I stopped that thought.
In the morning, the blanket was folded neatly on the couch cushion. Beside it, a Post-It note in the handwriting I was learning to recognize.
Thanks for the blanket.
Four words. I folded the note and put it in my pocket. Neither of us mentioned it when Nico emerged twenty minutes later, dressed for practice, his hair still damp.
"Morning," he said. Same as always.
"Morning," I said.
We drank our tea. We made small talk about the practice schedule. We ate dill eggs in the quiet kitchen while the November light spread across the floor.
Something had shifted. The apartment didn't feel like a monitoring arrangement anymore.
I watched Nico rinse his plate and glance over his shoulder with a small, almost-shy half-smile.
I smiled back.
This was a problem.
10
NICO
Sarah called on a Tuesday.
I was sitting on the guest room floor with the blanket in my lap, my fingers working the hem back and forth, the rhythmic, self-soothing motion that kept my heart rate from spiking into the red. TheKalevalalay open beside me. I'd been reading the passage about Väinämöinen's journey to Tuonela, the land of the dead, how the hero descended into darkness not because he wanted to, but because the knowledge he needed could only be found there.
"The league wants your testimony," Sarah said. "Next week in New York. In person. They've recovered communications between Jake Petrov and a known gambling operation. Your name appears in several of them."
The room contracted. I pressed my thumb into the hem of the blanket until the nail went white.
"What kind of communications?"
"Text messages between Petrov and his handler. Multiple references to your legal betting accounts as cover for the operation." Her voice was careful, the tone she used when the news was significant enough to require framing. "Nico, the investigators believe you were framed. They've identified the pattern Petrov used to embed your activity into his own. This is the first real movement in your favor."
Good news.A year of my life reduced to a false accusation. Eleven months of exile and silence and sleeping on floors. Evidence of my innocence should feel like a victory.
"They need you to confirm the timeline," Sarah continued. "Walk them through your betting history, your relationship with Petrov, the events leading up to the trade. If your testimony aligns with their forensic analysis, and I have no doubt it will, the investigation could resolve within weeks."
Weeks.After eleven months, the word sounded less like a timeline and more like a trapdoor.
"What if it doesn't?" I asked.
"It will."
"Sarah."
She paused. "If it doesn't, we escalate. We file a formal complaint. We go to the players' association. But that's a contingency, not a plan. The evidence is on your side now. Trust the process."
I'd been trusting the process for eleven months. The process had gotten me a corner locker in a city that didn't want me and a duffel bag I still hadn't fully unpacked.
"I'll be there," I said.
I found Kieran in the kitchen.
He was preparing salmon, a Tuesday ritual that had developed without either of us trying. The fish lay skin-down on a cedar plank, glazed with lemon and brown sugar. Asparagus lined abaking sheet in parallel rows, each stalk trimmed to the same length.
