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“I’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
Auggie rapped on his forehead.
“Hey,” Theo said.
“I told you two to cut it out.”
He went to knock on Theo’s forehead again, and Theo caught his arm with a mock glower. “You know older men divorce their younger partners at much higher rates, right?”
Auggie flashed him a smirk. “Lucky for me, I’ve gotten very good at sex over the years. Come on, Daddy can buy me a hot dog and a Coke from the concession stand, and I’ll be a very good boy for the rest of the day.”
“I’m talking rates of seventy, eighty percent.”
Auggie opened the door and in an unnecessarily loud voice, camped, “Come on, Daddy, I’m starving!”
“The murder rates are higher too,” Theo told him.
Auggie got out of the car, laughing silently.
Inside, the ice plex reminded Theo of other large athletic facilities he’d been in, only kept about twenty degrees colder. The shock of stepping into the chill, after the brief walk across the broiling parking lot, was like a polar plunge. In the lobby, people mingled, lugging skates and pads and sticks and those massive rolling bags that were the sign of a true hockey player. The familiar mixture of ingrained sweat and body odor and cleaning products battled for dominance. They must have arrived just as the rink was being turned over, because a herd of moms and kids were shuffling toward the doors. On the rink, what appeared to be the Pee Wee version of adult hockey was taking place—a menagerie of middle-aged men in expensive gear were taking the ice, shouting to each other as the sound of metal slicing the ice filled the air. One jabroni had managed to get himself caught in his own jersey, and he was skating backwards as he tried to disentangle himself. On the jumbotron overhead—which wasn’t all that jumbo, and maybe was more of just a regular tron—what appeared to be a blooper reel from some long-ago Ice Capades was playing. As Theo watched, a man on the screen spun a woman by her heels before losing his grip and sending the woman flying off camera—and presumably, off the ice.
“Do you know how handsome you are?”
Theo turned his attention back to his partner. “Thank you?”
“No, I mean, you’re handsome in general, but do you know how handsome you are when you’re grumpy?”
“You know, sometimes these places have a daycare center, somewhere you can leave your kids.”
“I’m being serious, Theo. About the grumpiness. It’s doing something for me. Well, I mean, it’s always done something for me. Do you remember when I used to show up at your house, before you were ready to admit your undying love for me and you acted like you were annoyed—”
“It’s coming back to me.”
“—and just like now, you’d get this little furrow on your forehead, and your jaw gets tighter—oh my God, yes, exactly like that.”
And, of course, he just laughed when Theo tried to smash him into the boards.
Emery had texted them a room number, and they passed the rink and moved into one of the service hallways. For the moment, Theo and Auggie were alone, and they hurried down the hall, watching the numbers as they went.
“What do you think this is all about?” Auggie asked. “Kidnapping?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t want to know.”
“Guess we’re going to find out.”
Theo didn’t answer that; he didn’t have to, because the next door was the one they were looking for. It wasn’t remarkable—it was a metal door painted light blue, like every other door in the hallway. Theo motioned for Auggie to wait as he listened. He thought he heard voices, but he couldn’t make out words. When he tried the handle, it turned.
The room appeared to be a maintenance closet—several push-behind floor scrubbers lined one wall, and a utility sink was mounted with a bottle of orange Ajax soap next to it, and metal shelves held bottles of cleaning solutions and replacement scrubbers for the machines. All of that registered only briefly before Theo’s attention fixed on the shitstorm happening at the center of the room.
He recognized Keelan: the dark tan; the hint of curl to long hair that was faded on the sides and back; the muscles under that layer of puppy padding. The boy wore a sweatshirt and mesh shorts and calf-length socks, and it was obvious he’d been exercising—practicing, a part of Theo’s brain corrected—and hadn’t yet had a chance to shower. He was sitting in a chair, and to judge by the remaining duct tape, he hadn’t been sitting there voluntarily. Not initially, anyway. He also looked pissed.
Emery leaned against the shelves, hands in the pockets of his jeans, a strange expression on his face—somewhere between blind, murderous rage and what Theo was tempted to call pride. His amber eyes lighted on Theo and Auggie before darting back to the teenagers huddled at the back of the room.
There were four of them, and they were clearly caught in their own emotional dilemma of fear and pride. Theo and Auggie had...experienced Emery’s fan club over the summer, and not much seemed to have changed. Arthur was tall and beanpole thin, wearing an honest-to-God pocket protector; Stevie had their hair in a butch cut and was wearing a jumpsuit with a Top Gun patch on the chest; Lorcan looked like he might be stuck at five-four forever and was the only teenager Theo knew who had ever come to school in spats; and last was Dot, in her orthodontic headgear, intermittently activating a stun gun so that it sparked and snapped. Keelan flinched when the gun went off, but he didn’t look over his shoulder.
“What the hell?” Auggie whispered.
“These guys are psycho—” Keelan started to stand.
