Chapter 5: Party

"Scouting," Henrik said.

He still hadn't turned his head from the windshield.

"You skate the best program in the conference. I wanted to know what hockey was up against."

"For twenty-two minutes."

"I was thorough."

"Sixty-one times."

His ears went from red to dark red.

"Drive the car, Hedlund," he said.

I drove the car.

I didn't believe him, and he knew I didn't, and neither of us said one more word until his driveway.

Saturday night, Trent Maddox threw a party.

It was in the basement of the off-campus house he shared with three juniors, and Henrik insisted on going.

"The team will be there," he said. "If the captain doesn't show, they think I'm weak. You're driving."

"I'm your assistant. I'm not your girlfriend."

"Good. Girlfriends don't carry crutches."

So at ten o'clock I stood in a basement that smelled like beer and body spray.

I held a red cup of ice water, and forty hockey players shouted over a speaker.

Henrik had been swallowed by the crowd on the far side of the room.

He sat on a couch with his boot up on a coffee table.

A ring of men leaned in around him, eager and loud.

They loved him.

I hadn't known that, in four years of hating him from the other end of the ice.

"Hedlund."

I turned around.

Trent had a bottle in one hand and his other hand flat on the wall beside my head.

I stepped back, and the wall was behind me.

"Having fun?" he said.

"I'm leaving soon."

"Not before we talk." He smiled. His breath smelled like whiskey. "You've been busy this week. Taking notes. Correcting me in front of my guys."

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