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It suited us.

I was on the fly when he came out of nowhere, a wall of black and red, and hit me so cleanly I never saw it. The boards shuddered. My breath went out in a rush. For a second I hung there, pinned, with his forearm across my collarbone and his face inches from mine, gray eyes glittering behind the cage.

“Hello, husband,” said Maksim.

“Hey, ice prince.”

“You are playing very well.”

“I know. Get off.”

“I am considering it.”

“You’re cheating. That’s a hold.”

“It is a firm hug.”

“I’m gonna crush you.”

“You are welcome to try.”

The whistle blew. I ripped free, and shoved him, and he let me, and I skated back to center ice with my ears burning, hearing Rick and Dave howling in the booth. Somewhere behind the glass, in the fourth row, a small figure in a hand-knitted Ravens scarf leapt to her feet and screamed.

“GO, MAKSIM! GO! ELBOW HIM!”

It was Sabine. She’d flown in from Montreal for the weekend, with Tamsin, who was sitting beside her wearing a Kings jersey and a look of glassy detachment. In the row behind them sat my mother, in a blue Kings sweater, a foam finger on each hand, screaming for both teams. My sister sat beside her with Tyler and a ukulele. My father was in the aisle seat. He was wearing a Kings jacket. He was not cheering. But he had a ticket stub in his hand, one of two, and the seat beside him was empty, and every so often he glanced at it.

Dad’s got two tickets, I thought. And he finally used one.

Something in my chest went soft.

“Lex!” bellowed Jason, from the bench. “Head in the game!”

“I’m in the game!”

“You’re smiling at the stands!”

“I always smile at the stands!”

“You look like a maniac!”

“I’m happy! “

“That’s what I said!”

I laughed. I dropped my stick to the ice, and skated up to face the puck, and looked at the man across from me: my rival, my husband, the coldest and warmest creature I’d ever known. He was looking at me too. There was a lot in that look. There was a locker room and a rink at midnight and a hotel room and a warehouse. There was the smell of honey bread. There was everything.

The referee dropped the puck.

We went to war.

We won, by the way, 4–3, in overtime. Maksim scored the third goal for the Ravens at 17:22, a wrist shot from the point that I’m still furious about, and I scored the winner. He didn’t stop me, or so he says. He says he simply “lost the angle.”

I checked the tape. He lost nothing.

Afterward we shook hands at center ice, in front of nine thousand people, and the whole arena started chanting, and Rick’s voice came over the speakers going “Ladies and gentlemen, the Volkov-Pendleton handshake!” and the cameras flashed.

“You let me win,” I said, through my teeth, smiling for the crowd.