Page 52 of The Grumpy Defenseman
“I smirk with admiration.”
I walked away before I committed an act of violence with a telephoto lens.
Evan caught my eye as I passed his bench. He had seen Sandra’s approach. He had seen my reaction. And he was looking at me with an expression that was not a smirk, because Evan did not smirk, but contained something close. Something curious and entirely too observant.
“You played well,” I said.
Simple. The first warm words I had given himin over a week.
His eyes held mine.
“Thanks.”
I left the room with my camera bag and my dignity mostly intact. I only looked back once, which was one time too many and exactly the right amount.
The media room after eight o’clock had a different moral code.
I kicked off my shoes, pulled one knee up into the chair, and kept culling.
Three hundred and twelve scrimmage frames down to thirty selects by nine a.m. That was the assignment. Clean. Technical. Entirely normal.
Brick yelling through a regroup drill. Delete.
Finn mid-collision with the boards, all elbows and righteous fury. Maybe.
Ryan at the bench, one hand on Finn’s shoulder, steadying him without making a production of it. Flag.
Mack beside Sully, stance squared, looking like veteran leadership had become a human being. Flag.
Kowalski laughing at something just outside frame. Keep.
I clicked forward through another burst sequence.
Evan.
Neutral-zone regroup. Stick low. Head turning before the puck did, because his brain lived two seconds ahead of the rest of the building. I moved fast at first. Strong frame, another, then another. Every one of them technically good. Every one of them protected by the same familiar discipline: expression guarded, body closed, nothing accidental given away.
Then Frame 187 loaded.
My hand stopped on the mouse.
I did not breathe.
It was not flashy. That was the problem. No spray of ice. No dramatic collision. No blood, no airborne body, no heroic sports-movie nonsense. Just Evan on the bench between reps, helmet off, one forearm braced over his knee, water bottle hanging loose in his hand. Somebodyhad said something off frame, Mack maybe, maybe Brick, but he was not reacting to them. He was not reacting at all.
For one fraction of a second, he had fallen out of performance and into himself.
Tired. Open. Real.
I leaned closer to the screen.
The overhead lights caught the sweat at his temple and turned it silver. His guard had lowered, just enough. The line of his mouth had gone soft in a way the camera almost never got from him. Behind him, the bench blurred into green and white and arena light, and his face sat in the center of the frame like an answer to a question nobody else had been patient enough to ask.
I sat back. Then leaned forward again, because apparently self-preservation remained more of a hobby than a practice.
My cursor hovered over the flag.
One keystroke.
