8. Evie
EVIE
I’m back at the Maxwell house again.
The spare key lives under a ceramic frog by the door, which is the least secure hiding spot in the continental United States. I’ve stopped commenting on it because Murphy thinks the frog is funny, and I’ve decided not to take that from him.
Just over a week in, we already have a routine going. I’ve learned that Murphy takes his coffee black, that he’ll do the PT exercises if I pretend not to watch, and that the fastest way to lose him is to ask how he’s feeling. So I don’t.
Instead, I ask what he wants for dinner and whether the wobbly board on the ramp has gotten any worse, which it has. So I’m going to fix it with an actual drill this weekend whether he likes it or not.
Earlier this afternoon, we went on a grocery run together. I discovered this is a whole production because Murphy has lots of opinions about produce. We spent four minutes in front of the tomatoes while he explained why the ones on sale were disgusting.
“Nothing like what I used to eat when I was a kid,” he grumbles. “They gas them now, did you know? Whole warehouse full of the stuff. That’s why the skin’s like a balloon.”
I bought them anyway. You can’t make a marinara without fresh tomatoes. I’m not much of a cook—my repertoire runs about six deep, and half of it is eggs—but I can get a real dinner into Murphy that isn’t beige, which is all I’m required to do.
Now, I’m unloading bags in the kitchen, and he’s parked himself in the living room.
“Come watch the game!” he shouts, ratcheting up the volume on the TV.
“I should be making myself useful,” I call back from the kitchen. “This is the part where I actually earn the paycheck, remember?”
“You’d be useful if you’d just keep me company. Get in here. The anthem’s already starting.”
“I’m fairly certain ‘social hour’ isn’t on the official job description, Murphy.”
I genuinely enjoy working with him. He’s sharp-tongued and funny, and he talks a mile a minute once you manage to find the key to the lock.
It’s just that the grief and the stroke have settled into a heavy, protective shell around him—one I’m still figuring out how to navigate without bruising either of us.
“It is tonight.” He doesn’t look away from the TV. “Leave the cold items in the fridge and bring the rest. I’m not pausing the first period for a bag of overpriced tomatoes.”
I shove the frozen goods into their proper drawers, abandon a bag of oranges on the granite, and come around the corner, wiping my palms on my denim.
The screen is a wash of bright blue ice and fast-moving graphics. Murphy has the remote anchored in his good hand, his gaze already locked on the broadcast. He looks undeniably happy, like a kid in a candy shop.
Or like a man who’s finally found the one thing worth being excited about.
I lower myself onto the cushion. “I hope you know I have no idea what I’m looking at here.”
“Charlotte’s the home team tonight, so they’re wearing white. Montréal’s in black. They’re the Sentinelles.” He sniffs, his expression darkening. “We don’t like them.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re playing them,” he grumbles, “and because they’re a whole bag of shit in a single sweater.”
I huff a laugh, watching the screen. When the puck drops, I scan the flurry of motion for the only name I know. Find it. MAXWELL, brick-red letters across a white jersey, taking a long, wide loop along the far boards.
“There he is,” I say, a small surge of recognition hitting me.
“That’s my boy.”
For a while, Murphy narrates the mechanics of the game.
Offsides, which I don’t quite grasp. Icing, which I understand even less.
There are four men in stripes out there who seem to make their decisions purely by vibration.
I nod like the logic is landing, but mostly, I’m just watching the crowd inhale in unison every time the puck gets near the net.
“Why do they keep swapping players in the middle of everything?” I ask. “Nobody blew a whistle or signaled for a break.”
“Line changes. They go in shifts—forty-five seconds, maybe a full minute, and then they’re cooked, and they have to come off.” He taps on the armrest. “You’re watching every man do his time as hard as he can and then trusting the next guy to do his.”
Briggs’s line goes over the boards. I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
On the ice, the man is economical. There’s no wasted motion in his stride, which I suppose I should’ve expected. He takes a pass, loses the handle, and fights to get it back. There’s a heavy hit along the boards that makes me wince while Murphy grunts his gruff approval.
I scrunch my nose. “That’s allowed?”
“Encouraged, even.”
Montréal goes up by two before the second period is over, and Murphy has words about both goals.
Late in the second, the camera holds on a close-up of Briggs at the bench, and Murphy goes uncomfortably quiet. He swipes a thumb across his upper lip, his gaze fixed on the monitor.
“I put the last two games on,” he says to the TV.
“Sat right here in this chair. They played Chicago on Thursday, then Minnesota on Saturday.” He turns the remote over in his hand, tracing the plastic.
“Ziggy used to watch with me. He liked watching his brother play.” A beat of silence.
“First time I’ve watched one with somebody else since he . . . Well, funny it’s you.”
I don’t reach over to pat his arm. I don’t tell him it eventually gets easier, because I don’t know whether or not that’s actually true. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you just get more proficient at carrying it.
For now, I just sit in the heavy feeling with him, like my dad taught me to do.
“Do you want me to shut up with the newbie questions and just let you watch?” I ask softly.
“That’s alright,” he says earnestly. “Zig at least knew the rules, but you’re growing on me, kid.”
I press a hand to my chest. “I thought Briggs said you were picky.”
“I’m real choosy. You’re the exception.”
The third period opens with Charlotte pinned in their own end for what feels like a decade. Murphy keeps up a low, frantic commentary I can only half follow—clear it, clear it, there you go—and I catch myself tracking number thirteen every time his skates hit the ice.
Charlotte gets one back early. The clock bleeds down after that, red numbers ticking away, and nothing happens for a long, tense stretch.
Then, with four minutes left and Charlotte still trailing by one, Murphy sits forward.
There’s a frantic scramble in front of the Montréal net, a mess of bodies and sticks.
Out of the chaos, the puck squirts loose to Briggs at a bad angle.
He does something with his wrists I don’t have the vocabulary for, and the puck soars toward the net—
I’m on my feet.
I don’t consciously decide to be. One second, I’m sitting, and the next, I’m standing with both hands pressed to my mouth. The goal horn is wailing, the announcers are shouting, and so am I.
Murphy is laughing at me now, a full and delighted sound.
“Sit down, you goofball,” he says. “You don’t even know what just happened.”
“He scored! Is that two points?”
“It’s one goal, which is one goal. Basketball’s the one you’re thinking of.” He wipes at his eye with the back of his wrist. “Christ. You are just as bad as Zig was.”
I sink back onto the cushion.
I’ve never cared much for sports. Not at all, really. I never paid any mind to the big screens at the bars during March Madness or the World Series. I’ve definitely never watched a full hockey game before this one.
But I know the man in the brick-red thirteen. I’ve argued with him about my muffler, and I’ve watched him sign for his brother’s grave. That changes the math. Suddenly, the score means something real, because he means something.
To me, he’s a real person now, not just a jersey.
With under a minute left in the game, Charlotte scores again. They win, 3–2. Murphy makes me stay through all the handshakes and the interviews and the three guys in suits breaking down a replay for ten minutes. I allow it, because his face has gone loose and happy.
I won’t dare take that look for granted.
By the time I clock out for the day, the desert is already turning a deep, bruised blue at the edges. I drive home in my Corolla, which is running with a terrifying, smooth silence ever since Briggs paid for the tune-up.
It was an unnecessary gesture—a fourteen-hundred-dollar “work expense” he bullied me into—but I’ve stopped fighting him on it. Somewhere around the wedding chapel with the flickering neon ring, I pull over to the shoulder to check my phone.
I don’t expect an immediate answer. He’s in Charlotte, coming off a win, and there are probably four hundred people in that city currently trying to get a piece of him.
But I watched the performance, didn’t I? It feels like a minor social crime not to acknowledge it.
Evie
caught the game with your old man. is that your usual level of talent or should we call it a fluke?
I drop the phone into the cup holder and merge back into traffic.
It buzzes before I’ve cleared the next mile. I make myself wait for the red light at Eastern before I reach for it.
Briggs
I’m generally considered a good player, yeah
It takes a ridiculous amount of willpower to keep the phone down until I’m parked in my own lot. But car accidents are a leading cause of accidental death, and I refuse to become my own cautionary statistic for the sake of a hockey player.
Evie
don’t let it inflate your ego, but I might have actually jumped out of my seat
Briggs
did you now?
Evie
I will deny that under oath
Briggs
too late. I have a witness. he likes me, he’ll testify
Evie
depends on how lately you’ve annoyed him, I’m sure
Briggs
fair. jury’s still out on that
Evie
he explained icing to me three times. I’m fairly certain it’s a made-up rule
Briggs
it is. the whole sport is just a high-speed hallucination
Evie
knew it
I lean my head back against the stucco of my terrace. A coyote howls somewhere out in the dark, the sound thin and lonely. The February cold has finally come up off the dirt, so I drag the blanket off the back of the folding chair and wrap it around my shoulders.
Evie
your dad claims you used to be faster
Briggs
my father loves to slander my good name
Evie
idk. I’m inclined to side with the veteran on this one
aren’t you supposed to be out celebrating with the boys right now?
Briggs
who says I’m not?
Evie
texting me from a dark corner of some strip joint?
Briggs
you think that’s my scene after a game, huh?
Evie
it’s what I would want
Briggs
watch people get naked under bad neon?
Evie
turn my brain off
Briggs
yeah. that’s the one thing I can never quite manage
Evie
so where are you, really?
He sends a selfie. He’s slumped on a couch in a dim room, one lamp casting a low amber glow, hair still damp from the shower. He has absolutely no business looking this put together at midnight. Not after being used as a human projectile for sixty minutes.
Evie
is that your actual house?
Briggs
my condo in charlotte
Evie
excuse me. your condo
Briggs
HA yeah. came straight here after media
Evie
why?
Briggs
didn’t have the performance in me tonight. Augie dragged me to a party last week to “distract” me. all it did was remind me I felt like a pile of shit
He didn’t have to hand that over. He could have sent another deflection and kept the gate locked. I get the sense the fortress is his default setting, which means I should be careful with the fact that he’s letting me stand on the drawbridge.
Evie
it seems exhausting. to grieve under a spotlight. to have a pulse under one, honestly
Briggs
it’s the job. just have to feel it later, in private, on your own time. never learned another way to be
Evie
and how’s that working out for your overall health?
Briggs
probably not great for the long haul. weirdly, this is the most I’ve talked about it all week
Evie
I’m sorry
Briggs
don’t be
you’re easy to talk to despite the general gloom and doom
Evie
that is either the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me or a devastating review of your friends
Briggs
probably a bit of both
Evie
tell me about the best one, then. is that Augie?
Briggs
by default. no volume knob. you’d hate him for an hour and then you’d be friends for life
Evie
sounds like a familiar archetype
Briggs
your version got a name?
Evie
Hazel. she’s my best friend, and she’s also a divorce attorney.
Briggs
a divorce lawyer and a mortician walk into a bar . . .
Evie
I am not a mortician!
Briggs
gravedigger, then
Evie
death care professional
Briggs
absolutely not
Evie
that is the industry standard terminology
Briggs
who’s your branding manager? a vampire?
Evie
are you judging my career path?
Briggs
it is objectively morbid
Evie
has anyone ever mentioned you can be an asshole?
Briggs
once or twice
We keep trading barbs for another half hour, the conversation effortless. When I finally look at the time, the regret lands immediately.
Evie
didn’t realize it was getting this late . . .
Briggs
isn’t it only nine in the valley?
Evie
yeah, but I have an early morning at Sutton’s. besides, I know you need your rest to stay that pretty
Briggs
it does take a considerable amount of maintenance
Evie
right . . . goodnight, thirteen
Briggs
night, gravedigger