Page 44 of Home Ice

“On up.”

“Up,” he said, and we lifted it.

I pulled my end around and walked backward while Rafe walked forward. The lobby door had an accessibility plate that I bumped with my hip.

We carried it to the elevator. When it came, we turned the piece, and the door closed.

Rafe punched six on the keypad. As the numbers climbed, he tipped his head back against the wall. I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall when he swallowed.

“I go to the rink at four,” he said.

“Who’s the game with?”

“Nashville.”

“Are they any good?”

He nearly smirked. “They’re okay.”

The elevator opened onto a hallway carpeted the color of a rainy day. Rafe walked backward as we carried the console to his door.

“Down,” he said. “The keys are in my pocket.”

We carried the console into Rafe’s living room; I walked forward, and I immediately saw the wall. Positioned above a gray sectional was a woven tapestry that ran near six feet across and ran almost to the ceiling, reds and ochre and a blue so deep it read black from across the room, laid into shapes with hard edges that seemed to sit differently depending on where I was standing. It was hand-woven on a loom. That was legible from twelve feet away, the way you can tell a hand-cut joint across a room.

“Left,” Rafe said. “Little more. Right there’s good.”

When the console was safely down, I walked up to the sectional. Up close, the tapestry was better. The weaving was tight, and the color changes were smooth.

That’s Rafe, I thought. He’d chosen it. For himself.

I looked at the rest of the room, dominated by the gray sectional and a large off-white rug. A dining set sat on the opposite side of the room with four matching chairs.

A man who chose that weaving wouldn’t choose that couch. Where did he go?

“You want water or anything?” Rafe asked. “There’s coffee. It’s not—“ He looked at the machine. “It’s decent coffee.”

“I’m good.”

He got himself a bottle of water out of the fridge and drank it. When I looked around the room again, I spotted a gear bag by the door, packed and zipped. A hockey stick tube leaned against it. They were the only signs that an athlete lived in the space.

The bathroom door opened down the hall, and Max came out walking backward, holding a light stand at arm’s length.

”—the outlet in there is haunted, or maybe the entire wall is. I’m not using that wall.“ He caught sight of me and stopped dead. “You brought a table.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You brought the table.“ He set the stand down, came over, and crouched at the end. He ran his fingers along the waney edge. “For four years I’ve been asking about this table.”

“It’s not for the shot.”

He looked up at me.

“It’s for the room,” I said.

“Uh huh,” Max said, and rose, dusting his knees. He turned to look at the long wall with the tapestry. “This is the wall. We’re shooting everything against it.”

“Do you want me to take it down?” Rafe asked.