Page 41 of The Last Inch Of Ice
Derek crouched down beside him, his skates scraping against the surface. “The thickness and smoothness of the ice, that’s everything in hockey. See this?” He pointed to the ice at their feet, solid and opaque. “In professional hockey, the ice needs to be three-quarters of an inch or an inch thick. Not more, not less.”
Little Nazar’s eyes had widened. “Only a few inches?”
Derek laughed— a real laugh, lighter than before—and ruffled Nazar’s hair. “One inch or less than an inch. Three-quarters. You see, in hockey like in life, sometimes one small detail makes all the difference. If the ice is two inches thick instead of an inch, the players stumble. Their blades don’t grip right. One inch can be decisive. Can change everything.”
“What if it’s too thin?” he had asked, suddenly worried about the ice beneath their feet. “You could fall through. You could die.”
“You could,” Derek agreed seriously. “But that’s why people like me make sure it’s never too thin. We measure it. We monitor it. We make sure the ice is perfect for the players who deserve it.”
Derek had laughed again then and ruffled Nazar’s hair with more force, messing it up completely. “All you little boys are the same. I know another boy who often comes to the hockey club, and he said the exact same thing. Worried about falling through.”
“Who?” Nazar had asked.
“Just a kid.” Derek’s expression had shifted—gone distant and sad again. “His father doesn’t want him here. Doesn’t want him playing hockey at all. But the kid keeps coming back anyway.”
Nazar hadn’t understood then. But now, at twenty-three, with Derek dead for many years, he understands what his brother had been trying to tell him. That small details mattereda lot. That one wrong decision— one miscalculation—could change everything. Could end careers. Could end lives.
Then Doyle Callahan destroyed Derek’s career. Made an example of him for having “attitude problems” and “insubordination.” The details were always vague, but the results were clear: Derek went from being a promising player to being unhirable in any capacity except manual labor.
And Derek’s life fell apart piece by piece. The drinking started slow, then accelerated. The debt accumulated—medical bills, legal fees from a DUI, rent he couldn’t pay. The job driving the Zamboni at Arena in Toronto—the same rink where he used to play, where scouts used to watch him, where his future used to exist.
In the year before he died, Derek stopped visiting. Stopped calling. Frank would curse Doyle Callahan’s name at the dinner table, his face red with impotent rage, talking about how that bastard had destroyed his son for his “independent nature.” How Derek had tried to protect some younger player from Doyle’s manipulation and had fallen out of favor for it.
“He tried to save that boy,” Frank had said once, drunk and grieving even before Derek died. “Tried to stand up for him. And Doyle crushed him for it. Made sure no one would hire him. Made an example.”
Nazar never found out which younger player his brother had tried to save. Never got the chance to ask.
And now Nazar is playing on the same team as Callahan’s son.
And he can’t stop thinking about Kai. About Kai’s hands on him, rough and desperate. About the way Kai looked at him that night at the club—defiant and vulnerable simultaneously. About the storage room, the hotel, every stolen moment that ended in chaos.
About Kai telling him it was over. That there would be no “every time.”
He should be grateful. Should be relieved that Kai ended it before they both imploded publicly.
Instead, he’s sitting here alone on the anniversary of his brother’s death, drinking beer he hates, angry in a way that feels dangerous and uncontrolled.
His phone is in his hand before he consciously decides to pick it up.
He pulls up Kai’s contact. His thumb hovers over the call button.
One ring. That’s all he allows himself. One ring, and if Kai doesn’t answer—whenKai doesn’t answer—Nazar will hang up and accept that this is done.
The phone rings once.
Nazar hangs up.
“Fuck,” he says aloud to his empty apartment.
What the fuck is he doing? Calling Kai on the anniversary of Derek’s death like some kind of emotional catastrophe in progress? Like Kai is the solution to anything instead of just another problem he can’t solve?
He calls Miller instead, purely out of panic and habit. To give himself an excuse for why Kai’s number is in his recent calls.
“Hey, what’s up?” Miller answers after three rings. There’s noise in the background—multiple voices talking over each other, music playing, the distinct sound of people having a good time.
“You doing anything tonight?” Nazar asks, trying to sound casual and probably failing.
“Yeah, man. We’re at Callahan’s place actually. Me, Sam, Vyachovsky. Some of the guys wanted to hang out, and Kai said he had space.”
