“I’m sorry,” he said to the ceiling.
That got me. He was a man who apologized maybe once a year. When he did it, the entire locker room would go quiet. Now, he was lying in the dark, apologizing to me.
“For what?”
He didn’t answer. He exhaled and reached across the bed until his hand landed on my belly. It was his way of sayingI’ve got youwithout speaking.
I covered his hand with mine. I didn’t sayit’s okaybecause it wasn’t. We’d agreed a long time ago that we didn’t lie in bed. I held his hand against me so he’d know I heard him.
***
I’d reached for him before I woke.
I was still under, dreaming about a Minnesota lake with ice you could walk all the way out on. My arm went across the bed the way it did every morning, reaching for Rook without looking.
His absence woke me up. His side of the bed was cold. He’d spread the duvet flat and even.
I grabbed my phone. It was 9:18. I never slept until 9:18. On a no-skate morning, Rook let me go until seven-something, and then there was coffee on and something sizzling in a skillet.
9:18 meant he’d let me sleep through his exit. I checked my phone for texts. The group chat had forty-one unread messages . There was nothing from Rook.
The kitchen was clean. If he’d made himself breakfast, he’d also washed and put everything away.
The coffee maker held a full pot with the stay-warm light on. Beside it was a note. He printed it in the hard, small capitals he uses because he says nobody can read his cursive.
BACK BY LUNCH.
That was all. No name,Ilove you, orI’vegone to the rink.
My cell phone rang, and I jumped. It was Heath.
“You’re awake,” he said. “I had a bet with myself.”
“I’m a professional athlete, Heath. Morning is my time.”
“It’s 9:30.”
“How do you know I haven’t been awake for three hours?” I turned the note over in my fingers, then set it down.
“Intuition. Have you?”
“No. What do you need? Instructions for braising duck?”
“Laser tag. The Tuesday before the long road trip. I’m bringing Kieran, Pratt, Sully, and Mikkelsen. I’m telling you now so you get it on a calendar and can’t say you had plans.”
“Oh, no. Can’t do it. Absolutely not.” I started pacing in the kitchen.
“Why not?”
“You know what you did to me last time. Do you think I forgot? Four of you.Four.Pratt, Sully, Kieran and you. All of you came around the corner by the fog machine like a firing squad. Pratt even laughed, Heath. He’s an assassin in another life. What you all did was a war crime; I looked it up—“
“You walked into the open.”
“I walked into the open because I trusted my people. It was a betrayal-of-trust situation, and I have not healed. I’m still wounded.”
“So you’re coming.”
I sighed. “Obviously I’m coming; I have to earn my dignity back. I’ve been strategizing for months, with training for evasive action.” I filled a mug with coffee. “Who all is it again?”
