"She put a note at the bottom of the box, Cath did. She said he talked about me all the time."
He was quiet for a long beat.
"If he did, why didn't he call? Why didn't he call?"
Another silence.
"But I didn't call him back."
I didn't speak. I had nothing that made sense to say.
"I've been moving since Boston." His voice was a little more even. I considered whether he'd rehearsed this part. "That's why I'm here. That's why I took the late shift. I took a job where somebody needs something from me every eight seconds for nine hours, because the minute I stop—"
He stopped the sentence there, and he lifted his head.
His face was wrecked. Red around his eyes. His hair plastered to his scalp.
He looked at me and focused again.
"Then you. You, Pratt. I didn't know what to do with you." His voice was soft enough I held my breath to listen. "I still don't. You're a professional hockey player. How—Nora told me not to ask questions like that." He paused. "You don't need me to be on. You didn't say that, but I see it. I've been on for three years. I don't know who I am when I'm not. I don't—I don't have the version of me yet that isn't on, and I—"
He dragged the back of his wrist under his nose and continued.
"And I keep thinking—what if you do the same thing?"
I watched him. I almost said, "I wouldn't," reflexively, but there was no defensible reason to interrupt him.
"I know you wouldn't." His words were louder, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. "I know. I know that. You wouldn't. You're—you're the most—"
He stopped and swallowed.
"But I don't actuallyknowthat. Nobody does. I didn't know that about Bryan either. I sat across from him at the diner and ate a turkey club, and I didn't know."
He looked at me. "Say something."
I ran through the options as quickly as I could. It seemed early for reassurance. I'd been told I wasn't good at that anyway.
What was left had been sitting in my head beside his words since somewhere around his description of their last supper. I'd set it aside because it hadn't seemed like I should bring it intothe room. It still refused to leave my head, and now he was looking at me.
"I've never had a best friend."
I said it plainly. It wasn't meant to comfort. It was true.
Sully's mouth opened a fraction. A laugh started, but then he dropped his forehead back onto his arms. After ten seconds, he looked up again.
"Pratt."
My name in a flat tone.
"Yeah?"
He reached a hand out, sliding it across the hardwood, palm up.
I put mine in it.
His fingers closed around my hand. He didn't pull. He just rested it there.
We sat.
