Page 46 of Home Ice

“The wall is act three. We’re saving the wall.”

Max shot the console for a while, close, tracking slow down the length of it, and I stared at the ceiling. Max picked up his coffee, drank it, and made a face.

“That’s cold,” Rafe said. “I can—“

“It’s okay.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“It’s okay, Rafe.”

They did the couch. Max had what he needed in nine minutes, checked the time, and started pulling the diffuser off the clip.

“Wilmette at one. If I’m late, they give the kitchen to a guy who does drone shots. Rafe, I need you on Tuesday. I’ll text you. Niko, I love you, but touch nothing.” He wound a cord around his elbow, shoulder already through the doorway. “The light’s the reason. Tell him the light’s the reason.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Max said. “Talking to myself. I do that.” Then he was gone.

The apartment was quiet. Rafe was in his kitchen, and I leaned on the end of his counter. I walked over to the tapestry wall.

Close up, the reds weren’t one color. They were three or four different shades, stacked in bands so narrow you had to be within arm’s length to catch it.

I raised my hand but didn’t touch it.

“You can touch it,” Rafe said, echoing my words about the console. “It’s a rug, basically.”

“It’s a lot of things, but a rug isn’t one of them.”

“No.” A pause. “It isn’t.”

He walked over and stopped a foot behind my shoulder, close enough that I could feel the heat off him through my sleeve.

“The colors. So close, it’s probably the same lot. They held one back and used it twice, thirty inches apart, so it’d rhyme. That’s sophisticated planning.”

“She was good,” Rafe said.

I glanced over. He was close.

“You said she,” I said.

“I met her.”

He didn’t say more, and I turned to face him.

“Why is this the only thing in here that looks like somebody cared about making it?”

Rafe stood beside me with his hands at his sides. He looked at the wall again and then at the sectional. He shrugged.

“I just—I liked it.”

I didn’t have words. So I said, “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” I pulled a tape measure out of my back pocket. It was always there because measurements were half of my work.

“You need help?” Rafe asked.