Page 4

I pull my phone out of my bag, mostly so I have somewhere to look. One unread text from a contact saved as N.

N: how was day 1

I don't open it. I put the phone face down on the bench.

Up by the door, the pressed number-four jersey hangs in the empty stall. Somebody irons that thing.

I wonder if it's him.

2

DANE

Kettle Arena at a quarter to six is the only place on earth that's ever been quiet enough.

Half the overheads are on. The other half are dark, and the far end of the rink sits in shadow like it's waiting for something. The ice is fresh. Lou, the night guy, flooded it at five because I asked him to and because I've been asking him to for three years. No blade marks. Nothing on it but the lines.

I dress alone. I stretch in the crease, hips first, then the backs of my knees, the same order every time. I scrape my ice from post to post. I tap both posts with my stick.

Then I stand there and wait, and I let the cold come up through my skates.

At 5:58 the door by the Zamboni bay bangs open.

"Morning, sunshine."

Lindqvist comes down the tunnel in full gear with two coffees in a cardboard tray and his helmet hooked on one finger. He steps onto the ice like he owns it. He glides all the way down to my crease and stops without spraying me this time, and holds out the tray.

"Didn't know how you take it. Got you black. You seem black."

I look at him.

"No? Okay." He pulls one out and sets the tray on top of the net. "More for me."

"Get it off my net."

He takes his time. He drinks half of one coffee standing there, watching me over the lid, and then he skates over to the bench and leaves both cups on the boards. There's tape on his lip where it split yesterday. He's still smiling. He smiles like it costs him nothing, and I know enough about faces to know that's never true.

"So how does this work," he says, coming back with a puck on his stick. "Do I get a warm-up? Is there a speech? Do you want to tell me about your feelings first?"

"Five pucks. Blue line in. One shot each. Rebounds don't count."

"Got it."

"You have to score on all five."

"You said that yesterday." He flips the puck up on his blade and bounces it twice. "I listened."

"Then go."

He skates out to the blue line. He turns. He sets the puck down.

I drop into my stance. Knees, hips, glove open. My weight on the balls of my feet. I keep my eyes on the puck and nothing else, and the world gets small and still and clear the way it always does.

He comes.

He's fast. That was never the question. He's got a quick, light stride that eats ice without looking like he's working, and the puck stays glued to him the whole way like it's on a string. I come out to the top of the paint to take the angle. He looks glove side, all eyes and shoulders, a big obvious read.

It's a lie. The hands go the other way.