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Mack doesn’t look up from his skates. “Woman took the first one.”

“There you go. Mack’s following.”

“Took the truck and the dog.”

“There’s no dog.”

“There’s always a dog.”

“Sierra coming tonight?” Brick asks him.

“Watching from home.”

Roman reaches for the speaker. “One song. Something with a pulse.”

“This has a pulse.”

“It has a tractor.”

Brick holds out a hand. “Give me the fucking speaker.”

I move it between my feet. “Mutiny before warmups. Strong culture.”

There are twenty men in this room and nineteen of them are pretending to argue about music, which is what we do instead of saying out loud that we’re nervous. I’ve been running this particular service for most of my career. It’s not a joke and it’s not an accident, and the night I stop doing it is the night somebody should check on me.

Sully comes through the door before Roman decides whether dignity is worth crawling under my knees. He points at me, then the speaker.

I shut it off.

“Save a little wind for the third, Riley.”

“I’m pacing myself.”

“That’s what worries me.”

He takes us through matchups. Their center is six three, shoots left, and apparently believes a faceoff is a legal excuse to climb inside another man’s jersey.

“He’ll lean on your right,” Sully says.

“Everybody wants something.”

“Win the draw first. Be charming later.”

“No promises on the order.”

Mack taps his stick once against the floor.

I tap mine back.

We have somewhere to be.

The building hits before the puck does.

Nineteen thousand people on their feet, bass coming up through the bench, steel cutting under us while the linesman waits for both centers to stop pretending we’re not already cheating.

Their guy crowds my right hand.

“Buy me dinner first.”