Page 161 of Top Shelf

Viktor

By the time Denver starts cooling into fall, Sweden is almost three months behind us. The cornflower on my ribs has healed into my skin, and Ebba’s ring spends more time on Heidi’s hand than the Denver Diamond because she can work in it without catching it on her gloves. There are seven dried wildflowers pressed inside one of her anatomy textbooks because she announced she was going to frame them, forgot where she put the frame, then forgot she had put the flowers somewhere safe. And my new training schedule is stuck to the refrigerator beside a countdown to the studio launch written in increasingly messier pink marker.

This apartment was supposed to be temporary, with a short lease and enough room for two people entering into a fake marriage that came with an end date. But somewhere during July and August, it stopped feeling fake altogether.

Her shoes sit beside mine by the door and my protein shakes share a refrigerator shelf with her strange pistachio yogurt. There are hair ties strewn around Priscilla’s keys, two different coffees made without asking every morning, and her charger beside our bed even though she still asks me where it is at least twice a week.

We have spent the summer working, fucking, arguing over groceries and becoming terrible at leaving the apartment on time. Training camp has already begun, the hockey season is fast approaching, and her studio opens in eleven days. Our marriage contract expires in fourteen.

Neither of us has mentioned it.

Today, Heidi stands in the kitchen in one of my old black hoodies, her bare legs beneath the hem and hair twisted on top of her head. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear, a coffee in her hand, and a studio launch schedule spread across the island between the eggs I am making.

She is talking to herself. And I am watching my favorite view.

“Launch playlist, final catering numbers and the updated waiver flow, signage pickup, confirm photographer—oh, confirm athlete testimonials—check with Mila on the videos, check with Zoe on the sponsors, check with Carina on—”

“Heidi.”

She looks up. “What?”

“Breathe. You are listing things with no pauses.” I turn off the stove before the eggs become something my mother would recoil from. “You open in eleven days.”

“Seven business days.”

I look at her schedule. Half of it is highlighted, and some of it’s crossed out. Three sticky notes cling to the edge of her notepad she keeps next to the bed, and each one is written in different ink, which means she’s been awake more times throughout the night than I remember.

She follows my gaze and slides a sticky note under the others. “Don’t look at that one.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

I reach for it, and she slaps my hand. “No.”

For a second, neither of us moves. Her hand is small over the paper, and my hand is paused beside hers. And despite her trying to hide it, I can still see her heavy scrawl.

Contract—Sept 30

Everything in me goes still, and Heidi looks down too, her eyes widening with realization. I know she knows I’ve read it, because her fingers press harder against the note, trying to push the date back into the paper and make it less real.

“I wasn’t…” She stops, then draws a breath that doesn’t sound smooth. “I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

“No?”

Her mouth twists faintly. “Maybe a little.”

I look at her hand over the notes. At the ring on her finger.

“We haven’t discussed it, and that date is in two weeks,” she says quietly.

“I know.”

Neither of us says what the date means, but we know. We do not say divorce, we do not say expiry. We do not acknowledge that through doing nothing—through avoiding this conversation while her studio opens and my season begins and life fills every room around us—the contract will keep moving toward the ending we agreed to back when an ending seemed logical.

Heidi’s lashes lower. “The studio opens next week.”

“Yes. And pre-season starts soon.”