Page 144 of Full Contact

“No, that’s gone.”

“Can you hold a stick?”

“I held one for the rest of the shift.”

She didn’t think that was funny. She taped it, watched me make a fist, and sent me back out with instructions to tell her if anything changed. Nothing changed. We won four-two.

After the game, the locker room echoed with the sounds of victory. Heath played Bon Jovi loud, and he had an arm around Rafe’s shoulders, trying to get him to sing along.

Varga dropped onto the bench across from Rook’s stall with his jersey around his elbows. “I want to discuss your drill.”

“It’s a two-on-one,” Rook said.

“It’s a two-on-one where I backcheck two hundred feet and never touch the puck.”

“That’s the part I added.”

Markel had liked it enough to run it twice that morning.

“Explain it again,” Varga said.

“I explained it at breakfast.”

“I wasn’t listening to you at breakfast. I was eating my breakfast.”

Rook put down his tape and explained it again, using two gloves for the attackers and a water bottle for the backchecker on the floor between them. Varga asked where the water bottle was supposed to be when the puck carrier cut to the middle. Rook moved the water bottle.

Callahan leaned over from two stalls down. Sometime in late fall he’d stopped apologizing before he asked questions.

“If I’m the defenseman, where do I go?”

“Wherever he isn’t,” Rook said, pointing at Varga.

“That’s my whole career,” Varga said.

The trainer looked at my wrist again before I showered. A little swelling had risen along the outside. She wanted it iced overnight and rechecked in the morning before practice.

“If it’s worse, we image it.”

“It won’t be worse.”

At my stall, I cut off the game tape and rewrapped the wrist, firmer this time, up around the base of my thumb. The room was emptying out.

There was a text from Mark, sent an hour earlier.

Mark: Broadcast truck lost power in the second. I spent the period in a loading dock with a man holding a flashlight. Saw the third. You looked good. Heading home to work on tomorrow’s questions for Graham. I have eleven. Leah says I need four.

I looked at the tape and considered sending a message about it. Mark had a call tomorrow morning about the rest of his career. A wrist that might be fine by then would only give him one more thing to worry about tonight.

Kieran appeared with his bag over his shoulder. He’d been on the ice for the hit. He looked at the tape on my wrist, then at the phone lying on the bench beside me.

“Does Mark know?”

“It isn’t serious.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I started winding the leftover tape back onto the roll. Kieran didn’t move, and he didn’t put his bag down.