Page 116 of The Off Limits Captain
I want to see him too.
I buy the ticket anyway.
Then I text Sierra, Roman Keene’s girlfriend, a law student who adopted me my second week in town and decided we were friends before I got a vote.
Peyton: Section 312. Are wives allowed in the upper deck?
Sierra: We are allowed anywhere. We choose not to sit in family seats with women who want me to host things.
Sierra: I will be there at 7:15. Bring snacks.
Peyton: What kind?
Sierra: The bad kind. If Colt’s nutritionist would frown, buy two.
At seven-fifteen, Sierra is already in Section 312 with her hood up and a legal textbook balanced on one knee. She looks like someone who rejects better seats as a moral position.
I hand her Hot Cheetos, Pringles, two Snickers, and a bottle of Diet Coke big enough to require a plan.
“You understood the assignment,” Sierra says.
“I am a professional.”
“Formerly credentialed, currently snack-competent.”
“Put that on my tombstone.”
Sierra slides over. I sit.
“Scared?” Sierra asks, opening the Pringles. “Being here. Watching him. All of it.”
“Of what?”
“All right. A little.”
“Good. Means you are paying attention.” Sierra offers the can. “Chip?”
The teams come out for warmups.
From up here, Ryan is a shape first. Number twenty-one. Crimson and gold. The same controlled rhythm. The same low glide through the neutral zone. Then he turns, and my body recognizes him before my brain finishes the job.
I am not supposed to want him from the cheap seats.
That does not stop anything.
Sierra watches the ice instead of me. “You know what I like up here?”
“The stairs?”
“The pattern. Power play setups. Defensive gaps. Which guy hides on the backcheck.” She opens the Cheetos. “And nobody up here is watching you instead of the game.”
I look around.
Fans in jerseys. Kids with nachos. A man explaining icing wrong to a woman who clearly knows better and is letting him live.
The usual machinery is gone: PR, glass, credential, angle.
Just hockey.
