Page 101 of Forbidden Hockey

“You know where he’s going to be?”

“I know where I can make him be,” he says.

I run my fingers across my freshly shorn scalp. Fucking Maxwell. We are the same. It’s as if he’s plucked the thoughts from my mind and brought them into reality. I’ve come up with a million solutions for Robin, all of them end with him six feet under. Unless I can send him to the moon. But if I’m going to take care of him, it’ll be with my brothers, not Maxwell.

All I have to do is ask. My annual summer trip’s not too far away; it would be a great time to discuss it. They were as furious as I was when Dash turned up hurt; they’d love to help me take care of the guy who did it. We don’t need Maxwell.

But Maxwell’s intel would help.

“Don’t answer me now. I can see you need to digest that information. I know what I would do to anyone who ever touched one of my children, so don’t worry. I understand the way you feel.”

I’ve never told him how I feel. This whole fucking thing is messed up. I get the nagging sensation that I’m just a rat in a lab he’s watching, analyzing. Setting up vicious little scenarios, seeing how I’ll respond. Maxwell’s leading me down a bread-crumb trail, and just like Hansel and Gretel, I’m following it right to the witch’s doorstep. The man who harmed my son is one helluva bread-crumb trail to violence.

Witches are supposed to be ugly, wart-infested, and sound hideous. Maxwell’s soothing voice could lull a pit of vipers.

“What do you want from me, Maxwell? I know your help doesn’t come for free.”

“I told you. A friend. And I wouldn’t mind a good word with my sons.”

I huff, shoving a caviar-filled crostini into my mouth and downing the wine. Maxwell’s quick to refill my glass. “I don’t have any sway over your sons. I don’t know them.”

“You’re connected with their inner circle more than I am. It’s one of the few places I have little sway.”

“And what if I have nothing good to say about you?”

He shrugs. “Then you don’t. But it’s worth trying.”

Leaning back in my chair, I consider him, drinking more wine. “We’ll see about the good word to your sons. I need to know what I’m putting in a good word about. As for the other thing, no. I don’t need to go on a revenge mission.”

Not with him anyway.

“Think about it,” he insists. “And in the meantime, try the crab cakes. You’ll like those, they’re my favorite.”

Well, that was fucked in seventeen different ways, but I have to admit that whatever Maxwell had them do to me at his magical spa of wonders, it worked. My skin’s glowing, and he was right, the haircut and whatever they did to my eyebrows, adds something wolfish to my features.

I get stares as I walk through the restaurant, the hostees and the servers trying to look without me catching them. Don’t really care what they think, I just want Dirk to like it.

My first video call is to Dash. He’s with Syd, but it’s what we could fit in.

“Hey, bud,” I say with unexpected nervousness in my gut. I’m too old to try and be cool, and no one’s more honest with you about that than your kids. I couldn’t help but fix the hair back over my scalp so it looked less jarring.

“Hey, Dad. New haircut?” he says, but that’s all he seems to notice.

“Ah, yeah. Trying something new.”

He gives a side-mouth smirk. “Something new, eh? You sure it’s not someone new?”

Goddammit. “How’s hockey?” I say as a diversion, but such an obvious change in subject’s only gonna make him more suspicious. Great. He keeps grinning, equal parts amusement and curiosity, but he lets it go, and we catch up. Syd’s in the background cooking. Dash gets him to say hello.

“You been getting enough sleep, Dashie?” I can’t help noticing the bags under his eyes.

“Um, yeah. Season’s been tough this year, that’s all. I’m good, Dad.”

That’s my signal to back off. Normally, I’d push, but I’ve grown a brand-new paranoia—I’ve seen myself through Maxwell’s eyes and I don’t want to parent like him. My son’s an adult, he’s supposed to be taking care of himself.

But he isn’t.

What the fuck is Syd even doing anyway? Can’t he see my son needs a bit of help? Nothin’ wrong with that, just the way it is.