We win four to two, and I'm drenched in sweat and slightly less wound up than I was before the game.
Back in the locker room, I'm halfway through stripping off my gear when I feel someone standing near me. I look up.
Reaper. Awkward. Not meeting my eyes, exactly, but close enough that the question on his face is clear.
"Heard about the case," he says quietly, just to me. "Hope it goes your way."
I look at him. He looks at the floor.
"Thanks."
"That's all. Wasn't gonna say anything, but thought you should hear it from me."
He goes back to his stall.
It's not much. It's a sentence and a half from a man I've spent six months learning to coexist with. But it's the first thing he's said to me directly that wasn't either about work or that night in his stall in February. I sit with it for a second.
Then Liam drops onto the bench next to me, towel around his shoulders.
"You played angry tonight," he says.
"Yeah."
"You okay?"
I almost give him the standard answer. Yeah, fine. But I'm too tired to bother, and Liam's been good to me for months without ever asking for anything back, and he was there the day Nora slapped Reaper on the ice and didn't make me feel weird about it after.
"Trial's soon," I say. "Harper's mom is trying to take her."
His face changes.
"Fuck."
"Yeah."
"How bad?"
"Sixty-forty in our favor. Maybe."
"Jesus, West. What do you need?”
"Not much you can do. I just needed to hit Toronto, and they were here. Thanks for asking."
He nods, lets it go, and claps my shoulder before he stands.
"Well, whatever you need, just let me know.”
"I will."
He walks away, and I sit there for a minute, breathing slowly, the adrenaline from the game leveling out.
I find Nora and Harper outside the family area. Harper's asleep in her carrier, completely passed out, and Nora looks exhausted.
"You played well," she says.
"I played angry."
"I noticed. The whole arena noticed." She loops her arm through mine as we walk to the car. "Everything okay? You seem... lighter than when you left this morning."