Page 75 of Home Ice

“He’s from a farm,” I said. “They teach them to eat.”

“Don’t get smart with me.” I heard the clank of a pot. “I’m making avgolemono. You’ll come get some for your freezer and don’t tell me your freezer’s full. And when your brother surfaces, you tell him to call his mother, because right now he’s texting me one line at a time like I’m a client.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Love you, Niko.”

“Love you, Ma.” She hung up.

She wasn’t wrong about the texting. Since the leak, Max had been sending me brief messages, unlike the detailed ones he’d been sending since he got a phone.

I went back to the chest. I got one pin pared clean and was marking the next when the phone buzzed again.

Max: coming by. is the shop open?

That was a perfect example—six words.

Niko: It’s open.

I filled my electric kettle and plugged it in. Five minutes later, the bell over the door rang. Max stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself.”

His clothes were conservative for Max, but better than what most men our age wore. He didn’t carry in a bakery box or coffee. Both hands were empty.

Max crossed to the stool at the end of the bench and sat down.

“I’m making us tea,” I said. “It soothes.”

“Sure.”

I dropped two tea bags into mugs and poured water from the kettle over them. When the tea was ready, I handed one to Max.

“Thanks.”

He sipped a little and didn’t say anything. Usually, we both drank coffee, but Ma always brought the tea when a serious conversation was about to take place.

“You saw Varga’s thing, right?” Max asked. “The lecture.”

“I saw it.”

“It was amazing. There aren’t words.” He tried to smile, but didn’t quite make it. “He’s a genius, you know, and he made it all look spontaneous. You can’t teach that.”

“You could.”

“I could,” he agreed.

I pulled the other stool around with my foot and sat across from Max.

“Okay,” he said, staring down into his mug. “So I need to talk to you, and I need you to let me get through it before you say anything. It has taken me days to get this in order.”

“Fine,” I said. “Shoot.”

He set the mug down and placed his hands flat on his knees.

“Before this blew up, I had 1.1 million followers,” he said. “As of last night, I have 1.6. I’ve picked up half a million people in less than a week. For scale, it took me two years to get my first half million.”