Page 29 of Home Ice

“Sure,” I said. “Happy to.”

“Obviously.”

“What’s the thing?” I asked.

“What?”

“By the meter. The thing.”

Trier looked at me for a second. “The thing,” he said.

Then he took his coffee and went back to his row.

I’d told Niko Thursday, but I hadn’t told him a time. I could be at the shop by a quarter to five, and he’d never know my afternoon had been anything other than a normal afternoon.

Heath was two rows up with his eyes closed. He spoke to me without opening them or turning around. “Rafe, you can come straight to our place from the airport.”

I looked at the back of his headrest. “I’ve got my bag.”

“Bring your bag. Kieran’s putting the short ribs on the second we’re through the door. If you go home first, you’ll sit down on that couch and look at your phone, and then it’ll be six thirty and you’ll decide you’re tired from the trip and talk yourself out of it.”

“I wouldn’t talk myself out of it.”

“Rafe.”

“I might have showered.”

“You can shower at our place,” Heath said.

They had a good shower in their bathroom. I walked into a condo in Lincoln Park, hearing the ribs sizzling, and Heath said the towels were in the closet by the bathroom.

When I came out with my hair still damp, Heath was asleep on the couch with one arm hanging off the side. Kieran was at the stove. He turned around as I entered the kitchen.

“Better?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Sit down. We’ve got bottles of beer and iced tea in the fridge. No help needed; I’ve got a system.”

I sat at their counter with a bottle of tea and watched Kieran work.

The rest of the guys started showing up around five. Trier let himself in without knocking and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

“That’s a lot of short ribs.”

“It’s the right amount of short ribs,” Kieran said.

“For a wedding.”

“You’re early, so you carry folding chairs. Front closet.”

Trier went to the front closet.

Varga was mid-sentence coming through the door, talking about the wine he’d bought from a wine shop twenty minutes out of his way.

“He said it was a mistake with ribs. A mistake. It’s a Zinfandel. It’s built for smoke, with jam in it; it wants ribs. This is what the grape is for. I’ve been going to him for three years, and he picks today to become a coward.”

“So what did you do?” Kieran said.