"Let him keep trying."
"If he hurts you—"
"He won't."
Ro's jaw tightened. He'd been like this since my first month in Vegas, since that night at Prism when he'd lifted Chase onto his shoulders and shown me what it looked like to exist without apology.
"I can handle Dorsey," I said.
"You can handle many things. Does not mean you should handle them alone."
Across the room, Bouchard glanced up from his skates. His eyes moved between me and Ro, and then he went back to his laces without comment.
The second period was worse.
Calgary had made adjustments during intermission, collapsing on me every time I touched the puck, taking away the lanes I usually found. I adapted and found new ones. I threaded a pass through traffic to set up Bouchard for a one-timer that rang off the crossbar, and the crowd groaned at the near-miss.
"Good feed," Bouchard said when we passed each other on the bench. Two words. From him, that was practically a love letter.
Dorsey caught me again on the next shift. This one was late, half a second after I'd moved the puck, his shoulder driving into my chest hard enough that my skates left the ice. I landed on my back and slid into the boards, and the whistle blew, and somewhere in the stands seventeen thousand people were screaming.
No penalty. The refs kept their arms down.
I got up. My ribs were on fire now, the bruise deepening with every hit, but I'd played through worse. I'd played through a cracked rib in the playoffs, through a hip that screamed every time I pushed off my left leg, through exhaustion so deep I couldn't remember driving home after games.
This was nothing. This was Tuesday.
Ro was on the ice for the next shift. I watched from the bench as he positioned himself near Dorsey, not engaging, just present. A reminder. Dorsey glanced at him once and skated a little wider, giving himself a little more space.
That was Ro. He didn't have to fight to change the game. He just had to exist, six-foot-seven and two hundred forty pounds, and people made different choices around him.
Bouchard settled onto the bench beside me, his breathing steady despite the shift he'd just finished.
"Dorsey's getting frustrated," he said quietly. "He expected you to stay down by now."
"Sorry to disappoint him."
"Don't be sorry. Be smart." He kept his eyes on the ice, watching the play develop. "Frustrated players make mistakes. But they also stop thinking about consequences."
I understood what he was telling me. Dorsey had started this game trying to send a message. Now he was trying to prove something, and that made him dangerous in a different way.
"I'm not hiding from him," I said.
"Didn't say you should." Bouchard's jaw worked for a moment. "Just saying there's a difference between being brave and being stupid. I've watched a lot of guys not learn that difference until it was too late."
The second period ended 3-3. I had an assist, four hits absorbed, and a body that was starting to ache.
Somewhere in Colorado, Joel was watching. I didn't let myself think about that too much.
The third period started fast.
Calgary came out desperate, a team that needed points and could smell blood in the water. They hemmed us in our own zone for the first two minutes, cycling the puck, wearing us down. I blocked a shot with my shin and the pain rang up through my knee, but I stayed on my feet and cleared the puck up the boards.
Dorsey was waiting for me.
He timed it perfectly. I'd just released the puck, my weight committed forward, nothing I could do to brace. His shoulder caught me in the chest and I went into the glass hard enough to rattle the stanchion. The crowd noise spiked. My vision blurred and then sharpened again, the arena lights too bright.
I stayed down for a second longer than I should have. Just one second, my glove pressed against the ice, waiting for the ringing in my head to fade.