Page 232

Palinski: You still coming tomorrow? Ice is perfect. Making hot dogs.

I hold it up. “You want to play on a lake?”

Barnes is off the stool before I’ve finished the sentence.

At dinner, I ask Tessa.

“Palinski’s tomorrow. Everybody’s going. You don’t have to.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll come if that’s okay.”

She looks at me for a second and then puts a potato into her mouth.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I want you there.”

She turns back to her food, keeping her knee against mine.

Kylie’s on her other side. Kennebeck’s across from me. Barnes is next to my dad, being asked about his grades.

I look back at my plate.

Palinski’s cleared a bigger rink this time. He brought his dad’s snowblower down onto the ice, which his dad doesn’t know about, and there’s a full rectangle now, with real snowbank boards and the PVC nets at either end and a bench somebody dragged down from the porch. There are hot dogs on a grill by the fire. There are already eight guys on the ice when we pull in, and Palinski rushes over to greet us. He looks at Kennebeck and Barnes climbing out of my back seat.

“Waleska brought the Grizzlies!”

Then he sees Tessa get out of my passenger side.

He looks at her for a second. “You came back.”

“Hi, Lucas,” she says. “How are you?”

He looks at me. And I look back at him. It’s about two seconds, maybe, and I watch Lucas Palinski, who I’ve known since we were seven, put it together.

“I’m good,” he says to her. “Yeah. You didn’t reply to my message. You good?”

She blushes. “Sorry. It must be hidden under requests, but yeah, I’m good. Thank you.”

He nods, glancing at me and the guys. “I can see that.”

Then he sticks out a hand to meet Nash and Koda. He forces a smile at Kylie. He looks back at me, and this kid is like a brother to me. He doesn’t even need to say anything, and I already know what he’s thinking. Lucas turns around and yells at somebody to get off his net.

He looks back at Tessa. “Help yourself, alright?”

She nods, and he goes.

Kennebeck and Barnes are lacing their skates on the bench before I’m out of my boots.

And for about an hour, it’s just hockey.

I didn’t know I missed this. I’ve played with Palinski and the guys from home every Christmas since I was six, and it’s always good, but it’s always the same. I know every one of them. I know what they’re going to do. I can beat them every fucking time with my eyes closed.

This is different. This is Kennebeck going to the net before I’ve even looked up because he knows where I’m going to put it. This is Barnes on my left, where he’s been all season, coming up the wall, yelling for it. This is the second line from Woodbury on Lucas Palinski’s frozen pond in jeans and hoodies, three on whoever, and the hometown guys don’t know what hit them.

Kennebeck dumps it in. I get it off the snowbank. I don’t look. Barnes is already there, and he puts it in off the post so hard the PVC net goes over backward into the snow.

Barnes throws his arms up and yells something at the sky. Kennebeck skates by me and slaps the back of my head. And I look at the fire since I have a second.

Tess is on the bench by the fire with Kylie under one blanket. The two of them have their heads together. She’s holding a hot dog she isn’t eating. And her eyes immediately find mine. She raises the hot dog at me. Like a toast.