Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Gabe Thatcher
The Bench Social Media Group
Riley Novak: Thatcher’s been at the old bar every night this week. No crew. No noise. Just him, a space heater, and a toolbelt.
Ash Patel: I peeked through the window. He’s building something. Looks like trim work, but it’s too detailed to be basic.
Patti Jensen: Roe’s still skating like a man on a mission. Three points last week. In the post-game interview he said, “I know what I’m playing for.”
The first thing I do after Roe leaves for the full season, is finish the south wall of the bar. He was home for two weeks between the pre-season and regular season, but now it’ll just be video calls and weekends.
He wanted this wall in open brick. Said it would give the space “character,” whatever that means. I think he just liked the way it looked in some bar we passed once in Chicago. Took me three days to expose it and two more to wire the lighting without turning the place into a fire hazard.
I don’t tell him that.
I just send him a photo with the caption: “You were right.”
He doesn’t reply right away. But that night, I get a message with a picture of his new apartment and the sign I carved hanging on the wall.
I stare at it for a while before flipping my phone face down. The panic I felt when Roe went away for three games is long gone. I think I needed that moment, to really know what I was getting into with him. To know I was willing to do what it takes to make this work.
To know that I’m so gone for Roe Monroe there’s no other option for me.
Jamie helps at the bar when he’s not at school or hockey.
He’s not great with a level, but he’s better with a paint roller than I was at his age.
We make a ritual out of Saturday afternoons—music on, pizza after, sweatshirts smeared with primer.
He picks the color for the back wall behind the bar.
Calls it “bold” like he heard it on HGTV.
I let him pick it. Even though it’s a little too close to maroon for my taste.
“Roe’ll like it,” he says.
I don’t correct him. When Jamie comes in a week later and decides it needs to be Iceguard blue, we change it and I keep the “I told you so” out of my mouth.
There’s a spot on the wall near the corner where the paint never goes down smooth. Some kind of seam in the plaster. Every time I roll over it, I think . . . Leave it. Imperfect things feel more real.
So I quit fighting it and leave it.
I build a shelf above the entryway using salvaged wood from the old bleachers at The Keep. I don’t tell Roe that either. I want him to see it for the first time with a cocktail in hand and that stupid grin on his face.
That’s the thing with building something for someone—you don’t always say it out loud. You just make room for them inside it.
Somewhere near mid-season I start calling it our bar without thinking.
Riley, Marge, and the rest of the Fox River Falls busybodies do it too.
“You and Roe gonna make this your little hockey church or what?” they ask, half laughing but not unkind.
I just nod and notice how I hardly ever have a day alone just with Jamie. The town checks in on me, and for some reason it makes me smile. It’s hard to imagine that I once found their concern burdensome.
***
The package arrives on a Tuesday.
Jamie spots it first, sitting on the porch next to the paint samples I forgot to bring in. Brown cardboard, Roe’s handwriting on the label—half print, half scrawl, like he was rushing but still wanted us to read it.
Jamie bolts for it like a puppy who just found a tennis ball.
“It’s for us!” he says, holding it above his head like it’s the Stanley Cup.
I let him open it at the bar, right on the herringbone-patterned wood counter we haven’t sealed yet. He tears the tape with a pocketknife I told him not to use without me. I don’t say anything. Roe sent a box—we’re both allowed to be soft about it.
Jamie pulls out the items one at a time.
There’s a signed puck from Chicago’s rookie phenom—“Dom says hi, and you still skate better than him,” the attached note says.
There’s a T-shirt from some greasy diner Roe claims has the best fries in Canada, per his last set of games on the road.
Jamie makes a face at the grease stains on the sleeve. “He definitely wore this already.”
And a folded sheet of paper. Handwritten. Not long. Not dramatic. “Bar looks incredible. Can’t wait to see it. You and Jamie are my whole damn gravity. Mid-season’s almost here—R.”
Jamie reads it out loud, then says:
“He’s the worst at pretending he’s not a softie.”
I nod and tuck the note in my back pocket so I can reread it whenever I want.