Chapter 5: Kiss Cam in Suite 22

One all. Level for the first time all month, and I’d written Friday’s note on Wednesday night, still buttoned into that shirt, with a certain amount of swagger: NO KISSING IN PUBLIC. IC. Under it, beside his initials, he’d added one word in pencil: Bold.

For the Northmen game I wore a black knit dress, a borrowed home jersey over it, number 19, sleeves pushed up, and knee boots with a heel I could stand in for three hours. Black cotton underneath. My chain was under the knit, the ring warm against my sternum. I checked myself in the hall mirror at six and thought I looked like a woman who would never kiss anyone in public in her life.

Lakefront Arena was cold and loud and smelled of beer and popcorn and ice. Suite 22 hangs over the blue line: two rows of padded seats in front of a glass wall, and behind them a carpeted lounge with a buffet, a bar, and a door at the back to a private restroom with a lock. Half the firm was there by the anthem, and Harriet was holding court at the buffet in black, with the big silver brooch, a glass of white she never drank, and a phone that kept buzzing in her hand.

“Imogen,” she said, as I passed. “Halyard’s general counsel is a Northmen fan. If he calls you tonight, you love hockey.”

“I do love hockey.”

“Good. Love it louder,” Harriet said, and went back to the tax partners.

Owen came in during the first period in a navy quarter-zip, jeans, glasses on. His badge was clipped to the zip, out of habit, with the ring behind it. There was one empty seat between us. Tess sat on my other side, eating nachos as if they’d done something to her.

“Maddox,” she said, leaning across me, “are you following my friend?”

“Seat on the ticket,” said Owen, and showed her.

“You were at the bar with her at Pinecrest too.”

“I’m IT,” Owen said. “I’m everywhere. It’s in the job description.”

“That’s creepy, Maddox.”

“It’s in the job description,” he said again, mildly, and went back to watching the ice, and Tess turned to me with her eyebrows somewhere near her hairline.

“Don’t,” I said.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re saying it very loudly.”

Dev came down the row with a tray of beers and handed them along.

“Is it true,” he said to me, very seriously, “that icing is only icing if the other team touches it?”

“Ask Maddox,” Tess said. “He’s everywhere.”

“It’s true,” Owen said, “unless it isn’t,” and Dev nodded as if that had cleared it up and went back to the bar.

The Northmen went one down, then two all. I shouted at a referee. Owen shouted at the same referee, in different words. We did not look at each other. Every time I shifted in my seat my knee rested somewhere in the vicinity of the empty seat, and every time, it seemed, so did his.

In the second period, during the second television timeout, the organ played that song and the kiss cam started. The big screen over the ice went to a pink heart frame. A couple in the lower bowl. Two old men who kissed happily to a huge cheer. The mascot, a man in a bear costume, who covered his face with both paws.

I was laughing at the mascot when Tess grabbed my arm.

The heart was round us.

On the screen, forty feet high, there I was, in the jersey, and there was Owen in the quarter-zip, one seat apart, and the whole arena counting down, and the suite behind us cheering. I looked along the row. Harriet’s seat was empty; she’d gone out to the corridor for a call. I looked at Owen, and he looked at me, the steady look, your call, Counsel, and the camera held on us, and the chant got louder.