The ghost of a smile. Not a full smile. The foundation of one. The architectural drawing submitted for review.
"You were there for everything," he said. "When I got drafted. When I came out. When Mik and I had the scare with the tabloid. Every single thing that mattered, you were the person I called first."
"I know."
"And the whole time, you were carrying this thing. This enormous thing. And you never told me."
"I know, Cole."
"Why?"
The question was not angry. It was genuinely curious. The curiosity of a man who had processed the facts and understood the "what" but was still working on the "why."
"Because the thing I was carrying would have changed the thing we had," I said. "And the thing we had was the most important thing in my life. More important than the carrying."
"More important than being happy?"
"I was happy. Carrying something heavy doesn't mean you're unhappy. It means you're strong. And I was strong enough to carry it because the thing I was carrying it for, the friendship, the brotherhood, the twenty years of you, that was worth the weight."
Cole was quiet. The ice beneath us was still. The building hummed.
"I'm not worth ten years of your happiness," he said.
"You are to me."
"That's insane, Park."
"It's not insane. It's what friends do. They carry things for each other. You carried things for me too. When my parents were fighting. When I didn't make the national team camp. When I had the scoring drought in my second season and I called you at 2 AM convinced I was going to be sent down. You carried those things. The only difference is that mine was heavier and I was too stubborn to share the load."
"You should have shared the load."
"I know. I'm sharing it now."
He looked at me. The look was not the old look, not yet. The old look would take time to rebuild, the way a house takestime to rebuild after a storm. But the foundation was there. The foundation had always been there, and the storm had tested it, and it held.
"If you hurt him," Cole said.
"You'll end me. I know."
"Not as his brother. As your friend."
"I know."
"And if he hurts you, I'll end him."
"That seems like a conflict of interest."
"I'll manage it."
The smile was closer to the surface now. Not full. But present. The way the sun is present behind clouds, felt even when not seen.
He started skating again. I skated with him. Side by side. The same pace. The same direction.
We ran drills for another twenty minutes. Passing patterns, breakout routes, face-off alignments. No puck. No sound except the blades. The language of hockey speaking the things that English couldn't.
At 5:45, the first early arrivals began filtering in. Mars Santos, the goalie, appeared at the tunnel entrance with his equipment bag. He saw us, two men skating together in the empty rink, and he paused for a moment. Then he nodded, the goalie's nod that acknowledged everything and commented on nothing, and went to the locker room.
Cole and I skated to the boards.