He also finds himself looking forward to the NHL Awards — media-desperate farce it will inevitably be, wrapped in Las Vegas spectacle — just to break the monotony. He receives a cheerfully worded email informing him he can have one person up front with him and up to four in rows further back, that up to two additional rooms in a hotel will be provided at no cost, and he mentions the Awards over dinner.

His mother pulls her phone out. “I’ll be in Moscow,” she says, frowning down at what’s presumably her calendar. “Is it really important?”

“No,” David says. “It’s nothing special.”

“Sorry,” she says. “Maybe next year?”

It takes everything in David to restrain himself from snapping at her that unless she thinks he’s going to be winning the Art Ross or Rocket Richard at twenty, she’s out of luck. After dinner he goes for a jog along empty streets, runs until he can’t catch his breath and has to walk home, his lungs aching.

His father would probably come, but he’d also probably spend the whole time handing his card to NHLers and executives, like it’s a business conference — the first time he met Dave he tried to charm him into investing in whatever it is he sells — so David screens him the next time he calls, sends an email back to the organizer that additional seats and additional rooms will not be necessary.

*

The Leafs win the Stanley Cup. The city of Ottawa sulks for days, and David does as well, though he probably would have regardless of who won it, considering it wasn’t him. His mother goes to BC and he makes food for one. She goes to Moscow and he packs for the Awards, just a suit bag and an old backpack he hasn’t pulled out since high school, wincing at the Las Vegas weather forecast on his phone during a layover in Toronto.

He doesn’t leave the hotel once he’s there, has dinner, breakfast in the hotel dining room; he eats room service lunch before getting into his suit, fiddling with his tie when it won’t lie flat against his chest and internally debating himself about whether gelling his hair is the appropriate course of action. He does, but just a little.

When he gets in the elevator a Norris trophy nominee and his wife or girlfriend are already inside, share a tight-lipped smile with him. The last time David met him was on the receiving end of a brutal check that sidelined him for two games, the only two he missed all season, so it’s hard to muster a smile back.

There’s an orderly line into the venue, unremarkable except for the fact that some of the best players in the league have to stand around and wait like everyone else. David settles into his designated seat with time to spare, noticing Lourdes seated a row ahead of him. David tries not to read into it.

There’s an empty seat beside him, once everyone’s settled in, and David wonders if they grouped all the people who can’t even get one person to show up to keep the seating even. Instead, a beautiful blonde woman who’s dressed like she’s at the Oscars and not the NHL Awards sits down beside him, flashing him a quick smile.