Chapter 17: Game One

Gianna sat in the second row behind our bench in a red Harbormen jersey with MARCHETTI across the shoulders.

She had done her hair, and she waved at me with two fingers.

I did not wave back.

Cillian stood beside me on the bench, tall and silent, with his gloves on and his eyes straight ahead.

"She's staring at the back of your head," he said.

"I know."

"Want me to say something?"

"Win," I said. "That's what you say."

The Harbormen opened with the power play I had drawn them three seasons ago.

They ran it exactly the way I'd written it, and I turned my tablet toward the defense and tapped the left point twice.

"Trap the second pass."

Cillian relayed it in four words, and the Ironclads trapped the second pass.

The puck died at the blue line.

Dario's line went back to the bench, and he sat down with his helmet in his hands.

He looked up once, found me, and looked away.

In the second period the Harbormen changed their breakout.

They had never changed it in ten years, and they did it now because nobody at their bench could read my notebooks.

I knew the new one in six seconds.

It was a bad copy of the old one, with the weak side left open.

"Wide on the left," I said.

Cillian skated out on the next shift, took the pass off the boards, and went the length of the ice.

He beat the goalie high on the glove side.

Hudson Arena came apart.

He skated past our bench and jabbed his stick once toward me, and the whole building saw it.

Behind me, I heard Gianna clap, politely, three times.

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