Page 181 of Top Shelf

My phone buzzes again.

Min fru: I’m exhausted. Going to sleep now. Night, Viktor x

I look at the empty side of the bed.

Me: Sleep well, min älskling.

I close my eyes and leave the phone in my hand after the screen goes dark. When I finally lie down, I stay on my side of the bed out of habit. It takes nearly an hour before I realize how stupid that is.

There is nobody beside me to crowd. Nobody to steal the blanket and then accuse me of doing it. Nobody whose cold feet will find my calves sometime after midnight and who will make a small irritated sound in her sleep when I move too far away and then follow me across the mattress without waking.

I can sleep anywhere I want, but I still sleep badly because I am used to her now. At some point during the night, I wake with my hand stretched across the other side of the bed. My palm finds cold sheets instead of warm skin. I pull it back and stare at the ceiling until morning.

Training does not improve my mood. I skate until my lungs burn and then stay out when the others start drifting toward the bench. Eli sends another puck across the slot, and I take it hard enough that it cracks against the glass behind the net.

“Jesus,” Chase calls. “Who pissed in your lingonberries?”

I ignore him and turn for another puck. Twenty minutes later, I am stripping tape from my stick when Reid sits beside me. He says nothing for long enough that I finally look at him.

“Carina said Heidi went back to her apartment.”

My hand stops, and Reid lifts a shoulder. “That is the complete extent of what she told me. Other than several opinions about sports journalism that I can’t repeat around children.”

I look back at my stick. “Heidi did not leave me.”

“I didn’t say she did.”

The tape catches around my fingers, and I rip it harder than necessary. Reid watches me for another few seconds.

“Did she tell you what she needed?”

“Yes. She said she needed space.”

“Then give her space.”

I glare at him, but he does not care. “I am giving her space, Reid.”

“You look like you’re trying to beat a solution out of the boards.”

“I do not know what the solution is.”

“Maybe you don’t need one today.”

I look down at the tape and swallow. Reid is annoying but he is also correct. When I do not offer more words, he stands, claps me once on the shoulder and leaves before I can tell him this was not helpful. Because I think it was.

After I have showered and changed, a reporter catches me outside the locker room. “Viktor, quick one. Any comment on the response to your wife’s studio?”

My stomach drops. Maren is ten feet away and already moving toward us, but I lift a hand.

“You should ask Dr. Grant.”

The reporter blinks. “You spoke about Return To Play earlier this week.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re stepping back from the launch?”

I think of Heidi standing in our bedroom with tears on her face.