Page 39 of Power Play

“Three people already asked about her,” she said, into the dark, not to Gerald. “The lady said she won’t be there long. The lady was smiling when she said it.”

I didn’t have an answer, so I didn’t make one up.

“She was looking right at me,” Iris said. “Like she knew me already.”

“Cats look at everyone.”

“Not like that, Daddy.” She said it patiently, as if I was capable of understanding if I’d only try.

Her hand found mine in the dark, as it always did at the end of the night. She dropped off mid-breath. She only crashed that hard when she’d run herself out completely.

I walked out to the kitchen and put both hands on the counter with only the light over the stove on.

Delaney opened the casita door for a glass of water and found me standing there in the half dark with no glass and no reason, and she didn’t remark on it. She never did. I stood at my own counter and wanted her, in plain words, and asked about a rescue.

“What was the name of it?” I said. “The rescue.”

She told me it was Desert Tails, out past Glendale.

“Okay,” I said.

She waited with her hand on the tap to see whether I had more. I didn’t. She filled her glass and said goodnight and pulled the casita door shut behind her.

I killed the light and headed for bed. I was losing on the kitten. Iris had moved on from asking directly to the long game.

The drawing stayed on the counter, blank side up. I left it there.

I was halfway out of my gear when Calloway came to the door of his office. He didn’t call a player in front of the room. He waited until the stalls had emptied and the only sound left was a shower running behind me. Then he said Kovac, one word, turned back inside, and left the door open.

I put my shirt on and followed him in, shut the door behind me, and sat down. The chair in there was too low for me.

“Your reads are off,” he said. He sat with his forearms on the desk, nothing between us but a tablet lying face down. “It wasn’t bad. Half a beat slow. You’re thinking about something on the ice.”

I said nothing. He didn’t need me to.

“Monday, third period, gap coverage. Three separate reads a second late. Nobody scored on it. That’s luck, and I don’t build a defense corps out of luck.”

“No.”

“That’s not your game.”

“No. It isn’t.”

He let the quiet run. Calloway did that to players and it was never a coaching trick. He was deciding whether the next sentence was worth the air. He decided it wasn’t.

“Handle it,” he said. “We’ve got Harker’s team the first week of December and he’s going to run his top line at whoever’s soft. I’d like that not to be you.”

“It won’t be.”

“Good.” He pulled the tablet back. “Go home.”

I got up. At the door he said my first name, which he’d done only a handful of times in two seasons, and I stopped with my hand on the handle.

“Whatever it is,” Calloway said, “it’s allowed to be a thing. It’s not allowed to be a thing on my ice.”

I said I understood. I did.

The corridor was empty except for Kasperi, sitting on the floor with his phone six inches from his face. His head snapped up the instant I cleared the door.