Page 110 of Slashed Bonds

And Tuesday, whatever else it is, is a hockey game, and I’ve got my own file on that.

Ashford lost their top pair. That’s Cash’s read and it’s right, but it’s a forward’s read. He sees two new defensemen and thinks breakout. I see two new defensemen and think who’s covering the front of their net when I’m standing in it.

Nobody. That’s the answer. The sophomore pinches, which means he’s forty feet up ice when the puck turns over, and the transfer’s slow to read it, which means there’s a four-second window on every failed pinch where the slot in front of Brandt belongs to whoever gets there first.

Me. Every time. I’ll be there before Brandt knows the puck’s turned.

Their forwards are the other problem. They’ve still got Halvard, the kid with the step, the one who beat me wide in April and drew Cash into the draw he lost. He’s faster than me. He was faster than me last spring and he’ll be faster on Tuesday.

Speed’s not the question. Angle is. I’ve watched Halvard for two seasons and he wants the outside every time, because the outside is where his speed lives, and if I give him the outside I’ve already lost.

So I don’t. I take the wall away first. I make the inside the only lane, and the inside is where I am, and a fast man skating into a wall is a slow man.

It’s the same thing Mori did to Teller. Don’t fight the load. Give it somewhere to go that isn’t through you.

And then there’s the father.

Ashford’s forward who spent six weeks in a neck brace two seasons ago has a father who sits on a board, and the father’s the reason that hit went on my file, and the father will be in the building Tuesday because it’s a home game and men like that don’t miss home games.

I’m going to stand in front of Brandt’s crease for sixty minutes twenty feet from that man’s seat, and I’m not going to look at him once.

That’s the plan. That’s the whole plan.

We ran it this morning. Halloran gave us the ice at seven, the day before a game, which he never does, and he put me on a pair with Okonkwo and put Mori on the left wing ahead of us and told the second line to forecheck like Ashford.

Two men deep, three across the line. Halvard’s speed on the outside, played by Greenie, who’s not as fast and knows it and cheated the timing to fake it.

First rep, the puck came around the boards to me on the half wall with Greenie coming hard down the outside. I took the wall away. Stepped up, stick flat, closed the lane along the boards before he’d committed to it, and he cut inside, because inside was all there was, and inside was where Okonkwo was waiting.

Puck came free. I put it up the wall to Mori.

She didn’t carry. That’s what I’d have done, that’s what any forward on this team would have done, take it and go. She took it in stride, held it a beat with her head up, and slid it back to me at the blue line without looking.

Give and go. Except I hadn’t gone yet.

I went. Through the gap Greenie had left when he cut inside, up the ice with the puck on my forehand for the first time in a game situation in about two years, and she was already through the middle ahead of me, and I put it back on her tape at the far blue line, and she buried it top shelf on Pruitt without breaking stride.

Halloran blew the whistle and didn’t say anything for about four seconds.

Then: “Again.”

We ran it nine times. Nine for nine.

On the last one, skating back, she said, not looking at me, “You’ve got a wrist shot. You never use it.”

“I’m a defenseman.”

“You’re a defenseman with a wrist shot.” A beat. “That’s a different thing.”

I’ve been keeping a file on her for three days. She’s been keeping one on me the whole time.

“If you’re jealous,” I say finally, “say that.”

He isn’t. I know he isn’t. Nikolai doesn’t do jealous. Nikolai does obsession, which is a different animal with a different set of teeth, and I’m the one in this doorway who’s jealous, and I’m not ready for that conversation.

Then again. Maybe he is. Maybe that’s why I’m asking.

“I had Mommy licking my lollipop into oblivion before lunch,” he mutters. “I ain’t jealous for shit.”