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I look toward my phone.

Beau sent a message after I ignored the last call.

Please let me explain.

I haven’t answered.

I watched him hit Wolf after the whistle. I watched Wolf keep his gloves down. Whatever Beau wants to explain, I’m not ready to hear it while I’m still waiting to find out what it cost Wolf.

He was ejected from the game. This morning, he got a two-game suspension.

I wish it were more.

Then I feel awful for thinking it, which makes me angry all over again.

The Hawkeyes won. One game left in the regular season, and they’ve clinched their playoff spot.

Wolf should be celebrating with them.

Instead, he’s in surgery, and I’m ignoring calls from the brother who put him there.

I spent years defending Beau. Sitting through appointments, listening when he was frustrated, wanting him back on the ice as badly as he wanted it himself.

Now I can’t look at his name on my phone.

"I should’ve told him," I say.

Ellie stops opening a package of cake boards.

"That doesn’t make what he did your fault."

"He found out by seeing us together. I could’ve at least warned him."

"You could have told him you were dating Wolf. You didn’t need to warn him not to attack somebody."

"I know, you’re right."

She waits, and I turn the brush between my fingers.

"If I’d told him before the game, maybe he would’ve had time to calm down."

"Or he could’ve called you, yelled, and then gone out there and done exactly the same thing. You don’t know."

I hate that I can’t be sure Beau wouldn’t have done it anyway.

Ellie comes around the table and takes the brush from me before I snap it.

"You should’ve told him. Okay. That part is yours. What he did on the ice is his."

I look up at her.

"Wolf wanted to ask my parents to dinner."

She goes still.

"Tonight. He wanted to take them to dinner tonight and apologize. Let them ask him questions." My voice catches, and I clear my throat. "He knew it would be awful. He wanted to do it anyway."

"He wanted more with you."