Page 106 of Breakaway
"Math and clinches are different disciplines, and I will not hear otherwise."
He almost smiles. Mueller almost smiling is a nine-point-six on the rarity index.
Avi comes through the room. He moves through the team the way he has moved through it all season, one hand on a shoulder, a nod, his face carrying the full weight of what this locker room has built. When he reaches me he stops.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey, Cap."
"You good?"
"I'm good."
He looks at me. All season he has been giving me this look, the one that checks without pushing. Tonight it is not checking. Tonight it is confirming.
"Good," he says. He squeezes my shoulder once and moves on. Ash is behind him. Ash walks past and clips the back of my head with his palm, light, the way he clips guys when the gesture is the whole sentence, and keeps walking toward the showers.
Marchetti appears at my stall. He is dripping champagne and his hair is plastered to his forehead and his grin is the grin from September, from Day One, from the stall across the horseshoe where the brass played and the room was new.
"I need you to rate this moment. I need an official number."
I hold up one finger. The room quiets. Not fully. Enough.
"The Firebirds' first-season playoff clinch," I say. "Atmosphere: nine-point-four. Champagne: four-point-one, a disgrace. Hájek's empty-netter: nine-point-three, confirmedafter on-ice film review. Thompson's champagne-delivery technique: six-point-seven, uneven distribution, too much on me, not enough on Mueller. Mueller's attempt at a rating: historically significant but mathematically disqualified. The overall evening, inclusive of hockey, locker room, and franchise-historical significance..."
I pause.
"Nine-point-eight."
"Not a ten?" Marchetti shakes his head.
"Nothing is a ten, Marchetti. A ten implies perfection. Perfection implies there is nothing left to want. There is always something left to want."
"I’m glad we’re playing Miami in the wild card," he says.
The sentence lands in my chest and stays there.
"Why Miami?"
"Because I want to beat the team you came from. That's how it works. You beat the team that lost you."
"That is aggressively sentimental, Marchetti."
"I am aggressively sentimental. It's part of my charm."
"Your charm is a six-point-five. Generous."
"My charm is a nine and you know it."
He is not wrong.
Hájek is at his stall, still in his gear, his helmet on the bench beside him. He is looking at the room the way rookies look at rooms when the room has become theirs. I catch his eye.
"Hey, Háj. That shot. Walk me through it."
His face opens. "The puck was just there. Jensen chipped it out and I was at the line and I looked up and the net was empty and I just..." He mimics the release with his hands.
"You just shot it."
