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“All right. Seven o’clock. I’ll find you after.” He says it like a promise. “Love you, bud.”

“Yeah. You, too.”

Rafe comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his neck and looks at me, at the phone still in my hand, and doesn’t ask.

“Who’s coming tomorrow?” I say. “For you.”

“Nobody,” Rafe says, and gets into bed.

Saturday, I’m up at eight. Eggs and oatmeal at nine. A nap at noon, a real one, phone face down. Chicken and rice and a banana at three-thirty. I take a picture of the banana out of habit and then don’t send it. At the rink by four-forty-five. Tape at five. Two rolls, same order, blade first, heel to toe, then the knob. I do my socks the way I’ve done them since I was twelve, left shin pad, then right. Everything in the same order. When the order’s right, there’s nothing in my head but the next thing in it.

Warmups at six-twenty. The building is about a third full and getting louder, the ice is fresh and fast and feels unbelievable under me, and for about ten minutes, there’s nothing wrong in my life at all.

Then I come out of a turn at the far blue line and find them both without meaning to. Dad is on the near side, in the section by the corner, eight rows up, in the brown work jacket he’s had since I was in middle school, big hands on his knees. He isn’t waving. He’s watching everybody the way he watches, taking the whole thing apart. Kylie is on the other side, behind our bench, four rows up, exactly where I told her, in a Woodbury shirt she didn’t own on Thursday, with Paige next to her and Kenzie next to Paige and a bag of popcorn already open in her lap at six-thirty. Two coordinates. I take another lap and don’t look at either of them, but I know exactly where both of them are the whole time.

They open the doors by the gate for twenty minutes after warmups so families can come down to the rail. Dad is at the rail when I come off with his hand up. I go over with my helmet off and my gloves under my arm. He grabs the back of my neck over the rail and pulls my head in and knocks his knuckles on my skull. I feel his palm against the back of my neck.

“Look at you,” he says. “Hell, Nash.” He’s grinning big. His eyes are doing the thing they do when he’s about to get emotional and doesn’t want to, so he goes straight to hockey. “Ice is quick. Boards are dead in that far corner, did you feel it? Dumps are going to sit.”

“Yeah, I felt it.”

“So don’t chase it in there. Their six is slow turning left.”

“I saw it.”

“Course you did.” He knocks the rail twice with his knuckle, happy.

And then I hear Kylie. “Nash!”

She’s coming along the rail from the other end with her popcorn, in that shirt, with her hair down, holding up Paige’s phone to record me for some reason, and she’s laughing before she even gets there. I could have told her never mind about the game. Yesterday, this morning, any time. I could’ve just sent a text. Don’t come. I didn’t. I invited her, and I told her where to sit.

She gets to the rail and looks at my dad, then at me, and lowers the phone. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hi,” Dad says, and looks at me. “And who’s this?”

“Kylie,” I say.

He sticks his hand out over the rail. “Wade.”

“Hi. Oh my God, hi.” She shakes it with both of hers because one is full of popcorn. “Sorry, I have butter on me.”

“That’s the good stuff.” He’s already charmed. “Girlfriend?”

“Oh, no,” Kylie says, just like that, without a pause, without stopping her smile. “We’re friends. I live down the hall from him. Three doors. It’s very convenient for borrowing hoodies.”

“Ah,” Dad says.

She laughs, and he laughs, and the horn goes for the second warm-up group. Somebody on the ice yells my name. I’d like to put my fist through the glass.

Dad looks at me once, quick, not even a full second. He doesn’t say anything or smile. Then he turns back to her, asking where she’s sitting and telling her behind the bench are the best seats in the building.

“Go,” he says to me. “Go, go.”

I go.

Ridgemont comes out hard and dumb, which is what everybody does in the first one. Dad’s right about the first ten minutes. Everybody on both benches is skating like the building’s on fire, chasing hits that aren’t there. Our first line goes out, runs around for forty-five seconds, and comes back with nothing. Our first shift is fine. I win the draw on my strong side, we get it deep, Rafe works it low, Koda is wide where he’s supposed to be for once. Nothing happens, but nothing bad happens. Second shift, the crowd is into it, the building is actually loud, and my legs feel unbelievable.

Third shift, I come off and drop onto the bench and grab a bottle. Greeley is two spots down toward the door with his helmet up on his head.