The Captain Who Ended My Brother's Career Is on My Table novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Two Minutes

"I called the owner," Aili said, at the door, with Kasper's blanket over one arm.

"You did what?"

"Thirty-one years. He picks up when I ring." She put her glasses on top of her head. "I told him a boy was hurt and a man named Sal Contini was hurt before him. I said, come to the tunnel Saturday and bring your ears."

"Aili."

"Go on, now. I'm taking this child home to feed him."

She took Kasper by the elbow and walked him out to her Buick, small and fierce, and he went.

That left Hugo and me in my kitchen with the kettle ticking.

"You're going to be on edge for two days," he said.

"I'm going to be a wreck."

"I know a place where nobody will find us."

At one in the morning he let us in through the players' entrance with his key.

The arena was dark and enormous, with the scoreboard dead and the ice shining under a single work light.

Hugo sat on the bench and laced up his skates.

He found a pair for me in Aili's back room, size seven, and knelt on the rubber floor to fit them over my socks.

"I can't skate," I said.

"You don't need to."

He stepped out onto the ice, and turned, and took both my hands.

I wobbled.

He skated backward, slowly, pulling me after him with his hands wrapped around mine, and the ice hissed under the blades.

We went down the whole length of the rink like that, in the lonely light.

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