Page 71 of Payback On The Ice

"What?"

"I tried. Last night." I rub my eyes. "I said I'm sorry, and he put his hand over my mouth. He said, not yet."

"Not yet?"

"He said—" I can hear it, in his voice, lying in the dark next to me with his hand over my mouth. "He said, not because you found out. Because you mean it. Say it when you've figured out what you're sorry for."

Nico's quiet for a long time.

"Huh," he says.

"Yeah."

"He's smart, D."

"I know."

"Smarter than you."

"I know, Nico."

He laughs. It's small and tired, but it's real.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. I'm still mad. But I'll call you Wednesday. And you're going to tell me about Hollis, because Wes says you guys play Thorne Valley again next weekend, and you let in an OT goal last time with your glove open like a child⁠—"

"I didn't close my glove."

"You didn't close your glove. You've been closing your glove since you were nine."

"I know."

"Dad threw a beer."

"I know, Nico."

He's grinning now. I can hear it.

"Love you, wall," he says.

"Love you."

He hangs up.

I sit on the edge of my bed with the phone in my hand. Through the wall, I can hear Theo moving around. The drawer in Nico's old desk that sticks. A cough. Then a soft knock, three times, on the plaster right behind my headboard.

I put my hand flat on the wall.

I knock back.

19

THEO

Thursday morning, the first four go in.

Blocker side, low. Five-hole. Off the post. Top shelf, glove side, so clean the water bottle on the net doesn't even jump. Four for four.

I skate back to the blue line with the fifth puck on my stick.