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He's waiting for me.

I skate to him. I stop in front of him.

And he goes down.

He goes down into his butterfly. Right there on center ice. Both knees down, pads flat, the way he goes down for a shot along the ice. All the way down. The way I've seen him go down ten thousand times in front of a net, except there's no net. There's just me.

He's kneeling.

He's kneeling on center ice in front of eight thousand people, in front of his brother, in front of my mother, in front of Marrack and the whole Harrow bench, in front of every camera in the building.

I can't breathe.

"Dane," I say. "What are you⁠—"

"I'm sorry," he says.

He's looking up at me. His face is wet. He's not trying to hide it.

"I'm sorry for the card table," he says. His voice is shaking, but it's loud enough. It's loud enough for Wes to hear, and Jace, and Petey. "I'm sorry for the bag, and the bottles, and making you wait to eat. I'm sorry I made you pick up pucks on your knees in front of everybody. I'm sorry I made you stand in the room with your hands behind your back so I could feel big. I'm sorry I left you in the cage. I'm sorry I stood there. Three strides. I'm sorry I watched."

The building's completely silent now. You can hear the compressor.

"I'm sorry I read your phone. I'm sorry I went to Halvorsen. I'm sorry Mikey had to sit in that office." He swallows. "I decided what you got. All year. Every time. I decided. I'm done. I'm not deciding anymore."

I'm crying. I didn't notice when I started.

"You decide," he says. "Whatever you want. Whatever you decide, I'll⁠—"

His voice breaks.

"I love you," he says. "That's all I've got. I'm saying it out here. Where everybody can see."

I'm standing there on center ice in front of eight thousand people with Dane Kovač on his knees in front of me.

"You're kneeling," I say. It's a stupid thing to say. It's the only thing I can think of.

"Yes."

"In front of everybody."

"That was the point."

I laugh. It comes out wet and broken.

"I didn't tell you first," I say. "The statement. I said I'd tell you first, and I didn't. I'm sorry."

"It was yours," he says. "You didn't owe me that."

I look down at him. At his face, wet and wrecked and completely open. At the guy who stood in the dark crease every morning at six and waited for me.

I drop my stick. I drop my gloves.

And I go down too.

On my knees. On center ice. Facing him. So we're eye to eye, the way we were on the ice in the dark, the morning after Nico.

I take his face in both my hands.