Page 177 of Rookie Rules

For the next three weeks, Luca kept his apartment and went home often enough to prove that care was a choice, not a reinstated duty. Rowan did the less visible work. He accepted Vale's mentorship boundary. He told Finn when fear made him want to retreat. He never once used a bad night between them to change Luca's ice time or correct a good read.

The proof was not elegant.

On the ninth day, Luca arrived after a Boreal fitting with garment bags across the back seat and Nadia's lipstick still stamped on his cheek from a campaign shot Claire had approved. Rowan opened the front door, registered the mark, and stopped speaking.

Luca set down the takeout. "Ask."

"I know what the shoot was."

"Then tell me what is happening."

Rowan's hand closed around the doorknob. The old response would have sent Luca home before the silence became visible. Instead Rowan stepped aside.

"I want an hour," he said. "Not for you to leave. I need to get my head under control."

"Do you want the campaign to stop?"

"No. I want not to hate seeing the evidence. Those are different."

Luca wiped the lipstick away with his thumb. "One hour. Then dinner."

Rowan took thirty-seven minutes. When he returned, he reheated noodles, asked how the fitting had gone, and listened to an entire story about a frozen wind machine without using discomfort as a verdict.

Three days later, they argued over Luca missing a low option during practice. Rowan stopped the clip in front of Vale, stated what he saw, and let Luca challenge it. Vale replayed the overhead angle. Rowan had missed the defenseman's stick closing the lane.

"Bennett's read was available," Vale said.

Every player in the video room waited for the captain to finish the exchange.

Rowan pressed play. "Then I was wrong. Next clip."

He did not seek Luca out afterward for credit. At home that evening, he asked whether the correction had felt clean. Luca said yes. They ate on opposite ends of the sofa because yes did not automatically end the argument that had preceded it.

That mattered too.

The first suitcase appeared after twenty-three days. Then skates, three suits for Boreal fittings, and a box of books Theo mailed only after Luca told him the move was his decision.

Luca carried the suitcase upstairs himself while Rowan, still barred from loaded stairs, stood at the bottom and objected to the angle.

"It has wheels," Rowan said.

"Stairs do not care."

"You are going to damage the wall."

Luca stopped halfway. "Do you want the suitcase here?"

The question stripped the logistics from the moment.

"Yes," Rowan said. "I want it in the bedroom. I also want you to lift from the bottom."

"Romance survives."

Upstairs, Rowan had emptied two dresser drawers and half the closet rail. He had not labeled either. Luca put training clothes in one drawer, T-shirts in the other, then placed a chipped photo frame from college on the nightstand. Rowan adjusted it once so it did not cover the charger and left it there.

On day thirty-two, Rowan placed a key in the lemon bowl.

"This is yours if you still want it," he had said.