Page 24 of Offside

Their low forward collected it and tried to come out on my right. The old play was to reach across his body, put my top hand through his hands, and lift his stick while I drove him off the puck.

I kept the right elbow down. One step closed the route to the crease. My hip met his. The shoulder took contact inside the range Declan and Reyes had cleared, tight to my body instead of extended.

He had nowhere to go. He sent the puck back up the wall. Eriksson challenged the point, and the pass across the blue line arrived behind the other defenseman's skates and forced him out of the zone. Thirty seconds gone.

They came back in with speed. Their center carried through the middle and pulled both our forwards toward him. Garrett held the far side. I watched the hands at the goal line.

The center looked left and passed right. I'd already moved. My blade covered the seam before the puck reached it, and the pass struck my stick and kicked toward the boards.

Their winger got there first. I stayed between him and Kieran while Garrett closed from the blue line. No hit, no fight for a puck with my arm away from my body. We pinned him against the wall until the puck worked loose under his skate. Luca dug it out and sent it the length of the ice. The building rose with the clear.

Twenty-three seconds remained on the clock when Nashville regained the zone. Their point man shot through Eriksson's legs. Kieran kicked the puck to the right circle.

I turned before the rebound landed. The Nashville forward reached it with an open net on his left. I couldn't get my right arm high enough to take away the shot, so I put my stick flat in front of his blade and drove through the lane with my feet.

He shot into my shin pad.

The puck dropped. Garrett cleared it off the glass, and Hayes came out of the box as the horn sounded.

Kieran stayed in his crease for a second with both hands on his knees. Then he straightened and hit the back of my left leg with his stick.

"You blocked my view," he said.

I tapped my shin pad with the blade of my stick. "I stopped the puck. You're welcome."

Kieran skated away before I could see that he was smiling.

The shoulder burned. It had taken the wall contact. I moved the arm once as we lined up to salute the crowd, felt the limit where it had been all month, and stopped there.

It was enough for the night.

Hayes had reserved the back half of the Korean barbecue restaurant for seven-thirty. By seven-forty, Volkov had taken charge.

He moved between two neighboring tables with a pair of tongs in each hand, cooking short ribs on one grill and turning pork belly on the other. Morrison sat across the first grill from him, his coat still on.

"Those aren't your tongs," Morrison pointed out.

"They're in my hands," Volkov said.

Morrison held out one hand for the tongs. "That doesn't make them yours. You took them from me."

"It's the fastest form of ownership." Volkov shrugged innocently.

Morrison looked at Hayes, who lifted both hands. "I told him one grill."

"One grill cannot serve a team," Volkov said.

Theo had taken the chair beside Luca and pulled it close enough that their thighs touched. Luca turned a piece of meat on their grill and handed the tongs to Theo. He took them back when Theo reached over the grate with his cuff too close to the heat.

"I had it," Theo said, his sleeve still hanging toward the flame.

Luca rolled Theo's cuff back. "You had fabric over fire, Callahan."

"It was under control."

"Not your control," Luca argued.

Abbott sat beside Hayes at the end of the center table. Hayes kept passing him food without asking. Abbott ate it without interrupting the story Garrett was telling across from them.