Chapter 15
Evan
Iwas skating the best practice of my preseason when the whistle pulled me off the ice.
Not the coach’s whistle. This was the long one reserved for personnel issues and immediate attention.
Sully waited at the boards with my phone.
“It’s Mark,” Sully said, handing me the phone. His expression was carefully neutral. “Take it in the tunnel.”
The tunnel between the rink and the locker rooms was concrete and cold, the kind of space designed for function rather than comfort. My skate guards clicked against the rubber matting as I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Evan.” Mark’s voice had the particular energy it took on when numbers were moving fast in directions that required decisions. “This just got real. Seattle is down a top-four defenseman. ACL, out for the season. They want you. They’re offering eight years, eleven-point-two AAV.”
Eight years. Eleven-point-two million per year. Eighty-nine-point-six million total.
The offer was real.
The money was more than San Antonio could match.
“Seattle’s negotiating directly with our front office,” Mark continued. “Sign-and-trade framework. San Antonio gets draft capital, Seattle gets you. Both sides are motivated. This could move fast.”
“How fast?”
“Days, not weeks. They want you in uniform for the season opener.”
The tunnel felt smaller. I leaned against the concrete and let the information hit.
I didn’t want to go.
I did not want to leave San Antonio. Not Lena’s kitchen.
Not Ranger, who would sit in the passenger seat of any truck I drove but would not understand why the route had changed.
Not Brick, who could read a room before the room knew it was in trouble.
Not Colt and Mack, veterans who kept a bench from tipping too far in either direction.
Not Ryan, steady and quiet in the way only a real captain could be.
Not Finn, all fire and bruised-knuckle conviction, still trying to prove he belonged even after everyone else already knew he did.
Not the rink I had been skating on since I was twenty years old, where the ice had my grooves worn into it and the cold smelled like home.
Not her.
“Evan?” Mark’s voice, impatient. “You there?”
“I’m here.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s all I’ve got right now. I’ll call you back.”
I ended the call.
The tunnel was quiet. The faint sounds of practice filtered through the walls: blades, whistles, the crack of pucks against boards.
My team. My rink.
On my way back to the rink, the corridor passed the open door of a conference room in the administrative wing.
Through it, I could see David Walsh at the head of the table, Silas to his right, both of them on speakerphone with someone I could not hear.
Walsh was gesturing with one hand, unhurried, the way Walsh gestured when he was negotiating and wanted the person on the other end to think he was not. Silas was taking notes.
They were not negotiating with me.
They were negotiating about me.
The call had gone out before I had made it off the ice.
I kept walking.
I returned to the rink entrance and stood in the gap where the rubber matting met the ice, one foot in each world.
The team was running a breakout drill. Brick was directing traffic from center, Mack had planted himself net-front like a man daring anyone to move him, and the rookies were burning themselves out trying to look like they belonged. Sully was barking corrections.
Same room. Same life.
Except it was not.
Sully appeared at my shoulder. He did not look at me. Just stood there, hands on his hips, watching the drill.
“Good news or bad?”
“Both.”
“Thought so. You want ten minutes?”
“No.”
“Then finish practice. Whatever the number is, it’ll still be there when the horn blows.”
He skated onto the ice without waiting for a response.
Samantha was along the far boards, camera raised, steady in the middle of the chaos.
For one reckless second, I wanted to cross the ice and tell her about the offer and the number that should have thrilled me.
Instead, I stepped back onto the ice, joined the drill at the position I had left, and spent the remaining forty minutes of practice performing the role of a man who had everything under control.
Brick coasted up beside me during a water break and looked at me three seconds longer than casual.
“You good?” he asked.
“Fine.”
He did not believe me. I did not need him to. I just needed the next forty minutes to pass without anyone seeing the cracks.
Across the ice, Samantha lowered her camera and held my eyes.
Not assessing. Just looking.
I looked away.
If I held her gaze, she would see exactly how much trouble I was in.