Page 25

Cole laughed. “Sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“I’m serious. She doesn’t miss a thing.”

“I know she doesn’t.” Cole kissed his temple. “Five minutes. Then I’ll strip the bed before I head back to my room.”

Ford was asleep before Cole could make him get up. Cole lay there another minute with Ford’s breathing slow against his neck, then kissed his hair and eased himself up. He checked on Charlotte on his way past. She’d kicked the blanket to the floor. He covered her back up and went to the spare room.

He slept better than he had in months.

TWELVE

Ford stood at the stove and watched Cole teach Charlotte how to shuffle a deck of cards at the kitchen table.

She had her whole face screwed up over it and the hands of a six-year-old, which meant the deck ended up on the floor more often than shuffled. Every time she dropped it, Cole picked up every card, squared the deck, and handed it back. Charlotte reset her grip and tried again, certain this time would be different. She’d been wrong four times running. Ford admired the commitment.

“I almost had it,” she announced, after attempt five scattered cards across the table and onto Cole’s lap.

“You did. You were right there.” Cole gathered the strays from under his chair. “Try keeping your thumbs closer to the middle.”

Ford stirred the sauce and shifted his weight off the left side. It had been catching since morning skate. He’d gotten halfway through a lateral push in the light drill set and the joint quit on him. Theo said his name from the boards and tipped his head at the tunnel. Deluca, twenty feet away, found something on his clipboard to look at. Halsey, at the far net, stopped in the middle of a stretch and then decided to keep stretching. Ford stood out there a few seconds longer than he needed to, so it would read as a choice, and then he went.

He’d driven home with the heat cranked and his jaw tight. He came through the door moving wrong. Cole clocked it from the table and pulled a chair out without a word. Ford ignored the chair. Sitting down at four in the afternoon felt like agreeing to something.

The card lesson was Charlotte’s idea. She’d come home from school, found Cole at the table with his paperwork, and announced that Lily Kowalski could shuffle and she couldn’t, and this was an emergency. Cole put the paperwork away and produced a deck. They’d been at it twenty minutes while Ford stood at the stove and did not think about the morning. That was a lie. He’d been thinking about it since Theo said his name, and the stove was a better place to do it than most because there was noise behind him and something in his hands.

“Lily doesn’t drop them,” Charlotte reported.

“Lily’s been at it longer than you have.” Cole squared the deck and handed it back. “Thumbs.”

“I hate thumbs.”

“I did it!” Charlotte held the deck up in both hands. She had divided it into two unequal stacks and mashed them together, which counted as a shuffle if you were feeling generous. Cards stuck out at angles. One had bent.

“That’s a shuffle.” Cole high-fived her like she’d won something. “You’re ready for Vegas.”

“What’s Vegas?”

“A place in the desert where grown-ups make bad decisions. Your dad’s been.”

Ford stopped stirring. “You don’t know that.”

“I’m guessing.” Cole didn’t look up from the deck. “How am I doing?”

“Hey.” Ford pointed the spoon at him. “It was my first year pro, and it was somebody’s bachelor party. That’s the whole story.”

Cole kept a straight face. Charlotte was delighted by all of it and bounced in her chair. Ford turned back to the stove. Behind him, the cards kept hitting the table, and Cole kept telling her to watch her thumbs.

None of that was new. Cole had been at this table for a year. The new had started at Thanksgiving, and it came down to Ford deciding, every time he crossed his own kitchen, how close was too close with Charlotte sitting right there.

They ate at the table with Charlotte between them and her cards relocated to the counter to make room for plates. She got through most of the pasta before she started angling.

“More cheese.”

“You’ve already had more cheese.” Ford reached over and turned her fork right side up for her. “Three pieces of broccoli, and we’ll talk about it.”

“Three is a lot of broccoli.”

Ford held her eye over the top of his glass. “It’s really not.”