"The car is a car. The car has a lot of mornings in it. Some of them are quiet."
"You good?"
"I'm at fifteen. The count's flowing. I'm fine."
"The five-hole guy. You're sure on the shoulder drop."
"I've watched him forty times. He drops it. Every low shot, the shoulder goes first. He can't help it."
"Forty times?"
"You asked if I was sure."
"I asked if you were good. You answered a different question, which is its own answer." He drinks. "Routine running long these days?"
"Forty-five is the floor now. It used to be the floor and the ceiling. Now it's only the floor. It's the playoffs. The routine runs longer in the playoffs. It's not a thing." It's more than I meant to give, and I gave it because it's Thompson, because the brain keeps a short list of rooms where the pressure on the words comes off and his is on it.
"The bass help last night?"
"I didn't go last night."
"That's the part I'm circling, Soucy. You always go. You didn't go last night."
"I didn't feel like the drive."
"Okay. That's a sentence with a floor under it." He stands, claps me once on the shoulder, which I allow, because the list of allowed hands is short and he's on it. "Show Thursday. After the game. The warehouse off Marietta. You used to bring the after up before I did. Twenty minutes, then Bodie wants both of you."
He goes, and he leaves the door propped, because he knows to leave it propped, and the count picks back up at eighteen because a small correct thing lets the queue keep moving.
Lundy's gear comes in on the cart and the room is ours. Ours has gone strange. He sets up across the six feet of rubber floor we've set up across from each other on for two hundred mornings. The hand stays on his own gear now. He keeps it there. The tape on my left pad is on top. Câlisse. I press it again. It's on top.
Bodie comes in with the tablet and pulls a stool into the six feet, which is the first time today anyone has been in the six feet.
"Power play," he says, turning the screen so we both have it. "They run the one-three-one and they're patient. Lundy, the seam pass to the bumper is the one that kills us, not the one-timer. They want you cheating to the one-timer."
"I'm not cheating to the one-timer."
"I know. I'm saying it out loud so it's said. Soucy, what do you see."
"The bumper drops to the dot a half-second early when the entry's clean. Same half-second every time. Time it off the strong-side winger. He curls instead of driving, the bumper's already moving, and the pass is coming whether the lane's open or not."
"Say that again to Lundy. Slower."
"He heard it."
"He heard it," Lundy says, not looking up from his blocker. "Winger curls, bumper's already gone. I've got it."
It's the most either of us has said in front of the other since the morning, and it's about a seam pass. Bodie notices nothing because there's nothing to notice except two goalies agreeing. He claps the tablet shut and tells us we look ready and goes.
We lose Game 1 four to one. I watch all of it from the bench, which is the job. Lundy is good. He isn't the problem. Their second goal goes in off the seam exactly the way I called it, and Lundy is square and ready and the puck finds the only six inches that beat him, because that's what a power play designed by Karl Lundmark does.
"They're not better than us," Berger says next to me, low, in the third, down three. "Lundy's a nine and we lost. We were a two tonight."
"We were a two."
"So tomorrow we're not a two. One game is a bad night with good seats."
"You should write that down."