Niko
Chapter twelve
The Ravenswood shelves didn’t need oil at eleven o’clock at night. They would need oil eventually, and I couldn’t sleep.
Before wiping down the first board, I propped my phone against the tool tray. The Ironhawks game was on it.
I watched the game from the anthem to the end. It was worth it.
The second goal was the one they’d replay tomorrow. It was a shot by Rafe that bounded off the crossbar. It was perfect for highlight reels.
The most unforgettable to me happened in the last minute. Their net was empty. Rafe had the puck at center ice with a perfect opportunity for a hat trick, and he passed to Varga.
Chet, the announcer, nearly wept. “I’ve been calling this game for twenty years,” he said, “and that is the kindest thing I have ever seen a young man do.” I saw it differently.
I finished the board, capped the oil, and was reaching for the lights when I heard a knock on the door.
It was a single knock. That ruled out Max.
I wiped my hands and crossed the shop. Rafe stood on the other side of the glass, coatless in February, with his hands shoved in his pants pockets.
I opened the door. Rafe entered on a wave of cold air, already talking.
“I know it’s late,” he said. “I was driving home and the truck sort of—your light was on. Did you see the game?”
He wore his suit, jacket open without a tie, and took three steps forward before pivoting to check out the shop. “Did you see it?”
“Yes, I watched it on my phone.”
“You saw their guy then,” he said. “Their weak-side D. He’d been jumping the lane all night—no, not all night, that’s the whole point, he stayed home the first shift, so we ran the bump like normal, and then second shift he jumped it and I was late, I was watching their center, and Coach Markel said I wouldn’t be late twice, and then—“ He took a breath. “Third shift, he jumped it again.”
“And you weren’t late.”
“No, I timed it right. His hips turned. The door was just—open. The guy had to pick between Varga and me, and he picked Varga. You don’t pick Varga. Varga’s screaming for the puck, and a guy screaming is a decoy—“
“He screams anyway,” I said. “Doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but it works out.” Rafe raked a hand through his hair. “Far post. It hit the post and went in. And the sound, Niko. There’s a sound when it goes in off the post that’s better than a clean goal, that clink.”
“Like a wrench on a pipe,” I said.
He looked at me. “That’s exactly what it sounds like.”
“Does it sound like that when you watch it?” I asked.
“It does. Did you watch the whole game?”
“Yes, and there’s this announcer named Chet,” I said. “I know so much more now. I know what weak-side means now.”
Rafe stared at me.
“I’ve been watching.”
The corner of his mouth went up.
“Chet’s been calling Ironhawks games for twenty years. Everyone loves him,” Rafe said. “Varga did an impression of him that cost him fifty bucks. There’s a fine jar. Kieran runs it.”
He started moving again, drifting along the bench.
“Wait, so you saw the shorthanded one, too. Tell me the truth. Did it look as stupid as it felt? Because there’s a moment when I’m past their point guy.
The right play is behind me by sixty feet, and I remember thinking, well, now you have to score—“
“It looked,” I said, “like you knew.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. I don’t know how. That’s the part I can’t explain to anyone. Everyone wants me to walk them through it afterward, and there’s nothing to walk through. There’s no middle. There’s the door, and the next thing I know, I’m already through it.”
He leaned against the bench, and the energy finally calmed to a low idle.
“After the pass,” he said, “Varga yelled at me across the ice for a full minute. All of it in Hungarian. Heath says that’s how you know he means it. If he yells in English, he’s just filling space.” Rafe shook his head. “I’m going to hear about that goal until June.”
I’d never heard him talk so fast. Max talked fast because silence was empty space, and he couldn’t stand to leave it unused. Rafe talked fast because there was so much in him trying to get out.
“Have you eaten anything?” I asked.
“What?” He looked down at himself. “There was food at the rink. I had—“ He tried to remember what he’d had and failed. “No.”
I pointed at a stool.
There was half a baguette upstairs, and cheese, and the end of a dry sausage I’d been saving for a sandwich. I went up and came down with all of it on a cutting board.
Rafe looked at the food, and then at me. He started to say something and then decided against it.
He ate like he’d missed his last three meals. He made a small sandwich and started walking around the shop again.
My block plane was sitting where I’d left it, set down mid-thought at an angle. Rafe walked past it, still talking—something about Trier’s sister-in-law and a photograph. Without breaking a sentence, he reached out and squared the plane to the edge of the bench.
All of Rafe was there. There was nothing sanded off him.
”—and she drove up from Springfield wearing the other team’s jersey,“ he was saying, “into our building, which Trier says is a betrayal, but she got there two hours early to get the seat, so I think it’s the opposite.” He came back to the cutting board and cut off more bread. “You know what I mean?”
“Loyalty wearing the wrong jersey.”
“Yes.” He stopped chewing. “That’s it.”
I cut more sausage for him. The next question was in my mouth before I’d cleared it with anybody.
“The pass,” I said. “At the end.”
“Varga was open.” He didn’t have to think about it.
“Everyone there wanted the hat trick.”
“But we needed a goal.” He shrugged. “The right decision was to pass the puck to Varga.”
The broadcast spent five minutes examining that pass. It was a generous act by the nicest guy in hockey. On the internet, a few hundred thousand people were falling in love with a story about a farm kid too sweet to keep his own hat trick.
The actual man was standing at my bench with sausage in his hand, telling me the truth about it.
“I’m eating tomorrow’s lunch, right?” Rafe asked.
“More than half of it at this point.”
He winced.
“It’s fine,” I said, and cut the rest of the sausage. “I brought it to you.”
By midnight, he’d slowed down, seating himself on the stool and finishing the food. I went upstairs and retrieved bottles of water for each of us.
I picked up the block plane he’d squared to the bench edge, and there was nothing wrong with it. I set it back down where he’d put it. He watched.
“I moved that,” Rafe said. “When did I move that?”
“Trier’s sister-in-law. Somewhere in the middle of that story.”
“I do it at home. My mom used to move things crooked on purpose to see how long it would take me to fix them. Nobody’s supposed to see me do it.”
“I see everything in this shop,” I said. “It’s part of the job.”
Rafe swallowed the last bite of bread and chased it with a mouthful of water. He walked over to the shelves I’d been oiling.
“These are the Ravenswood ones.”
I looked at him. “How do you know that?”
“You said you were making shelves for somebody in Ravenswood.”
That had been a week ago. I’d mentioned it once. He ran his eyes down the boards without touching them. “This is the oil?”
“First coat.”
“What happens after?”
“It sits overnight. Tomorrow I sand it back and do it again.”
“So you do all this twice,” Rafe said.
“Three times.”
“That’s a lot.”
“And you play eighty-two games.”
He considered that. “Okay.” He looked at me. “I should let you sleep.”
“You should,” I said, but I didn’t move.
Out on the street, a car went by, and its headlights traced a path across the ceiling.
Rafe looked tired, but not unhappy. Just used up after such a big game. He stepped forward, reached out to touch my jaw, and kissed me.
His mouth was on mine, warm and certain, and for a second I stood there like a struck post. Then I kissed him back. I placed a hand flat on his chest.
The kiss was brief, and we each took a step back.
I know how to respond to everything. It’s the one skill I’ve never had to work at. Clients cry in my shop, and I know what to say. Max tells me about his latest scheme, and I know how to respond.
I stood a foot away from Rafe, and I had nothing.
He was silent, too. He nodded once and then squared his shoulders, smoothing his shirt with his hands.
I let him get all the way to the door in silence.
He reached out for the latch and then stopped. “Thanks for the sandwich,” he said.
Then he was gone. His truck started, and the headlights swept across the storefront as he pulled out onto the street.
I walked over to the bench and picked up my phone. The postgame broadcast was over. It had ended more than an hour ago.
I had a series of four messages:
Max: GALA UPDATE. tailor moved us to Thursday 4pm, both fittings back to back
Max: also the arrivals plan came through. car gets Rafe at 6, scoops me at 6:15, we’re on the carpet by 7. they’re putting us mid-arrivals, which is prime placement, you don’t need to know why, trust me that it’s flattering
Max: you’re not coming, I know, don’t panic. this is informational. transparency is the foundation of brotherhood
Max: ALSO. did you SEE that pass?