"I don't care who you love, gentlemen. I care that you're giving me twenty-plus minutes of elite hockey every night. Are we going to have a problem with that?"
"No, Coach," Cole said.
"No," I said.
"Good. Then here's what I need from you. Play hockey. Be professionals. Handle your business like adults. If anyone on this team or in this organization gives you grief, you come to me. That's my job. Your job is to help me win a playoff series. Are we clear?"
"We're clear," Cole said.
"Volkov?"
"We are clear, Coach."
He picked up his red pen. "Close the door on your way out."
We stood. We walked to the door. My hand was on the handle when Callahan spoke again.
"Volkov."
I turned.
"That game last week. The one where I benched you."
"Yes, Coach."
"Don't let it happen again. Not because of this." He gestured vaguely between Cole and me. "Not because of anything. You're too good to play that way. Whatever was in your head, get it out. Or deal with it. But don't bring it on my ice."
"Yes, Coach."
"And Briggs?"
"Yeah, Coach?"
"Stop eating cereal for dinner. You're a professional athlete. Act like it."
Cole blinked. "How do you know about the cereal?"
"I know everything. Get out."
We got out. The door closed behind us and we stood in the hallway and I discovered that my hands were shaking again, but this time the shaking was not fear. It was something else. Something that felt like pressure releasing from a valve that had been sealed so long I'd forgotten it existed.
Cole looked at me. "You okay?"
"He knew about the cereal."
"That's what you're taking away from this?"
"It is unsettling. The man is omniscient."
Cole laughed. Quiet, contained, a hallway laugh. But real. And I felt the corner of my mouth pull in the direction it had been learning to go, and I let it. In the hallway of the training facility, twenty feet from the locker room, I smiled. Not the ghost version. The real one.
Cole's face did something complicated. "There it is," he said softly.
"Don't make it a thing."
"It's absolutely a thing. That smile is a thing. I'm going to build a shrine to that smile."
"You are ridiculous."