Chapter 7 — TEO
The baby gate is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in a professional hockey facility, and I’ve seen Berger try to fight a vending machine.
It’s to keep the kittens contained, but Kerimore, Avi’s cat, looks done with all of them and would like them to leave now.
Ten-week-old kittens climb over one another and blankets, plus anything else that stays still. And today is adoption day.
“Look at her little face,” I say, gripping the gate. “I can’t take this. I’m going to pass out.”
“Her face is mathematically identical to the other faces,” Berger says. “They possess standard kitten dimensions.”
“Were you or were you not the one who built a spreadsheet ranking them on the day they were born?” Thompson asks.
Thompson is at the wall by the doorframe.
Arms crossed. Not getting a kitten. Eleven goals this season.
Nineteen assists. But zero Avi Praise. He and Fontenot tied in Berger’s system, and Fontenot broke the tie because Avi praised his breakout pass, said it had nice hands, and there were witnesses.
Thompson has spent the whole season playing solid hockey instead of trying to get the captain’s attention, and in Berger’s universe that’s a strategic error. Thommo showed up anyway.
In this system, I get to go first. I’ve known I was first since Berger posted the final leaderboard in the group chat two nights ago and Thompson replied with a single exclamation point. Most devastating punctuation this roster has ever seen.
I step over the baby gate and crouch down.
Five kittens. All five doing something. The orange tabby is asleep with one paw over her face.
The gray one is trying to scale the baby gate with a focus I admire.
I pick up the orange tabby. She’s warm. Her whole body vibrates against my chest, this tiny motor through my shirt.
I put her down, pick up the gray one, who gives me a look that says I’ve interrupted a summit meeting.
I put her down and go back to the orange tabby.
She’s awake now. One ear angled toward me like she heard the whole audition and has notes. I pick her up again and she tucks against my chest and I’m done.
“Marchetti.” Thompson says from the doorframe. “You are not selecting a draft pick.”
“This is harder than a draft pick.” I have the kitten against my chest and my phone in my other hand. “Ma, I’m sending you a picture. Tell me if this is the one.”
“Matteo? What is happening?”
“I’m holding a kitten.” I take the picture and send it. “Look at your messages.”
A pause and then, “Oh, Matteo. She looks exactly like Nonna’s cat. The one from the photograph.”
“I know, Ma.”
“That’s a sign.”
“I know it’s a sign.”
“Your nonna is going to cry. MAMA! MATTEO GOT A KITTEN!” A noise in the background. A cabinet, or Nonna’s elbow.
“Six minutes,” Berger announces behind me.
I hang up after Ma tells me twice more to call Nonna. The kitten is warm against my chest. I take three pictures, three angles, and she doesn’t look at the camera for any of them.
M?kinen goes second. Points at the gray one. Picks it up. It sits on his shoulder like it was built for the purpose.
“I will call him Jari,” M?kinen says.
“Eleven seconds,” Berger says. “M?kinen has set the standard and Marchetti should be embarrassed.”
Berger goes third. He picks up the one that’s been yelling at its siblings from the corner.
“Perfect match,” Thompson says from the wall. His jaw is set but his voice is the dry deadpan it always is.
Brooks is in the corridor just past the doorway.
Clipboard in hand. Tyler beside him. He’s watching the room the way he watches everything at work, present and professional and separate.
His eyes move across the room and catch on me and the kitten against my chest. Our eyes hold for a second longer than he would with another player.
Then he looks away. The looking away is careful. Practiced.
But this time what lands with it is the specific ache of not being able to cross the room. I want to hold up this kitten and say look what I got, the way I’d say it to anyone who mattered.
He’s wearing the team-issued navy polo. I can’t tell from here if the pen in his breast pocket is the good one or the facility one with the crooked logo.
I gave him the pens weeks ago. I don’t know if the box is in a drawer or on a table or in the trash, and I don’t know how to find out without asking.
I look away from the corridor. The kitten hooks one paw into my collar.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Get comfortable.”
Fontenot is last. He’s at the gate with his arms crossed, staring at the remaining kitten asleep in the blankets.
He didn’t even know he was in the ranking until Berger posted the final results.
He drops his arms. Picks her up with both hands.
Holds her against his chest with a grip that says anyone who tries to take her will lose fingers.
“Nonna says only wet food,” I tell him. “Paté.”
“What brand? I bought the blue bags. Is the blue bag wrong?” Fontenot looks worried that he’s doing it wrong already.
“I’ll ask her.”
Berger finds me in the hallway after. The kitten is in my hands and I’m trying to get her to look at the camera for a video. She’s looking everywhere except the lens. Power move. I respect it.
“Marchetti. Solid selection. The tabby was my second pick.”
“You had a second choice?”
“I had a draft board, a mock draft, and a trade scenario in case someone wanted to swap.”
“Of course you did.”
He falls into step beside me. The kitten puts one paw on his finger when he reaches toward her. Then pulls it back and tucks into my shirt.
“She’s particular,” Berger observes.
“She’s a Marchetti cat. We’re particular about new people.”
“I’m not new people.”
“You’re new to her.”
We walk. He tells me about his plans for an Instagram account tracking her development through a series of metrics he’s already designed. I’m listening but I’m also watching the tabby sleep against my forearm because she decided mid-sentence that she was done being awake.
“I’m going to name her after someone from one of the books we’ve read,” I say. “I haven’t decided who yet.”
“You could name her after the character in the first hockey book we read.”
“Valentina? I don’t know. She doesn’t seem like a Valentina.” I contemplate putting that big of a name on her and it’s not working for me.
“What about the other character, Alan?”
“No. Not feeling that either.” Then it hits me. “Maybe Valentina’s best friend. The sidekick comic relief guy, Parker.”
“Male names on female cats is a strong aesthetic choice. And it’s not that masculine.”
I watch the kitten, snuggled in my arm, trusting me with her life. “Yeah. Parker. I think it fits her.”
“Parker is excellent for a cat.” He considers this with the gravity of a man evaluating a Supreme Court nominee. “Does this naming after a romance book character relate to your general emotional investment in the genre, or is this more of a personal attachment to the specific character?”
I look at him. The hallway is empty. Just us and a sleeping kitten. Berger is asking the question the way Berger asks every question, direct and without any awareness that it might be a loaded one.
Over the months, Berger has become one of my closest friends on the team. Maybe it was our love of food and ranking restaurants, or book club, or a dozen other things we have in common. And friends don’t keep secrets.
“Both,” I say.
“Both meaning the books are personal?”
“Meaning I’m gay, Berger.” I glance over to check his reaction. “The books are personal because the love stories are good, but Parker feels personal to me. He’s a guy who likes guys. I’m a guy who likes guys. So yeah. Both.”
He nods. Once. Not dramatic. Not a pause for processing. A Berger nod.
“That tracks,” he says.
“That tracks?”
“Your reading preferences, your investment in the Parker-Graham arc specifically, your general energy. It tracks.”
“My general energy?”
“You have an energy. It’s fine. It’s good energy.” He extends his finger toward the kitten again. She opens one eye. Evaluates him. Closes it. “Parker Marchetti. Strong name.”
And for a second I almost say the rest of it.
Berger is walking beside me and the hallway is empty and he just took the biggest thing I’ve told anyone on this team and filed it without blinking.
I could tell him the next part. The part about the trainer with the clipboard who was standing in the corridor ten minutes ago.
I could say it and Berger would nod again and it would be fine.
But the secret isn’t just mine. It’s his too. Whatever this is between us, I don’t get to hand it to someone else without his say. Even someone I trust. Even Berger.
So I let the hallway stay quiet for a beat, and then I say, “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You’ve decided.”
He’s not wrong. She’s asleep on my forearm and her name is Parker. Berger can see it because Berger sees everything and says all of it out loud, and I would not trade this man for any teammate I’ve ever had.
Parker breathes against my arm, her ribs barely big enough to feel but I feel them.
This warm small weight that is mine now.
I pull out my phone and open the group chat and type the name and send it before I can second-guess it.
Then I pocket the phone and keep walking, Parker tucked against my chest, Berger already ranking all five kittens by temperament beside me.