Page 24 of The Grumpy Defenseman
“You’re early,” she said.
“I brought coffee.”
“You always bring coffee when you want to avoid a conversation.”
I stepped over Ranger and handed her a cup. She took it, studied my face for approximately two seconds, and made a sound that was half laugh, half diagnosis.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, this is interesting.”
“What?”
“You look different.”
“I look the same.”
“You look like you slept four hours and spent the other four thinking about something that isn’t hockey.” She sipped her coffee, eyes sharp over the rim. “That’s new.”
I did not answer. She did not need me to. My phone had already buzzed twice in my pocket, once from Ryan and once from Zach. Ryan’s message was practical, captain-level checking in disguised as a question about tomorrow’s skate. Zach’s was less subtle: three question marks and a photo of my stall with the caption, you alive or just brooding professionally?
Inside the house was the same controlled chaos it always was. Tommy, seven, restless and incapable of sitting still for more than six seconds, was in the living room constructing something out of blocks that appeared to be a stadium with a moat. Hisengineering was ambitious. His structural integrity was questionable.
“Uncle Evan!” He looked up with a grin that had three missing teeth in it. “Look! I built Frost Bank Center.”
“Frost Bank Center doesn’t have a moat.”
“It should.”
Fair point.
I set the groceries on the counter and let Ranger shove his head under my hand, demanding the scratching pattern he had trained me to provide over five years of relentless conditioning. Behind the ear first. Then the chin. Then the chest. Any deviation from protocol resulted in a paw on my knee and a look of profound personal betrayal.
Lena leaned against the kitchen doorframe, watching me scratch the dog with one hand and unpacking groceries with the other.
“So,” she said. “Who is she?”
My hand paused on Ranger’s ear. He nudged it back into position.
“There’s no she.”
“Evan.” Her voice was flat and warm at the same time, a tone she had perfected over thirty years of being my sister and approximately zero years of letting me get away with anything. “You showed up on a Thursday morning without being asked. You’re petting Ranger with both hands, which you only do when you’re distracted. And you haven’t checked your phone once, which means whoever texted you last is someone you’re actively not thinking about.”
She waited.
I said nothing because everything she had said was accurate, and I had no defense.
“She’s the photographer,” Lena said. Not a question. “The one Brick mentioned.”
“Brick talks too much.”
“Brick talks the right amount. You talk too little. Between the two of you, one functional communicator emerges.”
From the living room, Tommy held up a long, uneven block wall.
“Uncle Evan, I need the roof. It keeps falling down.”
I looked at him, this gap-toothed kid with block dust on his knees and the unshakable belief that his uncle could fix anything, and felt something in my chest loosen. Not a lot. Just enough to breathe.
“Yeah,” I said. “Show me.”
