Page 99 of Breakaway
"Hey, Kyle."
"Morning. You're up early."
"I'm always up early."
"You're up early and calling me, which is different." I can hear his office chair, the creak of the leather. "What's going on?"
"I need to talk to you about my contract."
"What about it?"
"The buyout clause. Walk me through it again."
"I walked you through it when we signed it."
"Again, Kyle."
"All right." A keyboard on his end. He goes through the high-level notes about sixty days’ written notice, forfeit of future earnings.
"How clean is it?"
"Clean. I wrote it that way for a reason."
"You planned for this."
"I planned for you to have the option. What you do with it is yours." A pause. "Are we having the conversation I think we're having?"
"Yeah, I think we are."
"Good." He says it plain. "When did you want to start the process with the team?"
"Atlanta's here Wednesday. I need to tell Luca first, and I want to do it in person."
"Okay" His voice shifts. "Here's what I need. After you talk to him, call me. Friday at the latest. I'll set a meeting with the front office for early next week."
"What if I'm not ready by Friday?"
"You'll be ready by Friday."
"Kyle."
"You'll be ready. Call me Friday." A beat. "And Wes. You're having the best season of your career. You could play two more years and nobody would question it. The fact that you're choosing to leave when the ice is still yours is the part that's going to matter."
"Thanks, Kyle."
"I want to hear from you by Friday."
The line goes quiet. I rinse the cup and set it in the rack next to the space where his cup would go.
Practice is at ten. The ice is good, fresh cut, the edges biting right. I take my shifts in the drill and Paulson is on my wing and the puck moves the way the puck moves when the legs are working and the hands are working and everything above the neck is somewhere else entirely.
After practice Paulson asks if I want to grab lunch. He talks about his daughter's soccer league, a tournament in Boca next month. He is describing the bracket system with the intensityof a man who believes his seven-year-old is being strategically underseeded.
"She's better than her ranking," he says.
"She's seven."
"She's seven and she's better than her ranking. The coach has her at outside mid when she should be playing striker. She scored four goals in the last tournament and they've still got her on the wing."
