knew what
Marchetti
that he wasn't the only one not saying it
Davis
i'm going to bed
Thompson
read to chapter seven. there's a thing with a knife that's either the best or worst scene in the book and i need a ruling
Jensen
i'll get there
Thompson
you will not
Chapter 18: Lundy
Marchetti's knee has been going since the bus, and Zay keeps dropping a hand on it to stop it, and every time the hand comes back the knee starts again. The two of them have been holding an entire conversation for forty minutes and neither one has opened his mouth. I lean toward Jules's stall.
"Zay's got a hand on Marchetti's knee."
"He's had it there since we got off the bus." He doesn't look up from the pattern. Thumb to index, middle, ring, pinky, back. Steady today, not fast, which is the first read I take before a game and the only one I need. "He's reset it nine times. Marchetti thinks he's being subtle about the knee. Zay thinks he's being subtle about the hand. Neither of them's said a word."
"Did they really think they could hide it."
"They're not hiding it. They don't know it's a thing yet. There's a difference."
"Yeah," I say. "There's."
The room is loud the way our room gets loud before a game in a barn that hates us, everybody a degree too awake. Berger's theexception, folded into his stall with his headphones on since we walked in.
"Berger's quiet," I say.
"Berger's been quiet since Tampa. Not his voice. The volume's the same. It's what's under the volume that changed."
"He moved a thing from one place and set it down somewhere else."
"That's the read. I don't have the data yet. Give it a week."
"Look at us. Running the whole room."
"You run the room. I run you."
His skate guards are a half-inch off the line he keeps them on. I nudge them square with the side of my foot on the way past, and he doesn't see me do it. That's the whole point. The noise through the wall is its own animal in this place. Montreal arrives loud and gets louder, and you feel it in the floor before you hear it in the air.
"Your mother's in one-twelve," I say.
"Section one-twelve, row four. Same seats since Matty got traded here. My father's on the aisle because he can't sit a full period without getting up. Etienne flew in this morning and went somewhere he didn't tell anybody so a camera couldn't find him." The hands keep moving while he talks.
"She cooking?"
"Tourtière. There's a container in the fridge at the house with my name on it for whichever night I get a free hour. She started Tuesday. The series wasn't even set."