“Nothing at all,” says Jax.
They go back to not lifting.
I do legs. I do legs because legs are the only muscle group that will actually take five o'clock to six o'clock off my life. I do back squats and I do Bulgarian splits and I do leg press, and I hate leg press but I do it anyway because the machine does not give me anywhere to look except at my own thighs in the mirror. At the end, I do calves. After calves, I go to the heavy bag in the back.
I wrap my hands.
I hit the bag.
Phoenix is gone. Jax is gone. Grayson is gone.
The bag eats six rounds.
On round seven, I stop because my shoulders are done and my knuckles through the wraps are not going to hold up for warm-ups tomorrow and there is no reason to break my own hand tonight when there is a specific thing I am saving this hand for in two hours.
I unwrap.
I look at myself in the gym mirror.
I am sweaty. I am in the same black shorts and black tee I pulled out of a clean pile this morning. My hair is wet at the temples. My shoulders are tight. My jaw is tight. My whole face looks like a man who is going to do something stupid.
“You're going to do something stupid,” I tell the mirror.
The mirror does not argue.
I rinse my face in the sink, not a full shower. I change my shirt for the spare shirt in my bag. I walk out of the gym in shorts and a new tee at six-fifteen in the evening with my hair still damp, and I head for the waterfront.
The west pier is the narrow one.
The west pier is the pier that goes past the working side of the harbor, past the fishing boats, out to the concrete teeth where the tide breaks. At seven PM in late September the sun is going down behind me. The water is dark green going black. The wind is off the lake and smells of diesel and cold.
He is here already.
Of course he is here already. He is here twenty minutes early because he is twenty years old and he is Paul's son and Paul's son does not show up on time, Paul's son shows up early.
He is sitting on the concrete lip at the end of the pier, feet hanging over the water. Backpack on the ground next to him. Navy warm-up jacket. Jeans. He looks smaller in street clothes than he does in pads. He looks his age.
He hears me come up. He turns his head.
He does not stand.
His face does the thing it does, which is nothing and also everything. Green eyes up. Mouth a little open. Hands flat on the concrete on either side of his thighs.
“Hi.” His voice comes out very small.
“Laurent.”
“Sir.”
I shake my head once.
“Don't.”
“Maddox.”
It is the first time he has said my name.
The first name in his mouth. In his voice. The two syllables his father was probably on the ice listening to three hours ago.Maddox.The shape of it in a kid's mouth that has never said my name.
