Page 23 of Hard Check
A pause from above. Then the crunch of Justin taking another bite of his apple. “Cool.”
Dawson freed the linkage and pulled it out, turning the part under the light. The pivot was scored on one side, not bad enough to replace, but enough to feel. He grabbed a wire brush from the bench and started cleaning it, focused on the rhythm of bristles on metal while the radio switched to Springsteen.
It didn’t matter what his body did when Leo stood close or spoke in that careless, too-fast voice. Leo Vargas was a professional hockey player who thought Port Haven was a pit stop on the way back to somewhere better. He’d said it himself—it’s not Orlando, it’s not what I’m used to—and Dawson had heard exactly what that meant. Port Haven was a sentence Leo was serving. Dawson had built his whole life here, and he wasn’t going to risk it for someone who was already looking for the exit.
And even if Leo stayed, it wouldn’t change the fact that Dawson was thirty-six years old, and no one but Justin knew his truth. He’d held a man’s hand where anyone who knew him might see or brought a man home.
Whenever he needed company other than his right hand, Dawson found a reason to head to Milwaukee or Madison to visit one of his favorite bars. He’d get a hotel room and whoever he’d spent the night with was usually gone before he woke the next morning.
If he let someone in, someone fromhere, the shields he’d built for himself would collapse. At this point, he’d been lying to everyone for so long it was easier to keep up the ruse rather than hurt his family by making them think he didn’t trust them with his truth.
He cleaned the last of the grime from the pivot and held it up to the light. Smooth. He rolled back under the rig and started reinstalling it.
When he finished, Justin handed him one of the beers he’d brought, and they sat on the tailgate of Justin’s truck watching the sun drop behind the treeline. Cold and cheap and tasting like every other evening they’d spent here—good in a way that had nothing to do with the beer.
“Ski was talking about Leo at The Penalty Box last night,” Justin said.
Dawson took a drink and didn’t say anything. “Oh?”
“Said he’s fast. Like, scary fast.” Justin picked at the label on his bottle. “Guess a bunch of the guys helped him move into his apartment last week. Just showed up unannounced and started hauling shit inside. Ski said he looked like he didn’t know how to deal with everyone in his space.”
“He’ll get used to it.”
“Yeah.” Justin took a drink. “Ski likes him though. Said he’s not what he expected.”
Dawson nodded and let the quiet take over.
Leo’s carwas going to take longer than he’d quoted. Common courtesy said he should let the guy know in person, since the timeline had changed twice already. Dawson could’ve texted that. He could’ve called. He was halfway to the Icehouse before he admitted he wasn’t going to do either, and by then, it was easier to keep driving than to turn around and ask himself why.
He parked in the lot between a minivan and a truck with a figure skating bumper sticker and sat in his cab for two full minutes before going inside.
The Icehouse was warmer than he expected. September hadn’t cooled the building down to its winter bite yet, and the concourse smelled like Zamboni exhaust and old rubber. The lobby had a row of windows overlooking the ice.
Practice was still running. The team moved through some kind of drill, two lines cycling back and forth across the ice. Dawson recognized Tommy Kowalski by his size, shorter than the rest and twice as wide. Ford was easy to spot, the biggest body out there.
He found Leo on the far side, waiting his turn. When the drill cycled to him, he took off with the kind of speed that made Dawson’s hands go still against the glass. He was fast. There was a grace to it that caught Dawson off guard. He finished and looped back around, and for a second, he drifted to the edge of the group, a half-step behind everyone else. Not quite part of it yet. Dawson wondered if that was on purpose, so he wouldn’t get close to anyone before moving on to the next place.
A whistle blew. Players scattered, grabbing water bottles. Dawson watched Leo yank his helmet off and run a glove through hair that was damp with sweat and pressed flat against his skull. No product, no style. His face was flushed, and when he spat water onto the ice and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, he looked nothing like the guy who’d walked into The Penalty Box that first day in a shirt that cost more than Dawson’s work boots.
Without the product and the clothes, Leo looked like a different person. Looser. When one of his teammates shoved him on the way off the ice, the grin that broke across his face reached his eyes in a way Dawson hadn’t seen before. Dawson liked this version better, and that was a problem.
The team filed off the ice through the tunnel. Dawson stayed where he was, watching the Zamboni start its first pass. He could leave. He should leave. The timeline update was a text, not a conversation, and he could send it from his truck and be home before Ethan started asking where he’d been.
He stepped back from the windows and sat on the bench by the trophy case with its dusty high school hockey photos and a banner from 1994.
Leo came out fifteen minutes later with wet hair and a bag over his shoulder. He’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt that pulled tight across his chest, and Dawson’s gaze caught on the arms before he could stop it. Leo was lean, but there was more muscle there than Dawson had expected, which was stupid—the guy was a professional athlete. His posture was different too, looser than any of the other times Dawson had seen him. No polish. No effort. Just a man who’d skated hard and was ready to go home.
Leo spotted him and stopped. His eyes dropped to Dawson’s arms, then back up. It was fast, but Dawson caught it because he’d been doing the same thing thirty seconds ago.
“I’ve got an updated estimate,” Dawson said.
“You drove here to tell me that?”
“I was in the area.”
“The Icehouse is in the opposite direction from the garage.”
“I was out at Justin’s place.” This was true, but it didn’t explain why Dawson was at the Icehouse since it was even more out of his way. “I’ve got that estimate for you.”
