Page 44 of Payback On The Ice

I wait.

"I can do the bag. I can do the card table and the water bottles and the yes thing, and the room pretending I'm furniture. I signed up for that. I said yes in front of everybody. That's on me." He swallows. "But that thing in the cage? That was different. That wasn't the deal."

"I know."

"No, you don't know. Because the next day you made me pick up pucks on my knees in front of the whole team like it never happened, and then you stood there today while—" He stops. Breathes, carefully. "I can't do both. I can't do the cage, and then that. I'm not built for it. Nobody is."

"Then we stop."

"I didn't say stop."

I look at him.

He looks back. His jaw's set. The same way it was on the blue line with the last puck, waiting to come.

"I said I can't do both," he says. "So if there's going to be—that—then it's not a punishment. It's not a thing you do to me because of April. It's a thing we decide. And there are rules. Ones we both make. Not just yours."

My heart's going so hard I can feel it in my teeth.

"Okay," I say.

"Okay?"

"Okay. Say them."

He looks thrown. Like he had a whole argument ready and I took the puck off his stick before he could use it.

"Okay. Um." He shifts the peas. "One. In there, it's not about him. About—April. You don't bring that into it. Ever. You want to hate me for that, do it out there. Not in there."

"Fine."

"Two. I get a word. A stop word. I say it, everything stops. No questions. No later. You stop."

"What's the word?"

He thinks about it. Then a corner of his mouth goes up, just a little.

"Whistle."

I almost laugh. I don't, but it's close.

"Whistle," I say. "Fine. Three?"

"You don't mark me anywhere the room can see."

"Fine."

"And four." This one's harder for him. I can see it. He looks at the lamp instead of me. "If I ask you to touch me, and you say no, you tell me why. You don't just walk out. You don't just—leave me there."

The cage. The door on its slow arm, closing.

"Fine," I say. It comes out rough.

"Your turn."

I didn't expect that. I stand there with my hands empty.

"Mine?"