Page 79 of Home Ice

Rook was still at his stall, working dubbin into a pair of gloves with his reading glasses perched on his nose.

“That’s fresh tape,” he said, not looking over.

“It’s got a soft spot.”

“Mm.” He worked the dubbin into a thumb seam. For a while there was no sound but the two of us maintaining equipment that didn’t need it. I finished the blade and started up the shaft.

“You know you don’t have to earn your stall every morning,” Rook said.

“Okay,” I said.

I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t fully know what he meant. He nodded as if okay had been the right answer, checked his work, took off his glasses, and packed the gloves away.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and left.

On the way to the truck, I typed a reply to Niko and deleted it, then typed a shorter one.

Rafe: good. glad he’s ok

I sat in the cold with my hands on the wheel and waited a minute in case a response came. It didn’t, and I drove home.

***

Heath had said six, and I got there twenty minutes early. Heath opened the door, wearing an apron with a cartoon walleye on it. He grinned and pointed at the fish. “For you.”

“I’m early,” I said. “Sorry. I can walk around the block if you guys are—“

“We gave you a key,” Heath said.

I laughed.

He laughed with me.

“I don’t have a key,” I said.

“Kieran,” Heath called back into the condo. “Rafe doesn’t have a key.”

Kieran’s voice came from the kitchen. “I gave him one.” There was the sound of a drawer rolling open and some rummaging through what had to be batteries and twist ties.

Kieran appeared in the kitchen doorway and tossed a key underhand across the living room. I caught it. It was a brass key on a bare ring.

“You keep ending up here. You might as well be able to let yourself in,” Kieran said.

I looked at the key in my palm.

“It’s one we made when Kieran’s brother stayed with us for a month,” Heath told me. “It works. He locked himself out only twice, and both times were his fault.”

I tucked it into my pocket.

Dinner was a roast chicken, potatoes, and a salad Heath had made under supervision. We ate at the small kitchen table.

Halfway through, the ladder came back up.

“We should have an extension ladder,” Heath said.

“We owned one,” Kieran said. “You lent it to Danny in October. If we buy—“

“They aren’t that expensive.”