“Cross! You are awake!”
“I’m praying for sleep.”
“You’re eavesdropping.”
“I’m awake and hearing you. I’d like to go to sleep without having to pray for it.”
“Twenty-six down,” I said.
“You don’t know twenty-six down.”
“What if I get it right?”
“Then I’ll know you cheated.”
“How?”
“Because you’ve never gotten one right.”
“Cross, that is deeply hurtful.”
“Goodnight, Varga.”
Rafe sat at the back, row twelve. He lay back and stared at the plane’s ceiling. He had boarded a charter for the first time and discovered that the seats reclined fully.
Returning his seat to upright, he caught my eye across the rows. I raised an eyebrow. He gave me a tiny thumbs-up. I gave him one back.
“He gave you a thumbs-up,” Heath said.
“He did.”
“That is the most Saskatchewan thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Heath, be respectful. The kid is doing his best.”
I was silent for a moment as Heath turned a page in his book.
“You brought a first-edition Hemingway on a plane, Heath. What if we go down?”
“We’re not going down.”
“What if we hit turbulence and you spill your coffee on Santiago and the marlin?The Old Man and the Sea, defiled permanently.”
“I won’t have coffee until I finish reading. And Kieran gave it to me as a gift, so I’ll wait.”
“Oh, right, it’s a book about a fish. What if I spill my coffee on Santiago and the marlin?”
He turned another page. “Then I’ll kill you, Varga.”
I didn’t turn my head to look at Rook. I didn’t need to. He was two rows back on my side of the aisle, where he always was. He’d put his bag in the overhead and coffee in the cupholder. His book was about the Civil War, and he’d been reading it since August. When he was finished reading, he would place it in the seatback pocket.
We were playing in Detroit tonight, Columbus two nights later, and Pittsburgh the next. It was three games in four nights. It was Rafe’s first NHL road swing. By Saturday afternoon, the kid’s legs were going to feel like a building had fallen on him from the inside.
The plane leveled. I pressed play on a playlist Rook had made for me in May, for a road trip starting in Boston. He had put it together while I was packing. I hadn’t known he was makingit until I got to my gate and saw it on my phone, untitled. It included twelve songs he knew I liked and three he hoped I’d like by the third time through.
It only took twice.
***
