Page 160 of Full Contact

I turned off the TV. Felix took the bowls to the counter and brought them back full.

“How are you?” he asked.

I told him. Work was busy, and nobody at the arena had slept a full night since Minnesota. Trier and I were handling things professionally. Leah signed off on his coverage, as she had since October.

When I finished, Felix tore a piece of bread in half and dragged it through his bowl.

“Do you miss him?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He nodded. Out over the lake, a plane was crossing low toward O’Hare.

“Did you want to end it?”

I put my spoon down.

“No,” I said. “I wanted him to ask me to stay.”

“Before,” Felix said. “When it was good. What did you want to change?”

I told him about the Tuesdays. I told him about the nights I’d said yes to Trier coming over when I’d already planned a quiet evening on my own, and how I’d enjoyed having him there and still missed the evening I’d lost. I told him about the Sunday Trier had asked to have to himself, and how it had stung even though I’d asked for the same thing two weeks earlier.

“So you wanted Tuesdays,” Felix said.

“Yes.”

“And some nights alone.”

“Some nights. Yes.”

“All of them?”

“No,” I said, too fast.

I’d treated every evening Trier didn’t claim as one I had to defend: the symphony, climbing, my reading chair. Any change felt like losing something.

“You stood in line at a Polish bakery at five in the morning on Christmas Eve,” Felix said. “For my kolaczki.”

“You asked me to.”

“You had a whole morning planned. Sleeping, mostly.” He tore off more bread. “You told me the line was the best part.”

“It was.”

“So you gave up a morning for me and called it a good time.” He took a bite of the bread. “But when it was him, you counted every evening.”

I opened my mouth to say that was different. Then I couldn’t think how it was.

I thought about Dana on the bench at the gym, telling me about Anders between turns, and Felix at my stove in an apron. They’d been there for me every week for years, and I wanted every one of those evenings, but they couldn’t fill the hole Trier had left.

Felix stood and took both bowls to the sink. He ran the water hot and started washing before I could get up. I dried.

Eventually he checked his phone. “I have to go. My neighbor’s kid has a cello recital in the morning, and I’m the ride. If I’m late, he plays to an empty folding chair.”

“Is he good?”

“He’s eleven. He’s loud.” He pulled on his jacket and took the empty grocery bag. “The leftovers are in the fridge. Eat them by Tuesday. I put the tortilla strips in your cupboard. Don’t refrigerate them.”