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Captain’s Orders on the Ice

Page 35

by Ellis Rhodes

He looks at me like it's a strange question.

"It's on a lake," he says. "In Wisconsin. My dad and I built the dock."

"Then why are you giving it to her?"

"Because she wants it."

"That's not a reason. People want lots of things."

"It's a good enough reason." He stands up, grabs the edge of the desk for a second before he's steady, and then he's the captain again, face closed, the line back between his eyebrows. "Breakfast. Seven-thirty. Rule seven."

"It's six-fifteen."

"Then you have an hour and fifteen minutes to find a shirt."

Breakfast is in a banquet room off the lobby, with a buffet and round tables and a coffee urn the size of a fire hydrant. Rule seven says together, so we sit together, at a table for two by the window, which half the team notices and nobody says anything about.

He eats the same thing he eats every morning: egg whites, oatmeal, black coffee, one banana. He eats it in order, like there's a checklist. I've got a waffle with whipped cream and strawberries and a side of bacon, and I watch him look at it like it's a crime scene.

"You're going to play with that in your stomach?"

"I'm going to play great with this in my stomach. This is fuel." I drown it in syrup. "Did you call Saul?"

"Yes."

"What'd he say?"

"He said it's fine."

"You said fine."

He puts his spoon down. "It's a house, Castel."

"Rémy."

"You already got today's."

"That was yesterday's. You said it at, like, three a.m."

He stares at me. "You were asleep."

"I was mostly asleep." I cut a piece of waffle. "I heard it, though. It counts."

He looks down at his oatmeal, and I swear the tips of his ears go red. He picks the spoon back up and doesn't say anything else, and I eat my waffle, and I feel like I've won something and I don't even know what.

Webb comes by with a plate piled with eggs and stops at our table like a man walking past a car accident.

"Look at this," he says. "Breakfast for two. Should I get you a candle?"

"Rule seven," I tell him. "We eat together. It's the law."

"It's a list, not a law."

"It's a very serious list. It's underlined."

Webb looks at Hale. "You gave him the list."

"I gave him the list," Hale says, not looking up from his oatmeal.