The Locker Room Line

He is going to drive past the pole this year. He said it out loud in an empty car so somebody would hear it. The bouquet has been there three years running. Dom cuts the engine and sits in the dark of the car park with his hands still on the wheel, watching the flowers sway against the light post. Yellow roses. Dead now. The frost took them days ago and the petals are brown and curled at the edges like old paper. Somebody tied them there anyway, with the same black ribbon and the same little laminated card sealed against the weather. A surname and a number. His brother's college number. Not the one his brother wore in the league, but the one Dom wears now. He told himself last spring that this year he would drive past, park in his spot, and walk through the players' entrance without letting his eyes catch on the pole. He made it a real promise. He is still sitting in the car. Cole is a journalist with a profile to write, a source he should not be sleeping with, and about four weeks before somebody works out which of those two things came first. What follows: an oath broken before it was made, a door he swore he would never open, the face behind a visor, a shot heard down a hallway, a ghost in the stands, a profile that changes everything, the ice between two people, and a confession neither of them could get out in time. *You write the piece. You say you lied. You were trying to get close to a source and it got out of hand.* Perfect for readers who love a grieving hero wearing a dead brother's number, a journalist with a genuine conflict of interest, a one-night stand that becomes a professional catastrophe, small-town hockey with a long memory, rivals who cannot leave each other alone, explicit scenes, and an ending both men have to say out loud in public.