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He lets go.

In Wes's truck on the way home, I text Cole.

Me: did anything happen

Cole: he pulled mikey into his office after the game

Cole: 20 min. door shut

Cole: mikey won't talk about it. he just got on the bus

Cole: T what's going on

I don't answer him. I don't know how.

Sunday morning, my alarm goes off at five-ten.

I'm lying on Wes's floor in his spare sleeping bag. Wes is snoring. The light's gray through his blinds.

Down the street, at Kettle, the pucks aren't on the blue line. The water bottles aren't on the net. Nobody's on the bench with two coffees in a cardboard tray.

I know he's there. I know where he is. Standing in his crease in the half dark, scraping his ice, tapping his posts. Waiting.

I turn off the alarm.

I lie there and look at the ceiling. At five-thirty, I'm still looking at it. At six, I'm still looking at it.

It's the first time all season I don't go.

26

DANE

He doesn't come Sunday.

I'm in my crease at five-fifteen. I put the pucks out myself, all of them, along the blue line in a perfect row. I fill two water bottles and set them on top of the net. I scrape my ice, tap my posts, drop into my stance.

At six, nobody comes down the tunnel. Nobody comes after that either.

At seven, Lou comes in to start the Zamboni and finds me still standing in the crease in full pads, with a row of pucks on the blue line that nobody's touched.

"Expecting somebody?" he says.

I don't answer. I pick up the pucks, one at a time, and put them in the bucket.

He doesn't come Monday.

At practice, he skates on the fourth line and doesn't look at me once. He's quiet. Not the quiet he was in October, chin up, daring everybody. A different quiet. Like he's been turned down low.

The room notices. Of course it does. He's sleeping on Wes's floor. His garbage bag of clothes is in Wes's closet. Gunnar says something about it in the room before practice, trouble in paradise, laughing, and Wes turns around and looks at him, and Gunnar stops laughing.

Jace catches my eye across the room. He just looks at me like he's sorry.

Nico drives up Tuesday.

He doesn't tell me he's coming. I come out of the rink after practice and his silver hatchback is parked next to my car, and he's leaning against it with his arms crossed. No Priya this time. He drove four hours by himself, with his neck.

"Get in," he says.