that can't be taught—only recognized and leveraged.
But what's most striking isn't the skill. It's the calm.
Wilder doesn't play like a man trying to prove he belongs. He plays like he already knows. There's a maturity in his decision-making that transcends his age, grace under pressure that suggests not only talent, but staying power.
In conversations around the league, the question isn't whether Wilder will be a cornerstone of this franchise. It's what that franchise will look like once he is.
I stopped reading.
The column continued—two more paragraphs about pace of play and offensive zone time—but I didn't need to see the rest.
I set the phone down.
Kavanaugh hadn't mentioned me. Not once. He was respectful, observational.
That was the problem.
Simon Kavanaugh didn't write hot takes. He wrote context. He framed narratives in language so reasonable it appeared inevitable. When he said Roman played like he belonged long-term, it wasn't speculation.
It was documentation.
I picked up the phone again and scrolled back to the top.
...the future stops being theoretical and starts taking up space in the present tense.
I'd seen Roman in the grocery store an hour ago. Casual. Comfortable. Exploring the city as if Chicago belonged to him.
And now Kavanaugh was writing about his calm.
He didn't invent a story. He confirmed one that was already forming.
I walked to the living room and sat on the couch. The leather was cold.
I didn't turn on the television. I sat and thought about the article. How Roman didn't need to be framed as a threat to become one.
My phone buzzed. It was Carter Hayes.
I answered.
"Carter."
"Hey." His voice was tight. Stressed. "You busy?"
"No."
"Can you meet me? I need to get out of my head for a bit."
I checked the time. Seven twenty-five.
"Where?"
"That place on Division. The one with the good whiskey selection and the terrible lighting."
"I know it."
"Twenty minutes?"
"Yeah."
He hung up without saying goodbye.
I grabbed my keys and my wallet.
Carter hadn't called to talk about me. He'd called because something was pressing on him, and he needed air.
I could do that. Be present. Listen. Absorb. I was good at that.
***
The bar was called Sullivan's, though no one I knew had ever met a Sullivan there.
It occupied the ground floor of an old brick building. Dark wood. Dim lighting that came mostly from neon beer signs and the glow behind the bar.
Carter stood at the bar when I walked in. He had a whiskey in front of him, half-finished. He saw me and nodded toward the back.
I caught the bartender's attention. Whiskey. Neat. He poured it without asking what brand it was .
Carter picked up his glass and led the way to a booth near the back corner. Worn leather seats. Table surface scarred with years of glass rings.
We sat. He stared at his glass, jaw tight. He looked older than usual under the bad lighting. Shadows deepened in the lines around his eyes.
"Building's being sold," he said.
I waited for him to continue.
"Got the notice two weeks ago. New ownership. They're gutting it. Luxury condos." He said the last part like it tasted wrong. "Gave us sixty days."
"Fuck. You loved—"
"Yeah."
I picked up my drink but didn't sip yet.
Carter had lived in his building for nine years. Longer than most guys stayed anywhere in the league. I knew his place well. Understated and cozy.
"Are you looking at places?" I asked.
"Yeah. Nothing feels right." He finished his whiskey and stood. "Need another?"
"I'm good."
He walked back to the bar. I watched him order. Carter said something that made the guy laugh, then returned with a fresh glass.
"I know it's just a building," he said, settling back into the booth. "But I had it set up the way I wanted. Gym nearby. My routine. A little old-fashioned, but mine."
The jukebox shifted to Bon Jovi.
“My mom keeps calling,” Carter said. “Keeps asking where home is going to be after. Says I should buy something permanent closer to her.”
"After?"
"After hockey."
I took a drink. The whiskey burned cleanly.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I ignored it.
Carter wasn't usually like this. He was steady. Reliable. He showed up and did his job without complaint, a reliable veteran. Chasing stardom was not his style.
"What'd you tell her?" I asked.
"That I'd think about it." He turned the glass in his hands. "She doesn't get it. She thinks hockey's just a job. That I can just... move on to the next thing when it's done."
"Can't you?"
He looked at me. "Can you?"
I didn't answer.
My phone buzzed again.
Carter noticed. "You need to get that?"
"No."
We sat in silence for a minute. The bar hummed around us. Low conversation from other tables, and the crack of pool balls from the table near the bathrooms.