10. Dante
Dante
Marco calls at six in the morning. I pick up on the second ring.
"It's early," I say.
"You're awake."
The phone screen lights the room in blue, but the ceiling above me stays dark. I've been staring at it long enough to know the crack that runs from the vent to the light fixture.
"Papà vuole parlare degli affari. Non è una richiesta."
Dad wants to discuss business. This is not a request.
Marco's Italian lands flat and precise in my ear.
"I'll call him after practice," I say. "I have a window between noon and one."
"He wants to meet. In person. I'm driving up."
"Then I'll see you after practice."
"There's something else. This needs to happen in person."
I sit up, and the mattress shifts under me. "After practice," I say. "The coffee shop on Elm. I'll come to you."
"Bene."
The line clicks dead.
I set the phone on the nightstand and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
Cold wood bites into the soles of my feet, sharp enough to make my jaw tighten around Marco's voice.
Through the wall, Cole's alarm goes off, the same bright guitar riff he's used since freshman year.
His feet hit the floor a second later, and the alarm cuts off.
I pull on my black warmup. The tape sits on the desk where I left it last night, edges clean and ready.
Downstairs, the kitchen is dark. The espresso machine hisses when I switch it on, and steam curls into the air while it drips into the mug. I take the first swallow black, before it cools enough to be reasonable.
Cole comes down fifteen minutes later with his hair wrecked, eyes half-open, sweatpants riding low on his hips, and no shirt. He walks straight past me to reach for a mug, and his shoulder brushes my arm like he has a right to take space inside my morning.
My fingers tighten around my mug.
"Morning," he says.
"You're late."
"I'm on time." He rubs his face once with the heel of his hand. "You're early."
He pours coffee, adds sugar, then adds another spoonful. The spoon clinks against the ceramic while his gaze stays heavy-lidded, still too soft for the day. Unguarded.
This is the version of him that exists before the performance starts, before he reads the room and fills every empty corner of it. Right now, he is warm shoulder, bare skin, sugar on his fingers, and a mouth I have no fucking business looking at this early.
Marco's voice stays lodged in my ear, telling me this needs to happen in person.
The family is already reaching into my morning before the sun clears the treeline, dragging business and obligation into the only hour of the day that still feels like mine.
Cole is standing beside me with his guard down in a kitchen where no one can see us, last week's darkness still caught somewhere between us.
His voice saying her like a confession neither of us touched after.
I put the word away.
Then he moves close enough for his shoulder to brush mine again, and every locked door I have ever walked through feels too damn far away.
I set my mug down before I can talk myself out of it and step into his space.
My hand closes around the back of his neck, the place I always take hold of when I need him still, when I need him listening with more than his mouth. His hand stops halfway to his lips, coffee tilting slightly in the mug. His breath catches, and the sound goes straight through me.
I press my thumb into the tendon at the base of his neck. The muscle tightens under me.
His eyes close. His weight shifts forward until his shoulder rests lightly against my chest, and for five seconds, the kitchen narrows to his breathing and the heat of him under my hand.
I pull him closer. My mouth finds his in one hard, closed kiss that stops his whole body. For a second, he goes rigid against me, his coffee cup tilting in his hand while every muscle catches up to what just happened.
Gray morning light seeps through the window above the sink, touching the counter, the floor, the mug in his hand. Too visible. Too ordinary. Too fucking exposed.
Six years of locked doors at midnight, and I just kissed him in the kitchen at six-fifteen in the morning with gray light on his mouth and coffee cooling in his hand.
His free hand lands on my hip. His thumb hooks under the waistband of my warmups, and the rigidity breaks out of him on a low sound against my mouth.
I give it two seconds. Then I pull back and release his neck.
"Practice," I say.
He stands at the counter with his mug. His mouth is red, and his breathing has not settled. For a beat longer than usual, his gaze holds mine before he picks up the phone sitting near the sugar. One movement of his thumb locks it, and he slips it into his pocket.
"I need to get dressed," he says, still looking at me. "Unless practice is shirtless now."
"Go."
He takes his coffee upstairs. The bedroom door closes, and ten minutes of drawers and running water move through the ceiling while I rinse my mug and set it on the rack.
When he comes back down in practice gear, bag over his shoulder and hair pushed back, he stops at the kitchen threshold. His lower lip is still flushed from the kiss. His tongue touches the spot once, quick, and his eyes find mine while he does it.
"The kitchen," he says quietly.
"Yeah."
"That was new."
"Yeah."
He holds my gaze for one more second before he heads out.
Cole is on my left starting with the first drill.
The timing is sharper today, half a beat faster than it's been all season.
His blade arrives at the release point before I expect it, and I adjust. The next pass comes earlier too.
We're running hot, the adrenaline from the kitchen burning through the ice, and Addison sees it.
"Watch that," he says to the rest of the line. "That's what it's supposed to look like."
When the drill resets, I glance up. The press box catches my attention before the scoreboard does.
Third row left. Laptop open. The thought of her lavender reaches me before the room settles into shape around her, and I track her seat with the same part of my brain that tracks ice, exits, angles, and threats.
The whistle cuts through the rink before I look too long.
Addison blows the final whistle. The locker room fills with steam and noise. I shower and dress.
Cole is still pulling tape when I grab my bag.
"Eating?" he asks.
"Meeting first. I'll be back in an hour."
He looks up, and the question in his face lands before he speaks. "Marco?"
"Yeah."
He nods once and goes back to his tape.
Elm Street is two blocks away, and Marco is already inside the coffee shop when I get there, tucked into the back corner booth with his face to the door. Of course he is. Our father taught us that before he taught us how to order for a table.
Espresso waits in a ceramic cup on a saucer. His overcoat is still buttoned. When he lifts his hand, his watch catches the overhead light. He sits the way our father sits in restaurants, like the table was set for him before the room existed and everyone else walked in late.
I slide into the seat across from him. A waitress sets a black coffee in front of me without asking. Marco's arrangement.
"Providence is handled," Marco says. "I confirmed the filings this morning." He takes a sip of espresso. "That's not what I drove up for."
I wait.
"There's a new matter." The cup lowers slightly. "The Chronicle."
My jaw tightens before I give it permission. The rest of me stays still. "What about it?"
"Papà has been reading it. Or someone on his behalf has." Marco glances at the cup in his hand before continuing. "The coverage of the hockey program. Game reports. Features. Tactical analysis. Detailed work." He pauses. "Papà thinks she could be useful."
"No."
The word leaves my mouth before Marco finishes swallowing the espresso, before the rest of the sentence finishes forming in my head.
Marco's head tilts. The cup stops halfway back to the saucer. "I didn't finish," he says.
"You don't need to." My hands stay around my coffee. "She's a journalist. She covers hockey. She has nothing to do with the family's business, and she's not going to."
"Dante." Marco's voice stays level. "I'm relaying."
"Then relay this." I lean forward slightly. "If anyone contacts her, anyone from the compound, anyone connected to Papà, I will know about it."
Marco studies me across the table. "You will know about it," he repeats slowly. "You. Personally."
"The program will know about it. I'm the face of the program. The draft is in three months. If the family compromises a member of the press while my name is on a draft board—"
"Your name is always going to be on something, Dante."
The coffee shop murmurs around us, two students at the counter, an older man reading a newspaper by the window. Marco's voice cuts clean through all of it.
"That's the arrangement," Marco continues. "The draft changes nothing. The NHL changes nothing."
His espresso settles on the saucer.
"She has nothing the family needs," I say. "She covers hockey."
"The program is the family's investment." Marco straightens in his seat. "Access to the program is access to the family's interests." He holds my gaze. "I'll relay what you said. But you should know something."
I wait.
"You've drawn a line around this girl twice now."
The words hang between the cups.
"And Papà counts."
"It's about the draft," I say. "The program."
My grip tightens on the cup. The ceramic creaks faintly under my fingers. I hear it. Marco hears it.
"Okay."
The word lands flat. Marco sets it down and lets it sit there.
"The Providence documents are confirmed," he says. "Usual channel."
I start to stand.
"Dante."
I stop. His eyes stay on mine for a beat longer than the business requires.
"Eat something," he says. "You still look thin."
I leave the coffee on the table. The bell above the door rings as I step out, and cold air hits my face hard enough to make my eyes sting. My hands go into my pockets because if I leave them loose, they will stay fists.