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“Because one of us is going to be there, and it is going to be you.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No.”

“You’re supposed to argue with me.”

“I agree with you. It is not fair. You are still going.”

She looks at the phone in her hand.

“Can I still call her?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay.”

My mother answers.

Tova switches to Swedish before she says hello. Colt puts the milk away, takes another piece of the licorice, and sits down across from us.

I pull my chair closer.

Chapter thirty-six

Colt

Their winger looks at the defenseman before the puck reaches him.

Most guys watch the puck. He watches the man behind it, and that half second tells me more than the puck ever could. I change direction before the pass hits his tape near the wall.

Mack is still closing from the middle when I get between them. The winger turns toward the open ice he expects and finds me instead. He tries to pull the puck across his body, but he’s already late.

I take it off his stick and send it behind me without looking.

Mack is there. Mack is always there.

He carries it through neutral ice while I follow. By the time their winger catches us, Roman is already crossing the blue line. Mack sends the puck wide, Roman one-times it, and the shot catches the post hard enough to ring through the building.

The crowd makes the sound nineteen thousand people make when they all miss something by an inch.

I circle behind the net and their winger catches me against the boards, which is the first useful thing he’s done all period.

“You knew.”

I grin at him. “You looked.”

He shoves my right shoulder.

Pain flashes hot enough that my next breath comes through my teeth. I answer with my hip instead of the arm and move him off me.

“You could try being less obvious.”

“Fuck you.”