Page 24 of Home Ice

“Sounds like Rafe.”

“Yeah, and he’s okay—with everything. He’s easy. Truly easy. When I’ve worked with other people, there’s always a moment they disagree. It’s the lighting, the billing, or who stands on which side. Rafe hasn’t questioned anything.”

“Does he ever say no?” I asked.

Max looked at me.

“Why would he?” Max said.

I didn’t have an answer for that. “Forget it,” I said.

“So the shop footage had good numbers, by the way. The unboxing shots. The Ironhawks’ PR flagged it, and that nearly doubled the views I expected. They suggested we make a video in the shop. You don’t have to be in it. Just the shop.”

“No.”

”—and I told them no,“ Max said. “Already. I’m on your side.”

I looked at him.

“I knew your answer, Niko. I’ve been able to read your mind since I was fifteen.”

He was probably at least half right. “The shots were good, though.”

“They were great,” Max said. “The light in there at two o’clock. I’ve been telling you about the afternoon glow for at least three years.”

“Don’t.”

”—one video—“

“This conversation’s done, Max.”

He laughed, stood, and gathered his coat tighter around himself. At the door he paused, hand on the latch.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “he asked about you. In the car after the shop. What you were like when we were kids.” A beat. “Nobody asks me that. They ask what you charge for restorations.”

The storm door clapped shut behind him, then the inner door, softer.

I sat on the steps by myself in the cold and pulled out my phone. The app was already open—third period, Ironhawks up by one, two minutes left.

I sat out there and watched the clock run another minute.

When I came back inside, everyone had settled into their evening patterns. Dad was in his chair, drifting in and out of sleep. Yiayia had her TV program on, sound down to almost nothing, because she watches it for the faces. Ma was at her little desk in the corner with a drawer of photographs open in front of her.

Max had folded himself sideways into the loveseat with his phone, editing something, thumbs moving fast.

I sat on one end of the couch. “This one,” Ma said, holding a photograph up and out. “Max, look. It was your first haircut. You cried so hard the woman gave you a sucker just to breathe.”

“I remember the sucker.”

“You don’t remember the sucker,” I said. “You were two.”

“It left an emotional imprint.”

I pulled my phone out. The game was over. The Ironhawks won.

“Yes,“ I said.

It was out loud, but I didn’t intend it that way. I started to raise a fist but caught it and pulled it back down. Dad opened his eyes, and Yiayia looked away from her program at me.