"I chose to see if you would shoot or pass. Now I know."
I stared at him. He stared back. His eyes were grey with these tiny flecks of something lighter in them, which was a detail I should not have been cataloging.
"That's..." I started, and then stopped because what I wanted to say was that's actually brilliant, and admitting that felt like losing. "That's annoying."
"Yes," he said. "I have been told."
We went back to the drill. And I started to notice something that bugged me more than the rivalry, more than the hit, more than any of it. We were good together. Not just good. We were starting to read each other. By the end of the session, I knew where Volkov was going to be without looking. I could feel his positioning the way you feel a current in water, and when I adjusted my routes to account for his coverage, the whole system clicked into a gear that hadn't existed before.
Coach noticed. I could see him on the bench with his arms crossed, watching us with the expression of a man who'd just discovered gold in his backyard and was trying not to get excited about it.
After practice, I was in the weight room doing curls and trying very hard to think about my biceps instead of Volkov's skating when the man himself walked in. He went to the squat rack on the far side of the room and started loading plates without a word.
We lifted in silence for ten minutes. It was the most aggressively quiet ten minutes of my life.
I broke first. Of course I broke first.
"So are you always this chatty, or is it just me that gets the silent treatment?"
He racked his bar and looked at me. "I talk when I have something to say."
"And when is that? Annually? On a solstice?"
Something happened at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. A micro-movement. The ghost of an expression that died before it could fully form. "I spoke to Gerald this morning about the weather. It was a very productive conversation."
I blinked. "Did you just make a joke?"
"I have been known to, on occasion."
"Was that a joke, Volkov?"
The micro-movement again. Slightly more visible this time. "My humor is an acquired taste."
"Like vodka."
"Exactly like vodka." He picked up his water bottle. "You have to suffer through the first sip. Then it becomes tolerable."
"Tolerable isn't exactly a selling point."
"I am Russian. We do not sell. We endure."
I laughed. I didn't mean to. It came out sudden and loud, bouncing off the weight room walls, and Volkov looked at me like the sound had physically startled him. Like he hadn't expected to be the cause of laughter and didn't quite know what to do about it.
"You're weird, Volkov."
"Yes."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I know."
I finished my set and racked the weights. He was still standing there with his water bottle, watching me with that quiet, unreadable focus.
"Same time tomorrow?" I said, which came out sounding like I was asking him on a date, so I quickly added, "For the paired drills. Since Coach is making us."
"I will be here at five-thirty."
"In the morning?"