"Don't tell Bridie," Otis said. "I'm building a reputation slowly."
Ned Ashcroft heard the news from Lottie, who heard it from Rowan when Rowan stopped by the park to return a borrowed scarf she had somehow ended up with since December. Ned met them both near the empty rink one humid evening with three cocoas, stubbornly out of season.
"August, then," he said.
"August," Rowan said.
Ned sipped. "June moved here from Buffalo in nineteen eighty-nine because she wanted a bigger story. I followed two months later because I wanted her more than I wanted my pride about being followed. People will tell you following is unromantic. People are often loud about the wrong virtues."
Theo frowned gently. "Are you telling me to move?"
"I'm telling you to know the difference between following and chasing," Ned said. "Following is a choice made in daylight. Chasing is what you do when you're afraid of being left behind in the dark. You've got months. Use daylight."
Rowan watched a maintenance worker hose down the bare concrete where ice would return in winter. "Will you still take the December photograph if we're not here to be caught mid-fall?"
"I'll take whatever honest second the rink offers," Ned said. "If you come back to visit and fall again, I'll be annoyed if you don't hold the pose."
"We'll hold it," Theo said.
"Speak for your own ankles," Rowan murmured.
In late July, on a night thick with cicadas that somehow found their way even into New York's concrete logic, Rowan and Theo returned once more to the outdoor rink's off-season grounds. There was no ice. Only the memory of it, held in the boards and in their bodies. Lottie was there locking up a supply closet and waved as if December had never ended.
"Scrapbook's ready for winter," she called. "Your page has a corner of its own. Ned labeled it in pencil like a librarian of almosts."
"Mid-try," Rowan said.