He turned back to the cable machine, and I went back to my foam roller, and we existed in the silence together. Two men who didn't particularly like each other, sharing space because neither of us wanted to go home.
My phone buzzed in my bag.
The sound cut through the quiet, and I was on my feet before I could stop myself, crossing the room in three strides, digging through the side pocket with hands that weren't quite steady.
Joel's name was on the screen, and my chest loosened.
Landed the quad loop three times today. Coach finally stopped yelling.
I typed back without thinking:Show off.
The three dots appeared immediately. He was there, on the other end, waiting for me the same way I'd been waiting for him.
You like it.
I did. I hated how much I did.
When I looked up, JL was watching me. His expression was hard to read, but the way he'd gone still was familiar. It was the way I went still when someone caught me in a moment I hadn't meant to share.
"Sorry," I said. "I should go."
"Yeah." He was already turning back to the cable machine. "I'm gonna finish up here."
I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. At the threshold, I stopped.
"Hey, Bouchard."
He looked over his shoulder.
"For what it's worth," I said. "I hope it gets easier. The long distance thing."
For a second I thought he was going to say something, ask what I meant, call me out for whatever I was implying. But he just nodded once and looked away.
"Yeah," he said. "You too."
I walked out before either of us could make it weird.
The rest of February passed in a blur of road games and ice time and texts that came more often than they used to. Joel sent me clips of his practice sessions, the camera angled to catch the height of his jumps. I sent him photos of terrible hotel room views, and he responded with commentary about the curtains, or the suspicious stains on the carpet, or whatever else caught his eye. We were building something without naming it, and I was too tired and too hopeful to examine it closely.
March came and went. Both teams started to fade. Vegas dropped seven of our last ten, the blue line decimated by injuries that left JL carrying a load no single defenseman could handle. He played thirty-two minutes in a loss to Edmonton, and I watched him afterward in the locker room, bent over his knees, breathing like he'd been underwater. Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say.
By April, the pressure had lifted. No playoffs meant rest, recovery, time to let the bruises heal. It meant summer stretching out ahead of me with nothing to do but train and visit my father and wait for Joel's schedule to open up.
It meant, for the first time in months, room to breathe.
Andy called on a Tuesday afternoon while I was icing my hip.
"Lynx wants you," he said. "The athletic wear brand. Their 'Elite Doesn't Have a Look' campaign."
I sat up so fast the ice pack slid off my leg and hit the floor. "What?"
"They saw the playoff run. Liked how you 'defied expectations.'" I could hear the air quotes in his voice. "It's a multi-athlete shoot in LA. August. Real money, Red. Like, endorsement money."
I made him repeat the numbers twice. Then I hung up and stared at my phone for a full minute before opening my messages.
Red:got a call from my agent
Joel: good or bad