Behind the bar, in the small parking lot, we stopped at the edge of the glow cast by a security light. Our cars were in opposite corners.
I reached for the open collar of Kieran's jacket. Not pulling. Holding.
He leaned in.
"Donnelly! Mathers! What the hell!"
The voice arrived before the person did.
Varga rounded the corner of the building at full stride, grinning. "—I was at Sal's, two blocks over, and I saw Mathers's slick vehicle, and I thought, that's interesting—"
Kieran stepped back from me.
One moment he was leaning toward me, and the next he was three feet away with his test kit repositioned between us like a prop.
The ease that had lived in his body inside the bar folded itself away, and the version of Kieran Mathers that the world recognized stood in its place.
"Fish maintenance," Kieran told Varga, holding up the test kit. "The bar has a tank. Owner called me."
"You maintain random bar aquariums? That's the most specific hobby I've ever heard."
"It's not a hobby."
"I'm not judging. It's kind of sweet. Like a fish doctor." Varga continued. "You two hang out a lot outside the rink, huh?"
The question didn't come with an agenda.
"He has a car," I said. "I have feet. The overlap is coincidental."
Varga laughed and kept talking, filling the cold air with a story about Sal's wings and a bet he'd lost to the bartender. Kieran stood at a professional distance from me.
Varga noticed nothing.
I noticed everything.
After Varga left, the lot was quiet again.
"He didn't see anything," I said.
"I know." Kieran's voice was flat. "That's not the point."
He turned and headed for his car, calling back over his shoulder, "I'll see you at practice."
I watched his taillights exit the lot.
As I approached my car, at the far edge of the lot, an engine turned over.
Pratt's. I recognized it immediately. Dark blue Impala. I hadn't noticed it when we walked out, which meant it had been there the entire time.
The headlights came on. He passed within fifteen feet of me.
Pratt's window was down an inch. He looked straight ahead. He turned onto the street, and then he was gone.
Pratt said nothing the next day. Not at practice or in the locker room. He stopped a puck I redirected into the crease during a drill and cleared it with his usual economy.
"Good screen," he said.
That was all.
