I shared—most of it. “I didn’t go to the rink,” I said. “I mean, I went to the rink. Then I drove into the city. I met the reporter. Kovac.” His thumb stopped moving. “In person. I told you I’d do it by phone, and then I drove in and did it in person, and I should have told you I was going, and I didn’t, and that’s—that’s the part I’ll apologize for.”
“Okay,” he said carefully, the way you take a step onto ice you’re not sure of. “Okay. Why’d you—“
“Because I know him.” I looked at Varga. “From before you. I told you that part, in bed, the night this started—that I knew him from a long time ago. I didn’t tell you how.” I put my hand over his hand on my jaw and held it there. “Six years ago. It wasin Toronto on a road trip. I was in a bar by myself and Kovac started talking to me, and I—“
The words were right there, but I struggled to pull them out. “I said more to him in three hours than I’d said to anyone in my life. I told him what I was. None of that had ever been said out loud, and then I went back to the hotel and lay awake until four in the morning deciding I’d never do it again.”
Varga didn’t move. He kept his hand against my jaw while I braced. I was ready for him to be loud. If he saidYou let me think I knew all of you. Who else? What else?I’d have deserved it. It would have been fair and it would have been correct, and I’d built an entire speech in the truck for taking it.
He didn’t bite.
What he did was quieter than I knew how to handle. His thumb moved once along my cheekbone.
“You told a stranger,” he said. “In a bar. Six years ago.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’ve been carrying that the whole time. Even—“ He stopped. “Even here. With me. You’ve been carrying the fact that the only person you ever said it to was some guy in Toronto, and now he’s the guy who wants to interview you and you didn’t—” His voice caught. “Okay. Okay. Come here.”
He pulled my forehead down to his and held it there, both hands on my jaw now, and we stood in the kitchen with our heads together. The sandwiches were still half-built on the board.
I hadn’t planned for this. I’d planned for a fight. “There’s more,” I said into the small space between us. “About the meeting. Not the bar—the meeting today. He told me things.”
“Tell me at the table.” Varga pulled back and looked at me. “You haven’t eaten. You make little sense when you haven’t eaten. That’s when you go all Maine and start answeringeverything in four words or less.” He picked the knife back up. “Sit. I’ll finish these. Talk.”
I sat. He finished the sandwiches and put one in front of me. I told him the rest while we ate.
I told him Kovac had sources. People who knew me early on. I mentioned the coach from Maine and a guy named Coombs from my first team. I didn’t mention Easton. It stayed in the dark where it had lived for fifteen years.
“He thinks people already know,” I said. “Luki, he sat there and told me like it was nothing, as if it were obvious.”
I stopped. I’d given him everything I was going to be able to give him.
“Do you?” he asked.
“Do I what?”
“Think people know.” His voice was even. “Or—“ He stopped, and started again, quieter. “Do you think we still need to hide?”
I couldn’t answer. Not because I didn’t want to. I didn’t know. For five years I’d known we needed to hide.
Varga watched me not answer. Then he reached across the corner of the table and wove his fingers together with mine.
“I’m not asking for an answer today,” he said. I watched him take a deep breath.
“Here’s what I think, and you can tell me I’m wrong; you always do. I think you’ve been carrying this a long time. Way longer than today, longer than some bar in Toronto, I think you’ve been carrying it the whole time I’ve known you and I just couldn’t see where.” His voice softened. “And it’s heavy, Rook. I can see that it’s heavy, but I’m right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere; I’m right here.”
“I know you are,” I said.
I’d told him about the bar in Toronto. I’d told him about the sources and Kovac’s question, but I hadn’t told him about Easton, and with his hands on my face, I knew I wasn’t going to.
Chapter eleven
Varga
The sign just inside the door read LASER COMBAT. Underneath it, in smaller letters,Ages 7 and Up. I tapped it.
“That’s us,” I told Rafe. “We qualify. Seven and up. You’re what, twenty? You’re a senior citizen in this building.”
