Page 18 of Hard Check
Leo circled back to the neutral zone.
After practice, he stood in the shower and let the water run until it went cold. The bruise on his chest had bloomed overnight, purple and green across his sternum where the airbag had caught him. He pressed his thumb into the center of it and felt the ache spread.
His phone buzzed in his locker. The relief he felt when it wasn’t Phil surprised him. But today had been good, and for the first time in too damned long, Leo had actually had fun on the ice.
Radiator’s toast. Parts need to be ordered. 3 weeks minimum. I’ll keep you posted.
Any chance you stock Audi parts for next time?
Sure, I’ll get right on that. Tell my brother we need one of everything so you don’t have to wait.
Leo could almostpicture Dawson rolling his eyes the way he had last night. He saved the number under “Dawson: Mechanic” and closed the locker after tucking the phone into his back pocket.
Three weeks. Three weeks without a car in a town with no rideshare, no public transportation, no infrastructure for someone who didn’t own their own wheels. Three weeks of bumming rides, walking, and being dependent on the goodwill of people he barely knew. He wasn’t counting on being able to get a rental in this podunk little town.
He grabbed his bag and went to find Jonesy for a ride home.
CHAPTER SIX
Ski dropped the kitchen table on Leo’s foot.
“Ope—sorry, sorry, you good?” Ski was already crouching, tilting the table off Leo’s sneaker before Leo could answer. The table was oak, nicked along one edge, the kind of thing that had survived decades of family dinners and at least one move that hadn’t gone well.
“I’m good.” Leo shook out his foot. “Where’d this come from?”
“Riggs’s garage. His wife wanted it gone like two years ago.” Ski straightened up and surveyed the apartment. “That’ll go by the window. Trust me.”
Leo hadn’t asked for any of this. He’d mentioned to Gunnar last week, once, in passing at the bar, that the apartment was empty and he’d need to figure out furniture. He’d rented out his place in Orlando furnished rather than sell it. The lease ran through April, which was enough time for Phil to trade him somewhere bigger.
He’d packed whatever fit in the Audi, unpacked it all into the inn, and when the apartment keys came through, Jonesy had helped him move the whole pile over.
Not once had he expected Gunnar to rally the troops to make sure Leo didn’t have to sleep on an air mattress and keep living out of suitcases. Ski had pulled up outside Leo’s building this morning with a brown corduroy couch strapped down in the truck bed. Novo had apparently ridden across town kicked back on the couch, one hand braced against a bookshelf to keep it from sliding.
Ford was behind them in his SUV, Charlotte buckled into the back seat, a box of kitchen supplies on the floor next to her. Behind Ford, a truck Leo didn’t recognize turned out to belong to Novo’s cousin, who dropped off a set of barstools, shook Leo’s hand, and left without giving his name.
“Third floor?” Ski had said, looking up at the building.
“Yep.” Leo loved the view from his new place but felt bad about asking the guys to move furniture upstairs. He’d planned on ordering shit online and having it delivered to avoid having to deal with the stairs.
“No elevator?”
“No. Sorry.”
Ski had cracked his neck, grabbed one end of the couch, and started up the stairs.
That had been two hours ago. The apartment had gone from empty to something else—not decorated, not finished, but occupied. The corduroy couch sat against the long wall, and when Leo pressed his hand into the cushion while Ski andNovo argued about where the bookshelf should go, the fabric gave under his palm like it had been broken in by a hundred afternoons of people falling asleep in front of the TV.
The bookshelf leaned. Not a lot, but enough that Novo tilted his head and stared at it for a full thirty seconds before saying, “Shim it.”
“With what?” Leo asked.
“Cardboard. Magazine. Whatever.” Novo wedged a folded takeout menu under the left side and stepped back. The shelf held. Novo nodded once and walked away.
Ford had brought a box that turned out to contain plates, two coffee mugs, a can opener, and a cast-iron pan heavy enough to double as a weapon. He set the box on the kitchen counter and started unpacking without being asked, lining things up in the cabinets like he’d done it a thousand times.
“The pan’s from Wheels,” Ford said. “He said don’t put it in the dishwasher.”
“I don’t have a dishwasher.”
