Page 171 of Top Shelf

I vaguely remember seeing it on the calendar before Heidi stood in our kitchen and I lifted her up onto the counter.

“For this coming Monday?”

“Yes. I’ll send talking points.”

Maren taps her tablet and walks off, and I stand with my hockey bag over my shoulder with a thought arriving without warning. They will ask about recovery because they always do even though it was two years ago, and I know the gap Heidi’s studio fills because I have lived inside it.

It would be so easy, and it would cost me nothing, but it might help her sponsors to see Return To Play for what it is: a brilliant venture, endorsed by athletes. She should not have to beg people to see the value in it. Heidi has never touched anything without making it better.

I start walking, and think of Ebba standing in her kitchen in Solvik, telling me not to put paperwork in Heidi’s hand when what I meant was my heart. This is not paperwork. This is fifteen minutes I was already giving away, and thirty seconds about something I believe in. Something I love because I love the woman who made it.

And I know Heidi can do it without me—there is no question. The question is why the woman I love should have to fight every locked door when I am standing in front of one already open.

I type a message to Maren as I reach my car.

Me: For the talking points, can you please add a mention for the Return To Play studio.

Maren: Heidi’s studio? Sure. Great human interest angle.

Human interest angle.

Hm. I do not like this phrase. It makes the studio sound small and charming, when the real story is that my wife built a place for athletes to return to their best selves. But I can correct that on Monday, and I will say it properly. I can make them understand why this matters.

I shove my phone back in my pocket and open the car door, already thinking about the words I will use.

On Monday, I will put the spotlight where it belongs.

Chapter twenty-five

Heidi

“Left,” Mila says from the top of a chair.

I stare up at her, my hand wrapped around the trunk of a plant I did not personally approve but somehow now own. “Your left or my left?”

“The plant’s left.”

“Plants don’t have lefts, Mila”

Zoe, crouched near the reception desk with her laptop balanced on her knee, doesn’t look up. “Listen to the dancer, Heid. She understands lines.”

“I understand liability,” I mutter, shifting the plant two inches across the floor. “And the fact that my brand new staff member is standing on furniture nine days before launch with a healing hip.”

Mila glances down, ignoring me. “The angle is excellent.”

“The angle can be excellent from a ladder.”

“I don’t trust ladders.”

“Famous last words,” I say, but I hold the plant still because apparently this is leadership now.

Return To Play is not open yet, but this morning, it feels almost ready. The reformers sit in clean rows beneath the front windows, their pale wood and black padding catching the early light. The mirrors are finally up, and the logo on the wall gleams in soft white. There’s still the faint smell of fresh paint under the stronger, better smell of coffee. Mine has gone cold somewhere. Again.

There’s also half a pistachio pastry in my tote bag, and a note from Viktor folded in the pocket of my Storm hoodie.

Eat before you conquer, min älskling.

I found it at five this morning beside my keys, written in his block handwriting sometime before he went to bed.