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I get in. Passenger side, this time. He sits behind the wheel.

He doesn't start the car either.

"Theo called me Saturday night," he says. "From Wes's bathroom. With the water running so nobody would hear."

I close my eyes.

"He told me what you did," Nico says. "Halvorsen. The phone. All of it." He's very calm. That's worse than shouting. "And then he told me Marrack had Mikey Brandt in his office for twenty minutes after the game. With the door shut. And Mikey won't tell anybody what happened."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I was trying to⁠—"

"I know what you were trying to do, Dane." He turns in his seat to look at me. "You were trying to make it stop. You were trying to make it so he didn't have to carry it. I know. I get it. That's what you do." He laughs a little. It sounds tired. "That's what you've always done. Since we were kids. You decide what people need, and then you go get it for them, whether they want it or not."

"That's not⁠—"

"You decided I blamed you for April. I didn't. You decided Theo deserved a card table. He didn't. And now you decided he didn't get to choose. And he did. That was the one thing he had, D." Nico's voice wobbles. "The one thing that was his. He's had nothing this whole year. No team. No friends. No money. No name. People spit at him in Ashby. Did you know that? Somebody spit on him at a gas station in June. And the one thing he had was that it was his story, and he was going to tell it when he decided. And you took it."

I have nothing.

"You didn't take it out of his hands," Nico says. "You just took it."

The car's very quiet. Outside, a couple of freshmen walk by, laughing. Petey, with somebody I don't know. Spring jackets. The snow's mostly gone.

"What do I do," I say.

Nico just looks at me.

"I don't know," he says. "And I'm not going to tell you. You have to figure that one out yourself."

He starts the car.

"Get out," he says, not unkindly. "I'm going to go find him."

I go to Halvorsen's office.

He's on the phone when I knock. He holds up one finger. I stand in the doorway until he's done, and he hangs up, and looks at me over his reading glasses.

"Coach."

"Kovač."

"The calls you made. To the commissioner."

He takes his glasses off. Folds them.

"I can't unmake a phone call, son."

"I know. I'm asking you to hold it. Whatever's next. Don't file anything. Don't call anybody else. Not until Theo decides." I swallow. "Whatever he decides. Even if it's nothing."

Halvorsen takes that in.

"That's what I told him on Saturday," he says. "That I wouldn't do anything without him."

"I know. I'm asking you to tell him again. From me." I look at the floor. "Tell him I asked."