CHAPTER 28
BENNETT
Tacoma practices like a team with no sentimental attachment to me.
Good.
Sentiment gets in the way of honest evaluation, and I am tired of rooms that lie because they want something.
The Vipers skate fast, hit hard, and communicate in short, sharp bursts.
Their systems are more aggressive than Portland's, built on pressure and punishment.
Coach Renner puts me on the second defensive pair for drills, then the penalty kill, then a late-game simulation designed to test whether my legs can still make decisions after my lungs start burning.
They can.
My shoulder is less cooperative.
Halfway through practice, Keane sends a pass too far behind me. I reach back on instinct. The joint catches. Pain flashes hot down my arm, and for a fraction of a second my right hand loses strength on the stick.
The puck skips away.
Keane sees it.
So does Coach Renner.
Nobody says anything.
That is worse.
After practice, the trainer introduces himself as Eli and gestures toward the exam room.
"Coach wants baseline testing."
"I had medical clearance before the trade."
Eli gives me the tired look of a man who has heard every athlete lie and ranked them by creativity. "Then this will be easy."
It is not easy.
He measures range of motion, strength, swelling. He asks when the pain started. I say January. He looks at the bruising and writes something down. He asks how many injections I had in Portland. I say enough. He stops writing and looks at me over the clipboard.
"That is not a number."
"No."
"This shoulder is one hard hit away from making decisions for you."
"I know."
"Do you? Because most players say I know when they mean I do not care."
I think of Maren in the elevator, telling me I am not invincible like she was reading a medical report written on my bones.
"I know," I say again, quieter.
Eli studies me. "We are not Portland. I do not work for your old GM. If you hide something and get hurt worse, that is on you. If you tell me the truth, I might keep you playing longer."
Truth.
People keep offering me the word after I have already proven how badly I handle it.
"I can play through the first round," I say. "After that, we reassess."
"That is a negotiation."
"It is the best one I have."
He makes another note. "You will do treatment after every practice and game. You will stop pretending your right side is decorative. And if it separates, I pull you myself."
"Fair."
"No, Hayes. Fair would have been dealing with this two months ago. This is damage control."
The phrase lands so sharply I almost laugh.
I leave the training room with ice taped to my shoulder and walk into the media corridor because apparently pain is not enough for one day.
David Vance is waiting.
He has the expression of a man who found meat in a room full of vegetarians.
A camera operator trails him. A younger reporter stands behind his right shoulder, trying to look casual while angling her recorder closer. I know the choreography. Vance does not ask questions for answers. He asks them for impact.
"Bennett," he says. "A few questions?"
"I have three minutes."
Lindsay materializes near the wall, tablet in hand, calm enough that I understand immediately she was expecting this. Good PR people move like defensemen. The best ones are already in the lane before the shot leaves the stick.
Maren taught me that.
Vance smiles. "Did Maren Whitaker advise you to waive your clause before the trade?"
There it is. He does not warm up. He goes straight for her.
My first instinct is to shut the question down with my body. Step closer. Lower my voice. Make the room uncomfortable enough that he backs off.
That instinct has cost me enough.
I keep my feet still.
"No," I say.
"So you made the decision alone?"
The old answer would be yes. Clean. Protective. A locked door.
I think of the hotel room, of deleting the apology because it would ask too much from her too soon. I think of Paul saying vacuum. I think of Marcus's clean packet and Maren's face at the back of the press room.
"I signed the paperwork," I say. "That part is mine. The circumstances around it are not something I am going to reduce to a hallway quote."
Vance's eyes sharpen. Lindsay's fingers move on the tablet.
"Were you pressured?"
"I am here to play for Tacoma," I say. "I will cooperate with any appropriate review if asked through the proper process."
It is not poetry. It is not confession. It is not enough.
But it does not throw Maren into the boards to protect me.
That is a start.
Of course he is.
He stands near the Vipers backdrop with a camera crew and that patient smile that makes men want to say too much.
"Bennett," he says. "A few questions?"
"Ask Tacoma PR."
"They approved two minutes."
Lindsay appears at his shoulder with a tablet and a look of apology.
Fine.
Two minutes.
Vance turns on his recorder. "How does it feel to leave Portland under such unusual circumstances?"
"I am focused on helping Tacoma win."
"Are you in contact with Maren Whitaker?"
There are a hundred versions of no. Some clean. Some cruel. Some protective in the old way.
I choose the only one that does not take anything else from her.
"I am not discussing her private life."
"I asked about yours."
"Same answer."
His eyes brighten. He likes resistance. It gives him shape to push against.
"She issued a statement today saying she is available to cooperate with any review into recent personnel and communications decisions. Are you concerned she will contradict the version you gave publicly?"
Maren posted a statement.
Something moves in my chest. Not relief. Not hope. Something sharper.
She is moving.
"Ms. Whitaker is accurate by profession," I say. "If she says something, I would listen."
Lindsay's head turns slightly. That was not in the talking points.
Vance smiles. "That sounds like an endorsement."
"It sounds like respect."
The two minutes end after that because Lindsay has mercy.
In the locker room, Keane is taping his stick at the stall beside mine.
"Your old PR manager scares people," he says.
I remove the ice pack from my shoulder. "Good."
"You two a thing?"
I look at him.
He holds up both hands. "Withdrawn. Never asked. My bad."
For the first time since arriving in Tacoma, I laugh. It is short and rusty, but it surprises me enough that Keane grins.
"There he is," he says. "Thought Portland traded us a haunted vending machine."
"You always talk this much?"
"Only when nervous. Or awake."
I sit. The black tape roll waits on the shelf where equipment staff placed it, same brand I use, untouched. I pick it up and start wrapping my practice stick.
Top-down.
Weird, apparently.
The Vipers' room moves around me. Different voices.
Different jokes. No one here knows the exact angle of my pain yet.
No one knows that I used to leave tape in a woman's office because I could not say I wanted to stay.
No one knows that my last act in Portland was designed to protect her and ended up proving I did not trust her.
Maybe that is why it is easier to breathe here.
Not better.
Just easier.
At night, back in the hotel, I open Maren's professional statement.
I read it once as a player.
Then again as a man who knows her.
Every sentence is controlled. Every comma does work. She never accuses. She never begs. She places herself in the record and leaves Marcus nowhere clean to stand if the league starts asking questions.
I should be proud.
I am proud.
I am also lonely in a way that feels earned.
A message from Mac appears.
Mac: She is not signing the NDA. Thought you should know.
I stare at the screen.
Then another message.
Mac: Also, Grant asked if you hate him. I said no, you hate yourself professionally and distribute it poorly.
This time I do laugh.
It hurts my shoulder.
I type back.
Bennett: Tell him I don't hate him. Tell him to skate harder.
Mac: Tell him yourself someday.
Someday.
A dangerous word.
The television on the hotel wall shows the standings. If the season ended tonight, Tacoma would face Portland in the first round.
The graphic places the logos beside each other.
Kodiaks. Vipers.
Maren on one side of the line. Me on the other.
For years, I knew where to stand because hockey made the lines for me.
Now the line is drawn through every choice I have not learned how to undo.
I save Maren's statement to my phone.
Not because I have any right to keep pieces of her.
Because I need to study what respect looks like when it is angry.
She protects herself without using me. She opens a door for review without claiming what she cannot prove. She leaves my name out of the knife even though I handed her the handle.
That is the part that keeps me awake.
Maren could hurt me cleanly and still be justified.
She does not.
I have spent years thinking restraint meant taking pain in silence. Maybe restraint is choosing not to weaponize someone else's pain even when they have earned it.
I do not know how to be that good yet.
But for the first time, I know what direction to skate.
The next morning, I arrive early for treatment.
Eli looks surprised, then wisely decides not to comment on it. He stretches the shoulder, measures the range, and tells me exactly what I do not want to hear without making it sound like a challenge.
I listen.
That is not redemption.
It is not even change yet.
But it is one small decision where I do not turn pain into proof of character.
I leave the room with ice, instructions, and a grudging respect for men who tell the truth before the body forces them to.
Keane is waiting in the hall, pretending not to wait.
"You alive?" he asks.
"Medically inconvenient."
"That sounds like a yes from someone with unresolved issues."
I almost tell him to move.
Instead, I walk beside him toward the rink.
New room. New rules. Same old me, trying to become less useful to the worst parts of myself.
On the ice, that means taking the pass instead of carrying every rush alone. Off it, I am starting to suspect it means the same thing. The thought is simple enough to be embarrassing, and hard enough that I know it will cost me more than one clean morning.