Nova:
get some sleep.
Me:
Yeah.
Nova:
you’re going to win this thing.
Me:
Yeah.
Nova:
goodnight jax
Me:
Night.
I put the phone down. The drive home is quiet, and the house is quieter. Brick’s on the counter.
He watches me from across the room with a look he reserves for people who’ve been away longer than he considers acceptable.
I sit on the couch. He finds me.
“Thirty-one saves,” I tell him. “Ghost stayed quiet.” Brick blinks like that’s not the part he cares about. “And she’s still here.”
That’s the part I mean.
He’s not wondering. He acts like he already knew.
I scratch behind his ear and sit there in the quiet of the house and let the game go. That’s the job — run it until you understand it, then put it down. The deflection off Aiden’s skate wasn’t on me. I know that. The ghost stayed quiet. I know that too.
What I know about Game 5: I’m going to make thirty saves and the wall is going to hold and we’re going to get to Game 6 with everything on the line.
That’s not hope. That’s a read.
The Reapers are good. Fast, heavy, two Cup rings on their top line and four seasons of knowing exactly how much they can get away with before the refs catch up.
Novak is on the third line. Different packaging. Same rot.
I don’t think about him, I think about the crease.
What comes after — the Cup, her, the life waiting on the other side of the final buzzer — that’s the part I can’t run on tape. There’s no footage for it. No shooter tendency, no release point, no angle to study.
Never won a Cup before.
Never had someone I didn’t want to lose before either.
Both of those things are true tonight and I’m going to sit here with Brick and let them be true.
Game 5 tomorrow.
Two more.