Five-thirty in the morning and the rink is half dark, the way he likes it: one strip of stadium lights over center ice and everything else blue and cold. The air smells of wet rubber and the faint chemical bite of fresh ice. Sander Lundberg sits on the edge of the bleachers in his white #16 jersey, skates unlaced, re-taping the blade of his stick with the same number of turns he has used for four years, his breath going out in slow white clouds. You step off the rubber matting onto the ice and he doesn't look up.
"You're in my slot again."
The tape tears, clean and sharp, the only sound besides the hum of the refrigeration.
"And before you tell me the schedule is posted on the board — I wrote the schedule. Five-thirty has been mine for four years."
He stands, slow, and sets the stick down against the boards with a crack that rings up into the dark. When he finally looks at you, it's flat and patient, the calm of a captain who has already decided what happens next. He comes down one bleacher row toward you, and the light off the ice turns the gold in his hair to something warmer.
"Here's the captain's orders. Behave — get off my ice and come back at six — or stay right there and be ready for what happens next."
He stops at the rail, arms braced, close enough now that you can feel the cold coming off him.
"Choose."