Page 4 of Full Contact

“That’s the one.”

I pulled up the league schedule. Russ and I’d been doing this dance for years, fitting my visit around games and his family’s plans. He liked to get things settled early.

“I can get there for Christmas Day,” I said. “Let me check the travel schedules before you promise anybody which dinner I’m eating.”

“I’ll tell Kelsey.”

“Tell her I’m not watching the Steamers’ season highlights again.”

“You enjoyed that.”

“I enjoyed how short they were.”

Russ looked away from the screen. “He says he’s coming.”

There was a scuffle, a complaint from my brother, and then my nephew’s face filled the phone.

“Uncle Clare!”

Josh was nine. He’d started calling me that when he was two, before anyone could teach him better. He was the only person who got away with it.

“Hello, trouble.”

“Is Peaches richer than you now?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Mom says she has more fans than the team does.”

“Fans aren’t money. Peaches has no income. Without me, she’d be in significant debt due to her medical expenses.”

“If you pay them, they’re your expenses, not hers.”

Kelsey laughed somewhere behind him.

“Your mother helped with that comment,” I said.

She leaned into view over Josh’s shoulder. “He got there on his own.” She was wearing a shirt promoting the St. Louis Steamers, our arch-rivals.

“You’re wearing that just to troll me.”

She looked down at the shirt. “It’s clean.”

“That explains it?”

“On a summer afternoon with the kids out of school? Yes. Did you see the rankings for the upcoming season?”

“I did.”

“Our defense is getting there.”

“Your defense has been getting there since Josh was born.”

“Give us two years. Then you’ll be worried.”

“St. Louis should put that on a sign.”

We argued for a few minutes while Josh occasionally turned the phone toward the ceiling. Kelsey knew her hockey. That was half the pleasure of talking to her. The other half was that I could annoy her from five hundred miles away without leaving my home.