The next threshold did not arrive with a formal request.
It arrived on a Friday night after a home game we had no business winning, in the narrow space between the post-game handshake line and the moment the arena lights started to dim. I had scored twice. Damian had played like the concept of losing was a personal insult. The final horn sent the building into the kind of noise that lived in your ribs for hours afterward. In the tunnel, still flushed and breathing hard, he caught my eye through the crowd of bodies and said only, “Apartment. When you’re ready.” Then he was swallowed by staff and media and the ordinary chaos of a win.
I took the long way through the showers and the quiet corridors under the stands. The adrenaline was still singing in my muscles. Underneath it something qui
