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I don’t text Sloane yet. I want to. I draft it three times in my head before I’m off the path, which is three more times than I draft most things, and every version is wrong — too much, too little, too obviously rehearsed by a guy who’s been rehearsing it since Tuesday.

I’ll text her after the game.

When she’s seen me play. When the answer’s already most of the way to yes because she watched me be the best on the ice the way I watched her be the best on the stage.

I’m aware, as I think it, that I’ve just admitted I want her to watch me play.

I file that one too.

A beat late. The way I file everything.

Chapter 10

Sloane

Ilock up the shop at five-thirty, walk home, and find my house already in a state.

The Sailmaker has a particular energy on a game night, which I have witnessed but never been a participant in until now. Wren is in the front hall doing something aggressive with her jacket zipper. Margo is on the stairs in a Whitmore tee she has somehow tailored to look intentional. June is on the sofa with her shoes already on and her book still open, holding the exact posture of a person who has been ready for twenty minutes and is choosing to spend the wait reading rather than acknowledge that anyone else is running late.

“It’s not fair,” Wren says, by way of greeting, “and I want that on the record.”

I drop my bag by the sofa. “What isn’t fair?”

“Their game is televised.” She gets the zipper to cooperate. “Ours aren’t. It’s an exhibition. It doesn’t count for anything and there’s a camera crew and a broadcast slot and a graphics package, and our games — which count — get a livestream that buffers if more than nine people watch it.” She pulls her hair into the braid she wears for everything. “I scored a hat trick against Boston College last February and the footage cut out during the second one. So the official record shows two.”

“That’s genuinely infuriating,” June says, not looking up.

“Thank you, June.”

“I’m agreeing with you.”

“I know. It’s the only reason I haven’t left without all of you.”

Margo comes down the last three stairs. “We have ages. Sloane just got home.” She looks at me. “You’re not changing, are you?”

“I’m wearing a sweater. It’s a hockey game, not a gala.”

“I’m not judging, I’m gathering information.” Which is a Margo sentence if I’ve ever heard one.

June marks her page — finally — and holds up her phone as I sit to swap my work boots for the ones I can walk in. “Did you see, the one everyone’s losing it over got a sequel deal. The fae one. With the —” she gestures vaguely “— the wings situation.”

“I saw. Margaret’s ordering forty copies.”

“Forty.”

“I told her thirty and she said forty because she trusts my read and also because she watched a woman buy six copies of the same book last week to give to what she described as ‘my entire wine group.’” I get the second boot on. “We’re doing a whole section now. BookTok. I made her a little sign. She pretended to hate the sign.”

“She loved the sign.”

“She loved the sign. She’s already telling customers it was her idea.”

June makes the soft pleased sound she makes about books, and Wren makes the impatient sound she makes about everything, and we’re finally moving toward the door when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I check it on the porch.

You coming tonight?

I look at it for a second longer than the question requires, and it takes me a moment to realize who the text is from Beau. I sigh and sace his number, knowing I’ll need it if we’re going to run this plan right.