He was in the driveway before dawn. The street unlit, the porch light on behind him, frost on the concrete under his shoes. The bag went on the passenger seat. The engine turned over.
The highway opened in front of him, I-94 west, the headlights cutting through the predawn. No traffic. The road was straight and the morning was cold and Evan’s palms were steady on the wheel for the first time in weeks. The sky was turning gray at the edges where Ann Arbor fell behind him, the bare trees lining the highway black against the lightening horizon. He’d driven this stretch hundreds of times for work, his clipboard on the passenger seat, his blazer hanging from the hook behind the driver’s seat, his notes organized, his route planned. This morning the passenger seat held an overnight bag with a blue shirt folded on top. The hook behind him was empty.
Somewhere past Jackson the sun broke the horizon, low and flat, the light spreading across the highway in a wash of gold. Evan’s grip loosened on the wheel. The road went west. Chicago was at the other end of it, and Finn was in Chicago, and Evan was driving toward him with nothing in his fists and nothing on his back and nothing prepared to say except the truth, which was the one thing his system had never had a category for.
No clipboard. No blazer. No plan.
Just a direction.
13
FINN
The Fury’s ice was better than Michigan’s.
Finn had known it the moment the equipment manager walked him across the fresh sheet that morning, pride thick in every word about the new plant and the temperature held a degree and a half colder than most rinks because analytics said edge quality improved by a measurable percentage. Finn had nodded, kept walking, and thought the ice at Michigan was fine. Good enough for him since he was six years old.
Now he stood in the parking lot with his phone heavy in his grip and the same thought circling. Better ice. Better equipment. Better everything. His agent had said they love you twice and Finn had answered good both times while the hollow place behind his ribs stayed exactly the same size.
Good ice. Professional ice. But Michigan’s had been his.
He was twenty-one and the day had gone exactly the way it was supposed to go and still his chest felt scraped empty.
Hayes had texted. His mother had texted. So proud of you baby. He had sent a thumbs-up emoji and then winced at how small it looked on the screen. Eli Kowalski had texted heard you killed the morning session. told you. Finn’s mouth curved before he could stop it. He typed thanks for the call and hit send before overthinking could catch up. Eli’s message felt different. Warm. Like a door held open instead of a spotlight.
The cold had settled in sometime after the morning session. The sky had gone flat white. Finn’s breath fogged in front of him. From inside the building came the faint scrape of skates on ice bleeding through the walls, thin and familiar. The parking lot was half-full. A team van near the entrance. Two men in suits talking beside a black SUV without looking at each other. Finn’s agent was still inside. Finn had taken a plate from the catering spread in the conference room, set it down somewhere, and walked out here instead because the room had been full of people who wanted pieces of him and the parking lot was not.
He checked his phone again. The habit he had carried since the breakup. Nothing new. He slid the phone into his pocket.
A car pulled in.
Silver sedan with Ann Arbor plates, moving at the uncertain speed of someone trusting GPS into unfamiliar territory. It nosed into the back row and stopped.
Finn’s hands went still at his sides.
The driver’s door opened.
Evan stepped out.
No blazer. Blue button-down untucked at the front, collar open. Jeans. The most casual Finn had ever seen him. Hair flattened on one side from the long drive, shadows under his eyes. Evan scanned the glass facade of the facility first, then found Finn.
Twenty feet of cold pavement between them.
Finn did not move.
“What are you doing here.” The words came out flat, not a question.
Evan walked around the front of the car and stopped ten feet away. His palms stayed at his sides. Breath fogged white. His jaw sat the way it did before a board presentation, but the rest of him was wrong for it. Open collar, untucked shirt, weight shifting between his feet like his body could not find the stance it wanted.
“I had a whole speech,” Evan said. His throat moved. “Practiced it in the car.”
A broken sound, almost a laugh. “I can’t remember the first line.”
Finn waited.
Evan looked at him. Not the careful hallway glance. Full. Direct.
“Your father said your name. And my voice didn’t change.”
