Chapter 13 #2
Theo Nash came out of the doors last. I saw me holding Maple in the parking lot.
I looked at us for exactly one second—at the way her hands were in my hair, at the way my arms were locked around her waist, at the particular intensity of a man making a statement.
Then Theo Nash looked away. I did not say anything.
I would not say anything, ever, to anyone, about what that moment had meant or what it was announcing.
Some people could read the signs. Some people did not need them explained.
Some people understood that there were moments that were not for commentary.
Those moments belonged to the people living them.
I set Maple down gently. My hands stayed on her hips for an extra moment.
She was looking up at me like she did not quite understand what had just happened, like the world had rearranged itself and she was still trying to catch up.
Like I had just answered a question she had not yet known to ask.
Her eyes were bright. Her hands were shaking.
I could feel the tremor in her shoulders even though I was trying to hold her steady.
I said, “Let’s go.”
She said, “Where.”
I said, “My place.”
Mira said, “I’ll take Theo Jr. back to his mom.”
Theo Jr. said, “But Mr. Grumpus—”
Mira said, “Come on, buddy. Your mom’s probably waiting.
” She gathered the kid up and she waved at me like she understood that something had shifted, that something had been decided in that moment of me holding Maple above the pavement.
The message was being sent. I was staying.
I was committing. I was showing the entire town that Maple Sutton mattered to me in ways that could not be undone.
I did not acknowledge this. I was looking at Maple. My hands were still on her hips. I said, “Come on.”
THE DRIVE HOME
They drove home in separate trucks.
The drive from the arena to Maple’s house was maybe five miles.
It took seven minutes when I drove the speed limit, which I did because I understood that rushing was how people died.
I drove behind her, watching her taillights, watching the snow catch in her headlights, watching the way she was being careful on the roads even though the roads were fine.
I knew she was being careful because she was thinking about what came next.
I knew she was thinking about what I had said before the game—I have something to tell you.
Tomorrow morning. We need to talk. She was probably thinking about all the things it could be.
She was probably running through conversations in her mind, trying to prepare for the moment when I opened my mouth and changed everything.
The roads through Frostbite Falls were empty. The town had settled in for the evening. The Main Street lights were on. The diner would be closed. The rink behind them was emptying out. Soon there would be just me and her, and the thing I had been carrying for thirteen days. Soon she would know.
On the way, I called her. She answered on the first ring.
I said, “I’m taking you to my apartment tonight.”
She said, “Okay.”
I said, “And tomorrow we’re going to have a conversation that you’re not going to want to have but that needs to happen.”
She said, “Knox.”
I said, “I know. Tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight we just drive home and we get to my place and I stop keeping secrets and I stop counting down the days until you find out the things I should have already told you.”
She said, “What things.”
I said, “Tomorrow, Maple. I promise.”
I hung up the phone.
I drove through the dark and the snow and the particular February night that felt like winter was finally turning but had not yet turned.
The roads were empty. No one else in town was driving at nine o’clock on a Monday night.
No one but them. No one but I and Maple and the thing between them that was about to become a problem.
I thought about the 60-day window that was now past the midpoint.
I thought about the conversation I had been putting off for thirteen days.
I thought about the moment when she found out that Maddox had bought her debt and that I had known about it and had kept it quiet.
I thought about the way her face was going to change.
I thought about the moment when I would become, in her eyes, a man who lied.
I thought about the fact that I had picked her up off the ground in front of the entire team in a way that left no question about what she was to me.
I thought about the fact that Theo Nash had seen it and had chosen to say nothing, which was better than choosing to celebrate, which meant Nash understood that secrets were complicated and that a man had reasons for keeping them even when the reasons did not make sense.
Even when the time was running out. Even when the lie was about to detonate.
I pulled into the driveway of Maple’s house.
Her truck was already in front of the apartment.
I parked. I got out. I went up the side stairs to the apartment above the garage.
The stairs were icy. The railing was cold under my hand.
Everything in Minnesota was cold in February.
You learned to exist inside the cold. You learned to move through it knowing it could take you down if you were not careful.
You learned to hold onto railings and to trust that there would be light at the top of the stairs.
She was waiting in the kitchen with her jacket off and her hands shaking.
The propane heater was running in the corner, emitting its warm, acrid smell.
The kitchen was warm—warmer than the outside, warmer than her own house, warmer than anywhere else in Frostbite Falls.
She was standing in the center of it like she was trying to get warm from the inside out, like the heat in this apartment was the only thing that was going to keep her stable while I told her the truth.
I said, “Not tonight.”
She said, “You have to tell me now. I can’t sleep not knowing.”
I said, “We’re going to go to bed. I’m going to hold you. And in the morning, over coffee, I’m going to tell you everything. But tonight, I need you to trust me that the secret is not a secret that changes how I feel about you. It’s a secret that changes how you feel about what I did.”
She said, “That’s cryptic.”
I said, “Yeah. I know.”
I kissed her.
It was not the careful kiss from the restaurant.
It was the kiss of a man who had picked her up in front of the entire team and was about to lose something because of the honesty that was coming.
It was the kiss of a man saying goodbye to a version of them that was based on unknowing.
It was the kiss of a man who understood that the next day was going to change everything.
Tomorrow, the knowledge was going to change things.
Tonight, I held her and I did not sleep and I counted the hours until dawn.
I counted the minutes. I sat in the dark of her apartment and I held her against my chest and I felt her heart beating and I understood that this was probably the last night that she was going to sleep easy, the last night that she was going to trust me completely.
The last night before the secret became a problem that required solving.
But I was going to tell her.
And that was going to have to be enough.