Page 57

"You good?" he says.

"Yeah."

He doesn't leave. He comes in and stands next to me at the window with his seeds, cracking them, spitting the shells into a paper cup. He doesn't say anything else.

We watch Marrack go into the building.

"I watched the tape," Wes says finally. "From October. The handshake line."

I don't answer.

"Something's wrong there," he says. "I don't know what. But something is."

He cracks a seed. He holds the bag out to me.

I take one.

The building is sold out.

It's the biggest crowd I've seen at Kettle all year. The student section has been working on its signs all week, and they're the opposite of the ones at the Pit. HARROW = HACKS. A cardboard cutout of Marrack's face with devil horns. Somebody's made a huge banner that says #4 FOREVER with a picture of Nico in his Wardens jersey, and the crowd chants his name in warmups—Ko-vač, Ko-vač—and I look up into the stands.

He's there. Front row behind the bench. Standing up in a Wardens hoodie with Priya beside him, both arms in the air, grinning like an idiot.

He sees me looking. He points at me. Grins wider.

I look away. I look at my skates. I skate my lines.

Dane's watching me from his crease.

We win 3–2.

I score.

It's the second period. Tied 1–1. I come off the half wall and Okoye puts it right on my tape at the top of the circle, and I don't think. I just shoot. Short side, over the Harrow goalie's shoulder, the kind of shot I've made a thousand times and couldn't make in October in the Pit to save my life.

The building goes up like a bomb.

I go into the glass and the guys pile on me—Okoye, Wes, even Jace, all of them slapping my helmet—and in the middle of it I look up into the stands, right behind the bench, and Nico's got both hands on the glass and he's screaming. I can see his mouth. I know what he's screaming.

SWEDE!

At the other end of the ice, Dane's standing in his crease with his stick raised.

Dane's ahead of me in the handshake line.

He doesn't wait for me to go first. He just goes. He goes through the Harrow line fast, slapping gloves, and when he gets to Marrack at the end he stops.

He doesn't shake hands. He stands there in front of Marrack in full pads with his mask pushed up and looks at him. Just looks. Three seconds. Four.

Marrack's smile goes a little thin around the edges.

Then Dane skates on, and it's me, and Marrack takes my hand quick and lets go quick and doesn't say anything at all.

There's a hallway outside the room that runs between the visitors' tunnel and the media room, and after games, it fills up. Parents. Girlfriends. Little kids in jerseys three sizes too big wanting autographs. Boosters. Doug's wife with a tray of cookies.

I take my time in the room. I take the longest shower of my life. I dress slow. I wait until almost everybody's gone out, and then I pick up Dane's bag, because it's mine to carry, and I put it on my shoulder, and I put my head down and go out into the hall to get to the players' lot the back way.

And Nico's standing right there.