Page 56 of Payback On The Ice

Me: not here

N: well I'm not people. I'm the guy you hit

N: I get to say hi to whoever I want

I put my phone face down on my chest and stare at the four squares of white tape on the wall.

Through the wall, I can hear Dane moving around his room. The drawer that sticks. The creak of his desk chair.

Two days.

Friday morning, I go three for five.

The third one I put off the post and in, and when I come around his net, he says, "Three," and I say, "Yes," and he looks at me a beat too long through his mask.

"What," I say.

"You're somewhere else."

"I'm right here."

"You missed the last one by a foot."

"I'm right here, Dane."

He doesn't push. He stands up out of his crease and pushes his mask up, and he looks at me with his eyes narrowed a little, like he's reading a shooter he hasn't seen before.

"Nico's coming tonight," he says.

My heart skips. "Yeah. You said."

"He wants to meet everybody." His voice is flat. Careful. "I don't know if he's going to want to meet you."

"That's fine."

"I can keep him away from the room."

I almost laugh. It comes out more like a cough.

"You don't have to do that," I say.

"I don't want him to have to see you."

There it is. He means it kindly. That's the worst part. He's standing there in the crease being kind about it, trying to protect his brother from having to look at me, and he has no idea.

"Okay," I say. "Whatever you think."

The Harrow bus pulls into the lot behind Kettle at four-thirty.

I watch it from the window of the video room. Black and orange, HARROW TECH IRONMEN on the side in big block letters. The door hisses open and guys come off it in their suits, shoulders up against the cold. Cole. Mikey. Then the freshmen. Then the coaches.

Marrack comes off last. Same quarter-zip, under a wool coat. He stops at the bottom of the bus steps and looks up at Kettle Arena like he's thinking about buying it.

"Hey."

I jump.

Wes Abernathy is in the doorway of the video room. He's holding a bag of sunflower seeds. He looks at me, and then out the window at the bus, and then back at me.