"Eight months for me. I've still got a box I haven't touched. It's waiting out my philosophy. If I don't need it by the end of the year, I probably don't need to unpack it." A brief pause. "It's dishes. I don't want to surrender the shelf space."
I folded my arms across my chest. He pointed at the wall as "Disco Inferno" played. Then he moved his hips and smiled.
He stopped. "You don't dance."
"Not usually."
"Right. Sorry. I bartend, so I talk—" He lifted one hand and gestured at himself. "Dance, too. Occupational. I'll get out of your way."
He walked toward the bedroom. "Other direction," I said.
He looked back, and one corner of his mouth twitched. "Right. Bit early for that." Turning around, he crossed to the door and shut it behind him on his way out.
I heard footsteps in the hallway, a pause, and then the correct door opening. A few seconds after that, "Disco Inferno" faded, and Fleetwood Mac took over.
I turned back to the counter. My knife had drifted a quarter inch off the grain line in the stone while I was watching the door. I moved it back and left it.
Kieran arrived at 6:01 with Heath a step behind. They came in without knocking, and Heath stopped just inside the door to read the room before his eyes settled on the cutting board and stayed there.
"You made food," he said.
"It's a cutting board."
"With food on it, Pratt."
Kieran had already moved to the wall I cleared for video and stopped a few feet back, reading the blank space the way he approached plays. He had it all in his head before anything happened.
Heath stayed at the counter, examining the food arrangement with focused attention. He picked up a cracker. He held it over the cheese and looked at me.
"If I set this down on top—"
"I laid out the pieces so you can see what you're taking before you take it," I said. "Stack a cracker on top and you've blocked half the board."
Heath blinked. "You have a system for the cheese?"
"I have an arrangement. There's a difference."
"What's the difference?"
"One of them requires compliance. The other assumes it."
Kieran, still facing the wall, said, "He's not wrong." He reached back without turning and found the fruit bowl on the left side of the counter. Took a grape. Kept his eyes on the wall.
Heath watched and then looked at me. "You put the bowl there for him."
I didn't answer.
"You know where his hand goes," Heath said. He picked up a cracker, selected a piece of cheese, and then took a bite. "Okay. It's actually easier to see the pieces this way. I hate that you're right about the cheese."
I brought the projection up.
We ran the sequence twice. The weak-side coverage came in half a beat late. It wasn't enough to flag in real time, but it left six feet of open ice in front of the crease. I'd clocked it after Detroit. Seeing it again in Columbus confirmed it was a pattern.
Heath asked one question: "Do you want me on the post earlier, or stay with the man until you call it?"
"Earlier. He's going to the post, anyway. You're better starting there."
He nodded once.
