Media Day

At 5 a.m. Kenna's alarm goes off, and you discover that you have been asleep for maybe two hours.

You lie still and listen to her get up. The rustle of sheets. Bare feet on carpet. A pause, right about where the tape line would be, long enough that you wonder if she's looking at you. Then the bathroom door, and the shower, and a very bad rendition of the bridge of a song you can't name.

You stare at the ceiling and think about the conversation you had in the dark. The way it felt to type things to someone eight feet away, the glow of her screen on her side of the room, the sound she made when she laughed at something you wrote and tried to swallow it into her pillow.

Neither of you mentioned it on the bus.

Neither of you mentions it on the ice, either, but your passes land on her tape all morning and hers land on yours, and at one point Tash skates by and says, "What did you two do last night," loud enough for the whole bench to hear.

"Slept," Kenna says.

"Badly," you add, and she laughs, startled, and then looks annoyed at herself for laughing.

Media day is in a conference room at the Foothills Centre with a Team Canada backdrop and lighting that makes everybody look like they're under interrogation.

Leilani Haddadin runs communications for the national team. She's sleek and kind and always holding two phones, and she has the cheerful, unstoppable energy of a woman who has handled worse than you.

"Okay, captains," she says, steering you both by the elbows toward the backdrop. "Here's what we're selling. The feud is over. You're teammates. You're adults. You're the future of Canadian women's hockey and you love each other like sisters."

"Like sisters," Kenna repeats.

"Like teammates who love each other in a completely normal, marketable way," Leilani amends. "Big smiles. Arms around each other. Let's go."

There are six photographers and a TV camera. You stand next to Kenna in your red practice jerseys and put your arm around her waist like you're holding a stick you don't trust. She puts her arm around your shoulders. She's warm through the jersey. She smells like the hotel's eucalyptus shampoo and something underneath it that's just her.

"Closer," calls a photographer.

Kenna pulls you in until your hip is against hers.

"Smile like you don't want to kill each other!"

"That's asking a lot," Kenna says, and the photographers laugh, and she turns her head and looks down at you with a grin, and it's the grin they're going to use. You can tell. Because when you look up at her, for a split second you forget there's a camera in the room at all.

The shutters go off like a hailstorm.

"Beautiful," Leilani breathes. "Now hug."

"Leilani."

"Hug, Captain. One hug. The internet needs it."

So you hug Kenna Ryder in front of six photographers. It's a stiff, ridiculous, sideways hug. Then she wraps both arms around you properly and squeezes, once, hard, and for the length of one breath her chin is on the top of your head and you can feel her heart beating against your cheek.

It's beating fast.

"There," she murmurs into your hair. "Feud's over. Tell your friends."

The interviews are worse.

Most of the reporters ask normal questions. Line combinations. Helsinki. Whether you're worried about the Americans. Then the last one in line stands up, and you know her before she says her name.

Ainsley Strathdee has covered women's hockey for ten years and has a podcast called Five-Hole that half the league listens to on the bus and pretends they don't. She's sharp and fair and very, very good at finding the one question you don't want to answer.

"Kenna. Ava." She smiles. "Bit of history. You two had a famously heated rivalry when Kenna played in Montreal. Then three years ago, right after the All-Star weekend, Kenna, you were traded out of the division. A lot of people thought it was strange timing. Anything happen at that All-Star weekend we should know about?"

Your whole body goes cold.

Beside you, Kenna leans into the microphone. "I lost a bet," she says, "and the penalty was Boston."

The room laughs. Even Ainsley laughs. She writes something down, though, and looks at you, and you smile your sponsor smile and say nothing, and the moderator calls time.

Under the table, Kenna's knee is pressed against yours. You don't know when it got there. You don't move it.

After media, you go hide in the skate-sharpening room, which smells like hot metal and is the only room in the building where nobody ever wants to talk.

You're running your thumb along a fresh edge when the door opens and Shay Mulrooney leans in. Red curls, gap-toothed grin, Harriers hoodie. She's Kenna's defense partner in Boston and her best friend everywhere else, and she's been looking at you like a math problem since you got to Calgary.

"Hey, Toronto," she says.

"Hey, Boston."

She comes in and shuts the door behind her. That's when you know it's not going to be a normal conversation.

"Good photo op," she says. "Leilani's going to frame that hug."

"Leilani can frame whatever she wants."

"Mm." Shay leans against the sharpening machine and crosses her arms. "Can I tell you something, Ava? As a public service?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No." She studies you for a second. Her grin fades. "You know she asked out of Montreal, right? The trade wasn't the Royales' idea. She walked into the GM's office and asked. The week after that All-Star game."

Your thumb stops on the blade.

"She told Ainsley it was a bet," you say.

"She tells everybody it was a bet. She tells everybody a lot of things." Shay pushes off the machine and opens the door. She pauses in it, half in the hallway light. "Kenna Ryder loved Montreal. She'd have played there till she was forty."

Your heart is doing something stupid against your ribs.

"Then why did she leave?"

Shay looks at you a long moment, like she's deciding how much trouble she's about to be in.

"Ask her why," she says, and lets the door swing shut.