“And I told him I almost went back in.” I squeeze my forehead with my fingers. “And that I was scared.”
Silence.
“I held his hand, and we almost kissed,” I sob. “On the dock. By the dumpster. While he was in a towel.”
Elena sets her wine down on the counter. Very precisely. She turns to face me with the expression of a woman who has been waiting for a specific thing for a long time and has now received confirmation of it.
“Antonia Maria Amato,” she says.
“Don’t.”
“You are so?—“
“I know.”
“Completely—“
“Elena.”
“Gone,” she says. She picks her wine back up. Raises it. “Welcome.”
My phone buzzes again.
Max: [star emoji] [snowflake emoji] [dumpster emoji]
I stare at it. The emojis are absurd and specific, and completely him. I do not smile. I smile so wide my face hurts and put the phone down before Elena sees it.
She has already seen it. “Gone,” she says again, with great satisfaction. “Completely gone.”
She is not wrong. That’s the problem.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Max Stevens
Vegas games always feel meaner. Emotionally committed to violence in a way most arenas only attempt. The room before puck drop carries that specific energy. Music too loud, tape snapping, equipment hitting concrete floors hard enough to sound personal. Across from me, Anthony re-tapes his stick for the third time while Fuze skates one-socked foot across the room, stealing pieces of everyone’s pregame snacks like a six-foot menace.
“Those are mine,” Lucas says as Fuze steals half his banana.
“You don’t own potassium.”
“I was eating that.”
“You were thinking about eating it. Different process.”
Trey walks through the middle of it allwith captain-level exhaustion already visible. “Can everybody shut up for thirty consecutive seconds.” Nobody does.
Then the officials walk past the open locker room door toward the ice. And the room changes instantly. No one shows it, yet everyone present recognizes him. Frank Amato walks past in stripes with calm, economical strides, whistle looped around one hand. Veteran official. The room knows who he is. Toni’s father.
Fuze slowly turns toward me. “Oh no.”
“Don’t,” I say immediately.
Anthony leans back in his stall. “That’s actually insane.”
“He’s officiating?” Knox asks.
“You guys didn’t know?” Lucas says. “I thought everyone knew.”
