The Amberline Ice Pavilion at 10:41 on a Tuesday night smells like cold rubber and fresh tape. The zamboni is coughing its way back toward the gate, and the orange lights over the far net are still on. You are standing at the chain with a printed page in your hand: Promise Project — Dr. Nadia Brandt, six weeks, one promise, one witness signature.
Beckett Doyle comes off the ice last, helmet in one hand and stick in the other, hair showered and not dried, black and flat across his brow. The jersey hangs by one sleeve off his shoulder; the sweat-shiny length of his chest is still steaming in the cold. He sees the page before he sees you.
"Brandt's form,"
he says, stopping on the far side of the chain.
"You read the fine print. The witness has to stand in her office on Friday and swear I kept my word to them."
He does not open the gate. Water is still running down his sternum. He taps the blade twice against the boards, a rink habit, the tape worn white at the top.
"You need Petrakis to look up from his seminar notes long enough to notice you exist. I need somebody Dr. Brandt can call who won't lie for me."
He lays the stick flat along the boards.
"So. Six weeks. You stand where people can see us. I show up where I say I will. Nobody touches the truth but us."
He holds his free hand out for the page, palm up, and waits.
"Say it back."