Page 59 of Payback On The Ice

"It's okay."

"It's not okay⁠—"

"Go," I say. "Go after him."

He looks at me for one more second. Then he goes, fast, his hand pressed to the side of his neck. Priya follows him, with an apologetic little wave.

I'm standing in the hall with Dane's bag on the floor at my feet.

Wes is looking at me. Everybody's looking at me. The kid with the Sharpie. Doug's wife with her tray of cookies.

I pick up the bag. I put it on my shoulder. I carry it out to the players' lot, because it's mine to carry, and I set it down next to the driver's door of his car, the way I do every night.

There was one thing I asked for. Just one. In August, at three in the morning, typing it with my thumbs into the dark. Don't tell him. If he hates me, let him.

I don't even know which part of it is gone now.

At the far end of the lot, under the one light that works, two people are standing by a silver hatchback with a Duluth Physio sticker on the bumper. One of them is talking with his hands. The other one isn't moving at all.

I pull my hood up and walk home the long way, so I don't have to pass them.

16

DANE

Nico's car is a silver hatchback with a Duluth Physio sticker on the bumper. Priya drove. She takes one look at my face when I get to it and says, "I'll be inside," and goes back toward the arena with her arms wrapped around herself.

Nico comes across the lot slow, one hand on the side of his neck. He's not supposed to walk fast on ice. I watch him pick his way between the cars and I don't go to help him, and I hate myself for that, and I still don't go.

He stops in front of me.

"D."

"How long."

"Can we sit in the car? It's freezing, I'm not supposed to⁠—"

"How long, Nico."

He looks at me. In the light from the one working lamp, his face is white and his eyes are wet.

"August," he says.

"August."

"He messaged me in June. On Instagram. Just this long thing. Paragraphs." He breathes out, a cloud. "I didn't open it for, like, a month. I couldn't. And then in August I couldn't sleep, and I opened it, and I read the whole thing at three in the morning, and then I wrote him back."

"What did it say?"

"That it was him." Nico's voice is very steady. "That he did it. That he wasn't going to make excuses, and he wasn't asking me for anything, he just needed me to know he knew. That he watched the clip every night. That he was sorry, and that sorry was a stupid word for it." He swallows. "He didn't say anything about Marrack. Not in that one. Not for weeks."

My hands are in my coat pockets. They're shaking. I make them into fists.

"Marrack."

"Get in the car, Dane. Please. I'll tell you everything, I swear, but I'm going to fall over."

I open the passenger door for him. He gets in, careful, one hand on the roof. I go around and get in the driver's side and sit there with the keys in my lap and don't start it.