Page 114

"Yes."

He lifts his head and looks at me. "Then what?"

I think about it. The Book of Grudges on my nightstand, with three pages at the back of it that I'll never need to read out loud again. The card table at the Lantern, two tables pushed together now, with room for one more chair. Easter in Ashby. Nico's thirty-four seconds on the foam pad. Every morning at six, with nothing at stake.

"I don't know," I say. "You decide."

He grins.

"Six," he says. "Kettle. Five pucks."

"What happens if you score all five?"

"Then you do what I say."

I laugh. Out loud, with the window open, where anyone on Birch Street could hear.

"Yes," I say.

EPILOGUE

THEO

Six months later, it's September again, and Kettle Arena at a quarter to six is still the quietest place on earth.

Half the overheads are on. Lou flooded the ice at five because Dane asked him to, and because Dane's been asking him to for four years now, and Lou says if anybody tries to stop him, he'll quit.

I come down the tunnel at 5:58 with two coffees in a cardboard tray. One black. One with too much hazelnut creamer.

He's in his crease. Scraping his ice. Tapping his posts.

He's not supposed to be here. He graduated in May. He signed with the Duluth Ironwood in June, the farm club, one step from the show, and he reports to camp in eleven days. He drove over from Duluth last night with his pads in the back of his car and his key to Kettle still on his ring, because nobody at Graymoor has had the heart to ask for it back.

"You're late," he says.

"I'm two minutes early."

"Late counts as a miss."

"I'm not late, Josip, I'm literally⁠—"

He's smiling behind his mask. I can see it in his eyes.

I set the tray on the boards. I skate out to the blue line. There are five pucks waiting in a perfect row.

"Terms," I say.

"Five pucks. Blue line in. No rebounds." He drops into his stance. "Score all five, I do what you say. All day."

"And if I don't?"

"Equipment room."

My whole body goes warm. Six months, and it still does that.

A lot happens in six months.

We lost in the national semifinal in April, in overtime, to a team from Massachusetts with a goalie who stopped forty-four shots. Dane stopped thirty-nine. Afterward, in the handshake line, the other goalie told him he'd watched the center-ice clip forty times. Dane didn't know what to say. He said thanks.