Page 299 of Across His Line

“Probably.”

She doesn’t smile. She has her paper notebook against her chest. But something in her face is very pleased and trying not to show it, which I recognize.

The draft meant they owned me. My rights. A name on a list in their office. This is different. This is come work for us.

The room is the same as the one after the draft. A long table. Morley. The GM. The woman with the binder, who smiles at me for the first time. Sato is next to me.

They tell me what they want. A three-year entry-level contract. They tell me the rest of the summer: their strength program, a coach who’ll check in every week, a nutrition plan, a list of things to fix that I already know by heart. They tell me rookie camp is in September. Then main camp. Then they decide where I play.

“We’re not promising you a job in the NHL in October,” the GM says. “I want to be clear about that.”

I nod.

“You’ll probably start the year in the American League. With our affiliate. You could spend the whole year there. Maybe two.”

“Okay.”

“And if you sign this, you’re done at Woodbury. You understand that. You don’t get to go back.”

I think about Woodbury. The Grizzlies. Corvin Hall. The third floor. Tess won’t be there. The rink. Barnes, on my left. Kennebeck going to the net before I look up. Berwyn.

“I understand,” I say.

“Still want it?”

Fuck yeah. “Yes.”

The woman with the binder slides a folder across the table. It’s thick. Stapled. My name on the first page.

I reach for the pen.

Sato is looking at the GM. “He’s going to read it,” she says. “All of it. And then he’s going to ask you questions. And then he’ll sign. Can we have the room for an hour?”

The GM looks at her for a second. Then he nods. They all get up and go out, Morley last, and Morley looks back at me from the door, and something happens at the corner of his mouth.

Sato makes me read it. All of it. Every page. The salary, and what it is if I’m in the NHL and what it is if I’m in the AHL, which is a different number. It’s a lot less. She makes me say it out loud. The signing bonus. The bonuses for games played. What happens if they send me down. What happens if they call me up. What happens if I get hurt. Who pays for what. What two-way means. What the clause on page eleven means, which I don’t understand, and she makes me read three times until I do.

It takes an hour and twenty minutes.

“Why?” I say, at one point. My head’s pounding. “You already read it. You could just tell me.”

She looks at me over her glasses.

“Because your name’s on it,” she says. “Not mine. You should know what it says.”

And I sit there with that. My whole life, my father read everything for me. Contracts for junior teams. Applications. The paperwork for Woodbury. The first page of every document that ever had my name on it. He’d read it in his office, and then he’d hand it to me, already flagged, with a sticky note on the line where I was supposed to sign. Sign here, Rafferty. I never read one. I didn’t think I was supposed to.

I read this one. Every word.

Before I sign it, I call him.

I don’t have to, and after everything, it feels weird to, but I know it’s not fucking weird. I don’t need him to tell me it’s okay. I don’t need permission. I just want him to know. From me. Before anybody else.

He picks up on the first ring.

“They offered,” I say.

“What do you think?” he says.