The following day is another scratch, but it’s Canada Day, and David feels obligated to take part in the festivities. Toronto doesn’t celebrate like Ottawa does, but fireworks bloom over Lake Ontario, and David stays up until they fade before taking an early night, mostly managing to sleep through it, though he’s up at five, a tight knot of excitement in him, the most he’s felt since the night before the Awards, though the less said about that night, the better.

The training camp’s outside of the downtown core, and David takes a cab, arriving half an hour early. He’s the first in the room, there before even Caldwell and Majors, the trainers running the show. Players trickle in slowly, some David recognises from the ice, the press, some he doesn’t. Caldwell and Majors seem to know who they’re expecting; they wait until five minutes past the hour, when the last player walks in, and then Majors straightens up and starts explaining their mission.

David looks over to see who can’t even be bothered to arrive on time the first day, and it shouldn’t be surprising, but is, to see Jake Lourdes leaning beside the door at the far end of the room, drowsy-eyed and slouching. The knot that’s been sitting in David’s stomach for days only tightens, tangles more, becoming unbearable when Lourdes seems to notice he’s being stared at, looking up to catch David watching him.

Lourdes meets his eye for a long moment, then looks away when someone David recognises from the Panthers touches his shoulder, saying something that makes him laugh quietly, eyes crinkling around the corners. He doesn’t look at David after that, not that David’s checking.

There are forty-four players enrolled, a pretty even spread between elite players and roster fillers, plus two goalies who must’ve gotten lost or really want to practice their skating and their checks. Caldwell and Majors announce they’re splitting them into two teams to play one another in a game for the public on the last day of camp, that in the meantime they’ll be assigned to one trainer or the other, depending on which team they land on.

They draw cards from a hat instead of doing something that would better spread out the talent, and David rolls his eyes when it comes to him, pulling out a red card. Some of the guys who must know each other are wandering over to check if they have the same colour, and David clutches his red card and hopes, desperately, that Lourdes pulls blue.

They split into two groups, Majors guiding the blues out into, presumably, another, similar room. The thinned group remains with Caldwell, and Lourdes is still there, minus his friend from the Panthers, because of course he is.

There’s finally enough room for everyone to take a seat, and David has a wide open spot beside him, but Lourdes sits down halfway across the room, running a hand distractedly through his hair until it’s out of control, static beneath his fingers. There’s a murmur of conversation around him, and David catches teammates to the left of him derisively discussing the Leafs’ Cup win, others on his right asking about one another’s wives, before Caldwell clears his throat and they all quiet as if they were in church.