Page 76 of Omega’s Forward

The scan picture is propped against the bag of coffee he’ll be back to finish. I look at it while the kettle boils.

Priya texts in the evening. A property listing — riverside, ground floor, a garden the size of a postage stamp. Underneath it: “He called me from the airport. I am only the messenger.” I send back one word — traitor — and save the listing anyway.

On Saturday, I make tea, turn the lamps on, and put the game on with the room lit like a normal person watching television. First shift, the camera finds him at center ice. The puck drops and he’s moving, and just before the play carries him out of frame, his chin lifts toward the owner’s box.

The Barons win it late. Linus again, top corner, and the building sounds the way it sounded the night I stood in that box pretending not to watch number eight. I’m out of my seat in my own living room before I notice I’ve stood up, one hand on my belly, informing a person the size of a pineapple that his father’s team has gone ahead.

I pick up my phone.

I saw that.

The reply comes after the final horn, while the studio men are still arguing about the power play.

saw you first.

I look at it far longer than three words deserve. Then I go to bed in sheets I still haven’t washed and sleep better than I have in months.

23. Brody

The kid at Rosie’s finds me a box for the syrup bottle and packs it out with napkins. I take it over to a table and put Everett’s address on it, writing FRAGILE twice in marker. I FedEx it, paying extra to get there fast. Three days later a photo lands on my phone at one in the morning: a mug on a terrace rail, whipped cream on top, the river behind it doing its gray London thing. Underneath, he’s typed:

It survived customs. Thank you.

We have a system now. I stay up past one so I catch him at six his time, tea on the terrace, the day not at him yet.

Some nights we talk about the baby. Some nights he explains a deal I don’t follow one word of. Some nights neither of us says much and we just leave the line open, him reading, me maybe watching sports on the TV. Those are the best ones. I couldn’t tell you why.

Last week he put the phone against his belly on video so I could see the kicking. I watched his shirt twitch from five thousand miles away and didn’t say anything for so long he asked if the call had frozen.

It hadn’t. I had.

The packages go both ways now. He sent me a box of proper tea for the away bag with instructions typed on an actual card, and the boys found it in Denver and I had to stand there while a professional hockey team passed around a tin of loose-leaf Assam like it was contraband. Marchetti asked if I had a butler. JP made himself a cup and pronounced it excellent, and that shut it down, because nobody argues tea with a goalie on a shutout streak.

And the man watches every game. All of them, at horrible London hours, and I know because the texts arrive during the intermissions. Your second line got outshot nine to two. Also your interview voice is ridiculous. Nobody stands like that. He’ll deny to his grave that he can now explain a trap breakout, but I have the texts, time-stamped at four in the morning his time, and someday, when I’m feeling brave, I’m going to frame one.

His flight’s booked. Which means the clock is running on the thing I have to do first.

Because the minute Everett Rourke walks into that arena with my kid out in front of him, every phone in the building knows inside an hour. The boys deserve to hear it in this room, from me. And I owe them a correction on the way in.

I ask Sacco for the room after Thursday’s skate. He gives me a look but he pulls the video guys out and then plants himself in the doorway with his arms crossed.

The room quiets down fast. Twenty-two guys in various stages of undress, all of them suddenly very interested. Ozzy stops with one sock half off.

“Couple of things,” I say. “You’re going to get them off the internet soon enough, so you’re getting them from me first. Last spring the Bureau matched me. Prime match. Ninety-eight percent. The cohabitation happened during my suspension.”

Someone whistles, low and cool.

“Congrats, Callahan,” Ozzy shouts. “Who’s the unlucky omega? Er. I mean the lucky omega.”

Everyone laughs, including me.

“It’s Everett Rourke.”

And the room goes quiet. Nobody moves. Somewhere at the back a stall creaks.

“And he’s pregnant. That’s the second thing. I’m going to be a dad.”

Marchetti finds his voice first. “With Rourke.”