Chapter 47 The Calls Start
CALEB
The calls started less than twelve hours after the championship ended.
I woke up Monday morning on Eli’s couch with my phone vibrating hard enough against the coffee table to sound aggressive, and for a second I genuinely did not know where I was because my body still thought I should be in the locker room getting ready for practice.
Then I remembered.
Championship.
Three to two.
Tunnel.
Mia.
The realization settled over me slowly and heavily, not like excitement anymore but like something deeper than that. Something steadier.
I reached for my phone.
Seven missed calls.
Three unknown numbers.
Two texts from reporters.
One message from Porter.
One from Coach.
Coach’s said:
Answer your phone before scouts start calling the rink.
I stared at it for a second and laughed quietly to myself.
Eli walked into the living room wearing sweatpants and one sock.
“You look emotionally damaged already,” he said.
“It is seven in the morning.”
“It is eight thirty.”
I sat up immediately.
“What.”
“You slept like the dead.”
That explained the calls.
My body felt heavy in the strange exhausted way it only did after playoff games, especially games that carried too much emotion inside them. My shoulder hurt. My legs hurt. My throat hurt from yelling after the final buzzer.
Worth it.
Completely worth it.
Eli dropped onto the chair across from me.
“The championship replay is already online,” he announced. “I watched your overtime goal four times while brushing my teeth.”
“It was not overtime.”
“Emotionally it was.”
I threw a pillow at him without much force.
My phone buzzed again.
Porter.
I answered immediately.
“Kessler.”
“You alive,” Porter asked.
“Barely.”
“Good. Means you played properly.”
I stood and walked toward the kitchen while Eli turned the television on.
Sports highlights already.
Too fast.
Everything moved too fast after wins.
“I assume this means my phone is going to keep exploding,” I said.
“For a while, yes.”
I leaned against the counter.
“How bad.”
Porter was quiet briefly.
“Not bad,” he corrected. “Important.”
That landed differently.
I stayed silent.
“The championship mattered,” he continued. “Not just the win. The pressure. The composure. The response after going down two goals.”
I looked out Eli’s kitchen window at the snow piled along the parking lot.
“Hockey organizations pay attention to production,” Porter said. “But they invest in response. Anybody can look good when things are easy. Saturday mattered because things stopped being easy.”
I thought immediately about the bench after the second Lakeview goal.
Coach saying next shift.
Mia across the ice still calmly writing on her clipboard while the building felt like it was tilting sideways.
“You moved up significantly,” Porter said. “That is the honest version.”
“How significantly.”
“I had two organizations ask for additional reports this morning before eight o’clock.”
That made me straighten slightly.
Porter did not exaggerate. Ever.
“The Halifax program remains confirmed,” he continued. “March second. No changes there. But attention changes expectations. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“You will be watched differently now.”
I looked down at the counter.
That part I already understood.
People liked championship stories. They liked momentum. They liked the idea of discovering someone exactly before everyone else discovered them too.
“Also,” Porter added, “your father has apparently started calling people again.”
There it was.
I closed my eyes briefly.
“Walter told you?”
“Walter tells everyone everything eventually.”
Fair.
“I am not speaking to him right now,” I said calmly.
“I did not ask you to.”
Porter paused.
Then:
“How is the girl.”
The question caught me slightly off guard even though it should not have.
“Mia’s good,” I said automatically.
“No,” Porter replied. “I asked how she is.”
I leaned against the counter harder.
“She got me through this season,” I admitted quietly.
“That obvious, huh.”
“To anybody paying attention.”
I smiled faintly.
Porter made a thoughtful sound.
“Keep paying attention back,” he said. “A lot of athletes become very stupid very quickly once people start telling them they matter.”
“I will try not to become stupid.”
“Excellent strategy.”
Then he hung up.
I stayed standing there for a second.
Eli looked over from the couch.
“Well?”
“Apparently I matter now.”
“You won a championship while half the province was watching. That tends to happen.”
I grabbed coffee from the machine and finally checked the rest of my messages.
Unknown numbers.
Interview requests.
Two local radio stations.
One regional sports network.
One message from Walter.
Proud of you. Your mother cried. Your father looked physically ill. Overall excellent evening.
I laughed out loud at that before I could stop myself.
Eli looked over immediately.
“Walter?”
“Obviously.”
“That man is unbelievable.”
“He genuinely might be my favorite person.”
“That feels rude to Mia.”
“Different categories.”
I typed back quickly.
Tell Grandma thank you for coming.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
She says you looked happy. Happier than when you used to win before.
I stared at that message for a second longer than necessary.
Because he was right.
The strange thing was that winning used to feel sharp. Brief. Temporary. Like something you grabbed before it disappeared again.
Saturday did not feel like that.
Saturday felt full.
My phone buzzed again.
Mia.
Morning.
I smiled automatically.
Morning.
You survive the media apocalypse.
Barely. Eli says I am aggressively famous now.
That sounds medically concerning.
You are about to become a nurse. Diagnose me.
Terminal hockey problem.
Difficult condition.
Very serious.
I sat down at the kitchen table while texting her.
How is your mom.
Already making pancakes and emotionally terrorizing everyone.
Good. Means she is feeling stronger.
A pause.
Then:
She likes you more than me now.
Reasonable honestly.
Traitor.
I smiled at my phone like an idiot.
Eli pointed immediately from across the room.
“There it is.”
“What.”
“The smile.”
I ignored him.
Can I come over later.
A longer pause this time.
Then:
Yes. Mom says if you arrive before noon she will feed you.
That feels threatening.
It absolutely is.
I leaned back in the chair afterward and let myself breathe for the first time all morning.
Outside, snow kept falling lightly over the parking lot.
Inside, the television replayed championship highlights.
Everything was changing now.
Halifax.
Scouts.
Interviews.
Attention.
Pressure.
The future arriving faster than I expected.
But underneath all of it was one steady thing that had not disappeared when the contract ended.
Mia still answering my messages.
Mia still saying yes when I asked to see her.
Mia still here.
That mattered more than I knew how to explain to anybody else.
Maybe even to myself.