Page 8 of Victory Lap

“Read me the tree.”

I read him the tree. “Number two: ‘He shoots, he scores.’ Retired immediately, don’t look at me like that, it’s a draft. Number six: ‘Some trophies you win. Some you lean into.’ Number nine: ‘The cat knew first.’ Which is true, and factual accuracy matters. Number eleven: ‘Ranked list of things in this photo, worst to best: me, the Cup, the cat’s paw, him.’”

“There’s a fourth branch,” I add. “Sincere jokes that stay jokes. It has one draft. It’s just the word ‘FINALLY’ in caps.”

“Berger will comment on that one second after you post it.”

“Berger is why the branch exists.”

He listens like he watches film, start to finish, no reactions, filing. Number six gets an eyebrow. Number eleven gets the corner of his mouth. When I finish, he’s quiet for a second, looking at the Cup, at the window, at the keeper’s sweet tea, at me.

“None of those,” he says. “Use the words you already said.”

“Which ones I already said?”

“October. First press conference of the season. Someone asked what it’s like playing with me.” He recites it verbatim, like a line he’s been keeping folded in his wallet. “He makes me better. Simple as that.”

The grits arrive. I look at this man through the steam. Everyone in the world heard me say that sentence months ago. Exactly one person in the world knew what it was.

“I love you,” I say, grabbing his hand.

He smiles back, squeezes my hand briefly. “I love you, too.”

The photo is the photo, gold light and the paw on the rim and nobody performing anything. The caption is a quote the league already owns, in a frame that tells them what it always meant. Photo credit where credit is due: B. Fontenot, who was aiming for the cat. One tag, on a brand-new account with one follower and a bio that says Defense.

My thumb hovers.

“Loudly,” Avi says.

I post it.

Then I turn my phone face down on the table next to his, and we eat.

I know what is happening while the shrimp and grits do their quiet perfect thing. Somewhere, a forum with about forty users who have been frame-by-framing our Cup-night celebration since June is having the greatest afternoon in the history of forums. Somewhere, Marco is opening the fridge and pouring champagne in a toast for us. Somewhere, group chats are detonating in sequence like a fireworks finale, and one of them is a book club I am not in, and they can read about it.

The phone buzzes against the formica. Buzzes again. Goes to a soft continuous churn while we eat.

“Verdict?” I ask, when he’s halfway down the bowl. Same table. Same question. Ten months later.

“Acceptable,” Avi says. Same answer from ten months before. Then he sets down his spoon and amends the record for the first time in the history of the scale. “Better than acceptable.”

He said it out loud. In public. He picks his phone up exactly once during lunch. Face stern. Thumbs deliberate. A man conducting business. Across the table my own phone gives one specific buzz among the thousands, and later, in the car, with the Cup belted in behind us and the whole loud world waiting down the road, I’ll find it. First comment on the post. One account. One follower. Bio says Defense.

Adequate.

Full sentence, by his standards. Punctuation and everything. The top of a scale whose ceiling I still haven’t found, deployed in public, under a photograph of him kissing me behind the Stanley Cup.

The room used to end at a hotel door. Inside real, outside real, never let them touch. We let them touch today. On purpose, on our terms, on my day. I keep waiting for the crash and it doesn’t come. It’s just bigger in here now.

Team Chat #2

Berger

LIVE from the internet: EVERYBODY OPEN INSTAGRAM RIGHT NOW

Thompson

we know