I stayed until 5:30. With him situated properly on the couch, I left a note on the counter that said I’d be back tonight. I let myself out and locked the door behind me with the spare key he had pressed into my palm on arrival, like it was nothing.
At practice, Cross asked me how Varga was. I said bored. He said figures.
I went back that night with rotisserie chicken and a bag of rice.
Then I went back the night after that.
And the night after that.
Chapter one
Rook
Istood at the kitchen island in my socks and smiled at the coffee maker because Varga had loaded it last night before he’d joined me in bed. He did that on skate mornings. He had been doing it for five years without being asked.
He’d set the timer for 6:30 before he went upstairs and brushed his teeth.
I poured the coffee into the UMaine Black Bears mug he had pulled down for me last night. The mug had been in my life longer than Varga. I’d earned it in college and carried it through three apartments to this kitchen.
Upstairs, the house was quiet. Varga slept hard after games. He’d returned home at midnight buzzing from his second-period primary assist and the win, and he had narrated from the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth—the kid had it on a platter, Rook, on a platter. All I did was put the puck where his stick was going to be, that’s a Mikkelsen goal with a Varga assist. The kid is going somewhere.He’d spat, rinsed, and climbed into bed in his shorts. After telling me three more things, he was asleep before I turned off the lamp.
I sipped my coffee.
6:47. Twenty-eight minutes before I needed to be in the truck. He’d sleep for another half hour. I knew the rest of his morning by heart.
Through the window above the sink, the backyard was still in shadow. On the stove, the cast-iron pan sat clean. I had bought it in our second year. Varga used it every morning for eggs and had never asked where it came from. He had simply, at some point, started reaching for it.
I rinsed the mug and climbed the stairs for one last look.
The bedroom was dim with the blinds drawn. On the bed, a long dark shape lay under the gray duvet, breathing slowly. I stood in the doorway with the tug in my gut to cross the room and kiss the side of his neck before I left. It would wake him halfway, and he would mutter in Hungarian and pull my hand down to his chest for ninety seconds before letting me go.
I did it. His heart beat slowly against my palm.
In the kitchen, the coffee maker clicked itself off behind me. I stood for a second with my hand on the doorknob to the garage and thought:I love that man. I love this house. I love this morning.
I merged onto the Edens Expressway as the Chicago skyline rose ahead of me. I drove past one of Cross’s billboards, thirty feet of jaw above the words YOUR SEASON STARTS HERE, and waved.
After taking the exit toward the Performance Center, I threaded through the warehouse blocks and the new mid-rises that had gone up over what used to be a foundry. The Center sat low and long on the river, no signage on the street side. I drove around to the back, badged in at the players’ gate, and rolled down into the underground garage.
I rode the elevator up and stepped into the corridor leading to the locker room. The light was on in the video room as Ipassed, which meant Coach Markel had been at his desk since six. I passed Cal, twenty-three and two years in from the AHL pipeline. He was still apologizing through doorways.
“Morning, Rook,” he said.
“Morning, Cal.”
The dressing room was half-full. The rookie, Mikkelsen, sat at his stall two down from Varga’s, looping his skate laces. Two of the younger guys were in the corner, on their phones. Through the rink door, I heard blades; Cross was already on the ice.
Varga’s stall, two down from mine, was empty. I hung my jacket and sat, pulling my gear from my bag. I had taped one stick and was halfway through the second when my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket. I dug it out.
Varga:where’d you go old man
I checked the clock above the door. 8:04. He’d woken up four minutes ago, looked at his phone, and saw I was gone. Before he made espresso, he’d sent me five words to tell me he’d reached for me first.
Rook:rink. coffee was on. go back to sleep.
Three dots appeared and then disappeared.
Varga:can’t. bed is wrong without you in it.
