Your Wall Is Thin

For two periods in Denver, your line is the worst line in professional hockey.

You know it. The bench knows it. The broadcast knows it; Beau is calling the game back in Portland and you can practically hear him wincing through three thousand miles of cable.

Nikolai passes where you were going to be. You go where he isn't looking. Kenny, bless him, keeps skating into both of you like a golden retriever chasing two tennis balls.

On one shift, you and Nikolai both reach for the same loose puck and knock it straight to a Denver forward, who scores. Pasi, in net, slowly raises his arms toward the ceiling like a man asking God for patience.

"Wonderful, Ethan," Pasi says to you on the bench. "Truly. Like watching two swans fight in a parking lot."

"He's holding it too long."

"You are leaving too early."

"Whose side are you on?"

"The puck's," Pasi says serenely, and squirts water into his own face.

Down the bench, Nikolai sits with his elbows on his knees, helmet off, staring at the ice. The camera keeps finding him. You can see it on the jumbotron, his profile against the glass, that jaw, a drop of sweat sliding down his throat into his collar. Somebody in the Denver crowd has a sign: VOLKOV MARRY ME. Somebody else has added, in smaller letters below it, NO DON'T HE'S A MONSTER.

"Ethan." Coach Mayhew is behind you, voice low. "What did you do in practice? The one that worked."

"I waited."

"So wait."

Third period. Tied 2–2. Four minutes left.

You're on the left boards when Nikolai picks up the puck behind his own net, and something in you decides to try trust. Just once. Just to prove it doesn't work.

You don't break early. You hold your lane. You count.

One. Two.

He looks the other way, toward Kenny. Every Denver player turns with his eyes.

And you go.

The pass comes off his stick from behind his own goal line, a hundred and fifty feet of ice, through two sticks and a pair of skates, and lands on your tape at the far blue line like he walked it over and set it down. You're alone. The whole rink is in front of you, white and endless, and the goalie is coming out to meet you, and you don't even think.

Five-hole. Clean.

The red light spins. The Denver crowd groans. Kenny crashes into you screaming, Des pounds your helmet, and when you turn around, Nikolai is skating toward you, slower than everyone else.

He doesn't hug you. He just taps your shin pads with his stick, twice. Quiet.

"Good," he says.

"It was a good pass," you admit. "Thanks, Volkov." It costs you something.

His mouth moves. Not quite a smile. The scar in his eyebrow lifts. "I know."

You hold the lead. You win 3–2.

The team hotel in Denver is the kind of chain place where everything is beige and the art on the walls is a blurry photo of a mountain you could see out the window if you bothered to look.

Room 1114. You drop your bag on the bed and stare at the connecting door.

It's an ordinary door. Beige like everything else. A deadbolt on your side. Presumably one on his. There's a gap at the bottom where a line of lamplight is showing from the other room.

You pace. You turn on the TV. You turn it off again. You pace some more. You shower. You lie on the bed in sweatpants with your phone on your chest, watching the replay of the goal on the team's highlight account, and you watch it nine times. On the fourth watch you stop looking at yourself.

On the fifth, you notice his face after you score. The camera catches it for half a second before he turns away. He isn't wearing the villain face. He looks like a kid who just watched a firework.

You put the phone down. Your pulse is doing something stupid.

Through the wall, you hear him.

He's on the phone. The walls here are paper, apparently, or he's sitting right against the connecting door, because you can hear every word, even if you don't understand any of them. Russian. Low and quick and soft at the edges.

And then he laughs.

You've played against Nikolai Volkov for three years. You've seen every angle of his face on every broadcast. You've seen him smirk, snarl, bleed, and stare down an entire arena. You have never once heard him laugh.

It's a good laugh. Startled out of him, like whoever's on the other end caught him by surprise. Warm and a little hoarse. He says something in a teasing voice, a name that sounds like Katya, and laughs again, quieter.

You sit up. You shouldn't be listening. You are absolutely listening.

The call ends. Silence. The creak of a bed.

Then three soft knocks on the connecting door.

You freeze.

"I can hear your TV isn't on," he says through the door. His voice is close. He must be standing right against it. "So I know you're awake."

You get up. You cross the room. You stop with your hand on the deadbolt and don't turn it.

"What do you want, Volkov?"

"To say good game."

"You said it on the ice."

"I said 'good.' That's not the same."

You lean your forehead against the door. It's cool and smells like hotel cleaner. On the other side, an inch of wood away, you can feel him there the way you felt him behind you in the corner last night.

"Who was on the phone?"

A pause. "You were listening."

"Your wall is thin."

"Your wall," he corrects. "It's the same wall."

"Who was it?"

"Someone who thinks I'm nicer than I am." Another pause. Then, quieter: "You can open the door, 19. I'm not going to hit you."

"You already did. Last night."

"You hit me first."

"You talked about Beau."

The silence stretches long enough that you think he's walked away. Then you hear it: the soft thump of him leaning his back against the door, the slide of a body sitting down.

"I know," he says. "I'm sorry. That one was cheap."

You don't know what to do with that. Nikolai Volkov doesn't apologize. It's practically his brand.

"Go to sleep," you tell the door.

"You first."

You walk back to the bed. You lie down. You stare at the ceiling. The strip of light under the connecting door stays on.

Your phone buzzes on your chest.

Unknown number. Area code from Saskatchewan.

your wall is thin, 19

Then, a second later, while you're still staring at it:

you've been pacing for twenty minutes

And then a third, and you can almost hear him typing it with that careful, almost-smiling face from the replay.