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Nico comes in through the side door with Priya, and Theo's mom right behind them.

Doug tries to stop them. Doug always tries to stop people. Nico just says "Doug, I played here," and walks right past him.

He walks right up to me and grabs me around the neck and pulls my head down and holds on, his good hand in my hair, and I hold him back, careful of his neck. He smells like popcorn.

"You absolute idiot," he says into my ear.

"I know."

"In front of everybody."

"That was the point."

He pulls back. He's grinning so hard his face looks like it might break.

"Mom's going to lose her mind," he says. "Dad's already called me four times. Oh, and you're trending. On, like, every website. Goalie drops to knees. There's a slow-motion version with music."

"Great."

"It's really good, D. It's really good. Priya made it."

Across the room, Theo's mom has found him. She's a small woman with tired eyes and Theo's exact face, in his old Harrow jersey inside out, and she's got both arms around his neck and he's bent down so she can reach, and she's saying something in his ear over and over.

Then she lets go. She looks across the room at me.

She walks over.

I don't know what to do. I'm standing there in my base layer, covered in cider, with my hair sticking up.

She stops in front of me. She looks up at me. She has Theo's eyes, very blue.

"You're the one who made him sit at the card table," she says.

My stomach drops.

"Yes, ma'am."

"And who knelt down on that ice in front of eight thousand people and said sorry for it."

"Yes, ma'am."

She looks at me a moment longer.

"Easter," she says. "Ashby. I'm making pot roast. You're coming."

She pats my cheek, twice, the way you'd pat a kid's. Then she goes back to Theo.

Nico's laughing so hard he has to sit down.

We go home at one in the morning.

Wes drives Theo back to Birch Street with his garbage bag of clothes. I watch from my window while Theo carries it up the front walk and in the door, and I hear him come up the stairs, and stop at the top.

He doesn't go into Nico's old room.

He doesn't go into Wes's room.

He knocks on my door.