Page 67 of Home Ice

Behind the blinds, a shadow moved and stopped somewhere near where I knew the bench was.

I was across the street before I heard the truck door shut behind me.

Chapter sixteen

Niko

Iwas halfway through a rip cut when my phone started going off and didn’t stop. I finished the cut, because you don’t leave a saw in the middle of a board, and then I picked up the phone.

Max: it’s out. the arrangement. all of it

Max: I’m okay. handling it. don’t call, I’m with my people

Max: I’ll call you tonight

I read the three messages twice. The news didn’t worry me, but Max’s way of sharing it did. He never shared information so directly. He always created a story. When our grandfather died, Max called me from the hospital parking lot and talked for forty minutes, sharing all the details, including the design of the gift shop. All I got now was “handling it.”

Niko: I’m here for you.

Next, I did what I thought everyone in the city was doing. I looked for more. The story was everywhere, and it was short. They painted Max as the victim, an innocent influencer caught in a hockey team’s publicity machine.

They portrayed Rafe as the opposite. They said it was all engineering, every ounce a fake.

That was wrong—100% wrong.

Ma called an hour later.

“Have you talked to him?”

“He texted. He says he’s handling it.”

“Handling it.” I heard the sounds of kneading dough, slapping against the counter, and it gave her something to punch. “Voula sent me the article. I read two lines. They’re saying he was tricked, Niko. Nobody tricked him. He sat in the living room and explained the whole contract to your father as if it were a car lease.”

“I know, Ma.”

“And the boy.” The sounds stopped. “What are they saying about the boy?”

“Nothing true,” I said.

She was quiet for a moment. “Don’t forget to eat,” she said, and then she hung up.

I didn’t text Rafe. I looked at the screen with his name on it and couldn’t find the words.

There was nothing to say. I wanted him, not answers.

If pushed, I’d say I spent the afternoon working on the blanket chest. In reality, I cut one set of pins in two hours and checked my phone every five minutes.

Max didn’t call, and Rafe didn’t text.

At six the shop phone rang, and it was a woman on Wolcott who wanted to know whether her bookcase could go two inches taller and whether two inches would cost her. I told her it could and it wouldn’t. She talked for a while about her ceilings and about the crown molding her contractor wanted to take down. I listened to all of it.

She didn’t know anything had happened in my world that day. I wasn’t ready for the conversation to be over when it ended.

At seven I went upstairs and ate standing at the counter. Max didn’t call. At eight, I checked the ringer was on. At nine I checked it again.

Somewhere in there I read the message thread with Rafe, but I still didn’t know what to say.

A little after ten, I tidied up the shop and turned out the lights. The streetlights shone around the edges of the blinds. They weren’t visible when all the lights were on inside.