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“You guys eating dinner?”

“Eventually,” Rafe says.

“Dining hall at six,” I say. “I need to lift first.”

“Six-thirty,” Rafe says, flat on his back, thumbs going on his phone.

“You don’t need six-thirty.”

“I need six-thirty because you said six.”

“Six,” I say, and that’s the agreement whether Rafe likes it or not.

I’m pulling clean clothes out of the drawer when my phone buzzes on the desk. Jules, a girl I met at a party the second night of welcome week.

Jules: You around after 10?

Rafe is angled exactly right to see the screen and doesn’t pretend not to look. “Jules,” he says, dragging it out. “Who’s Jules?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody’s texting you about ten o’clock on a Friday. Is nobody coming here?”

“Maybe.”

“Should I leave?”

“You’d leave?”

“Fuck, no,” Rafe says.

Me: Yeah. After 10.

I’ve barely hit send when my phone starts ringing. My dad. I sit on the edge of the bed and answer. Koda loses interest the second he hears me say “Hey” and wanders off down the hall.

“You skate this morning?” my dad asks.

“Yeah.”

“How’d the captains set it up?”

“They’ve got me in the middle of the second.”

“Between who?”

“Barnes and Waleska.”

“Waleska’s the kid who won’t pass,” Dad says.

I look across the room at Rafe. “You’ve done your homework.”

“I’ve got the internet.” I can hear him smiling. “How’d it go?”

I start peeling the old tape off my left wrist while I tell him. Not every detail. The rushes, the timing, that Coach watched my film. Dad listens the way he always does when it’s hockey, quieter than usual, not filling space just because it’s there. When I get to calling for the puck early, he makes a low sound of approval.

“That’s right. That’s exactly right. If he wants you to run the line, run it. Don’t wait for anybody to ask.” He pauses. “You doing that entry where you swing low before the regroup?”

“Sometimes.”