COLE
The call came at 7:38 PM.
I was in the facility parking garage, sitting in my truck with the engine running, waiting for it to warm up. The game against Detroit was in two days. I’d stayed late to review film with Brentwood, who had spent forty minutes dissecting our penalty kill and another twenty telling me, without saying it directly, that he thought I was playing distracted.
He wasn’t wrong. I was distracted. By a woman with rolled-down sleeves and a closed office door and three days of silence that I couldn’t explain and couldn’t stop thinking about.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number. Chicago area code.
I didn’t hesitate this time. Hesitation was a luxury from the first call, when I still thought there might be a version of this conversation that ended differently. I answered.
