Page 93 of Home Ice

“There he is.” He didn’t stop walking. “We still good for eleven thirty? Small room upstairs, the same one as always. Won’t take long.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Great.” He was already past me. “Good skate?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said, and then was gone around the corner.

***

At eleven twenty-five I climbed the back stairs to the second floor, and it wasn’t until I was in the hallway outside the small PR room, hearing Mark wrapping up a call inside, that I realized I hadn’t thought about the meeting once all morning.

I didn’t know what he was going to ask, and I hadn’t prepared anything to say.

I waited to knock. Inside, Mark said goodbye to whoever it was, and I heard him set the phone down on the desk. Then I knocked, one quick rap.

“Come on in,” Mark said. “Right on time. You want a coffee?”

There was already one on the low desk, sitting on an Ironhawks coaster. I sat down in front of it. Mark stayed in the chair across from me. It was the setup for the January meeting all over again.

“So, first, how are you?” he asked. “There’s been a lot going on lately.”

“I’m good.”

Mark smiled. “Okay. I want to run something by you, and I want to say upfront, the same as always: this is a request, not a demand. You can say no to this, and if you say no, we never speak of it again and nothing changes for you. Understood?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Here’s where we are.” He leaned forward. “The story flipped. A couple of weeks ago, I had a binder of contingencies for how bad it could get. Today, the same outlets that ran calculated humility are calling me asking for the love story. They’re going to keep calling, Rafe, because right now the story has a hole in it. Niko doesn’t talk.” He leaned back. “So here’s the idea. One feature. You sit down once and tell the real story on your terms. Every reporter who calls after that gets pointed at it. It takes the entire subject off your plate for the rest of the season. It would take one afternoon. That’s the ask.”

It was a good pitch. It was January’s pitch with everything wrong scrubbed out of it.

“Take the time you need,” Mark said. “Talk to Hal. Sleep on—“

“No.”

Mark stopped with his mouth still slightly open.

I waited for my chest to tighten, telling me I’d cost somebody something.

It didn’t arrive. My hands rested easy on my knees, and somewhere below us a Zamboni door banged shut and a guy laughed.

“Okay,” Mark said.

We looked at each other, and I gave him my reason.

“This isn’t for the cameras,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Okay.”

He picked the folder up off the desk, opened a file drawer, and dropped it inside.

“It’s dead,” he said. “I’ll tell them today. If anybody circles back on it after this week, that’s my problem, not yours.”

“Mark.”

He looked up from the drawer.