Page 18 of Home Ice

“Question,” Trier said, raising a hand. “The parking spot next to the tunnel. Does that open based on seniority, or is there a lottery?”

“Don’t bother yourself,” Rook said. “You’re not getting it.”

Laughter rolled through the plane, and it loosened everything. The card game resumed. Somebody yelled something about Rook finally having time to golf.

That would have been the end of it, except Varga got up from the card table.

He didn’t make a production of it. That was remarkable for Varga. He walked up the aisle with his cards still in one hand, took Rook’s face in the other, and kissed him.

A guy from the card game asked, “Are you in or out, Varga?”

“I’m in. Don’t look at my cards.” Then, at full volume, “For the record, I found out Tuesday, and I’ve kept it secret for three days. Three days. I want that considered at the trial.”

“Noted,” Cross said.

Varga went back to the card game. Rook went back to his row, and we pushed back from the gate on schedule.

An attendant came down the aisle with a snack basket over Nebraska. I took a banana and the cookies and said thank you twice, once for each.

I had a clear sightline up the aisle to Rook’s row. He’d finished the crossword, or quit it on good terms, and now he was looking out the window, sipping coffee.

I’d occasionally sat by Rook before while Varga played cards. He was undemanding company on a plane, quiet in a way that didn’t make you nervous.

He caught me looking. He tipped his head, gesturing me forward.

I slipped in beside him. “You’ve got a question,” he said.

“Varga said to ask you about the yogurt.”

Rook closed his eyes for a moment. “He tells everyone to ask me about the yogurt.”

“You don’t have to—“

“In my third year with the Ironhawks, I took an endorsement deal. It was a regional one with a yogurt company. It was one commercial.” He raised a hand. “I was to hold up the yogurt, smile, and say, ‘This is how champions recover.’ We lost in the first round that spring. For four years, in every road rink, some smart-ass guy in the crowd would hold up a cup of that yogurt during warmups. Four years.”

“That’s why Varga says never hold the product.”

Rook nodded. He sipped his coffee. “The money was good, but it was not four-years-of-yogurt-heckling good.”

I laughed, and he shook his head. I stayed in the seat for a few minutes longer.

Rook continued to drink his coffee, and he pointed out a center-pivot field that was perfectly round. He asked me if we irrigated like that at home, and I said no, we were dry land, and he nodded.

He looked like a man at the end of the harvest. That was the closest I could get to it. Like the trucks were full, and the weather had held, and whatever happened now was next year’s problem.

Somewhere over the Colorado line, Rook fell asleep mid-sentence. He’d been talking about a combine dealership his cousin ran. I took the sleeping as my cue and went back to my seat.

Seconds later, Varga dropped into the seat beside me with his pillow under one arm. “Rook’s asleep,” he said. “He sleeps anywhere now. It’s disgusting. All the years I’ve known him, he sleeps like a soldier in a war movie, one eye open, hearing everything. Now?” He waved a hand toward the front of the plane. “Out. Gone. He slept through turbulence over Minnesota in December. I had to check he was alive.”

“That sounds like a good thing. He’s relaxed.”

“It’s a wonderful thing, disgusting and wonderful.” He wedged the pillow behind his head, settling in. “Anyway. I’m not here about Rook. I’m here because I’ve been monitoring a situation, and that situation is you. I want to give you the briefing.”

“The briefing?”

He pulled out his phone, thumbed it awake, and held it between us. “I do this for the rookies. Nobody reads their own coverage right. They read the one bad comment, and then they miss the big picture. So I read it for you, and I tell you what it means, and you say, thank you, Lucas, and we move on with our lives.”

On his phone screen was the restaurant photo. It was the one that showed Max tucked against my side with both of us laughing. Mark responded to it with three exclamation points, and Mom had sent a question last night about whether my coat was warm enough.