Page 57 of Fractured Ice

Her face tries to hide a significant amount of contained energy directed at an innocent piece of paper. "I'll have snacks ready."

We reach the point where the path splits toward our house and the library, and Emma peels off with a wave that involves the clipboard, calling something about the festival schedule over her shoulder as she goes. I watch her navigate a patch of ice with the confident recklessness of someone who has never once let her height affect her self-assessment in any direction that wasn't useful, and then she's gone around the corner.

The quiet settles back in.

Dylan tonight. The festival next Saturday. My progress report feedback sitting in the back of my mind like a notification I can't clear.

Ethan the person. Ethan the hockey player.

The annoying thing is that I've been around Ethan Walker longer than I've been around almost anyone. I have memories of him that go back further than most of my college friendships, elementary school and middle school and high school hallways, his voice at Rory's kitchen table, his face across every family gathering that overlapped with ours. I've had more years to form an opinion of him than I've had with people I'd call close friends.

And I still can't get the two versions to merge into one.

I start toward the library and try to think about Dylan instead, who is straightforward and charming and whose appeal makes immediate logical sense. I mostly succeed, and only occasionally circle back to the memory of Ethan at the back of a hotel room talking about how the ice feels when everything's right, with no performance in it at all, just a person talking about something they love.

That's in the file too, I suppose.

I don't know what to do with any of it.

I keep walking.

14

Sienna

Dylan is already at the table when I get to the restaurant, which I clock as a good sign. He stands when I arrive, which I also clock as a good sign. He's exactly as put-together as he was the last time I saw him, which somehow reads differently in a restaurant booth than it did standing in a coffee shop. The net result is that he's objectively, undeniably attractive in the way that makes a person aware they should feel something.

"You look great," he says.

"Thanks." I slide into the booth. "Good location."

"I know the owner. They'll take care of us." He settles in next to me and picks up the menu, and then sets it back down, like he's already decided. "I've been looking forward to this."

"Me too," I say, and mostly mean it.

The first twenty minutes are easy. Dylan asks about my program and actually listens to the answers, following up in ways that suggest he retained the information rather than waiting for his turn to talk. He asks how the project's going. He mentions he ran into Professor Bennett once at an event and found him intimidating. I tell him Bennett's fair, just exacting, and Dylan nods like he has the same read on exacting coaches and understands the type.

"Sports Media Practicum," he says. "So you're basically embedded with a team."

"One player. Long-form profile."

"Walker, right?" He says it casually, like it's just confirming something he already knows. "Hockey."

"Center. First line."

"I know who he is." Something crosses his face, briefly, and then it's gone. "How's that going?"

"It's going." I reach for my water. "Did you get assigned a journalist?"

"Some junior. Nice guy, follows me around practice twice a week." He shrugs. "Easy enough. I mostly forget he's there."

The conversation shifts and I let it. Dylan talks about the football program with the ease of someone who's done a lot of interviews, knows how to be charming about his accomplishments without seeming like he's listing them. He describes his position, the way the offense has evolved this season, the quarterback's read on the line. He's genuinely interested in it. I take nothing down because this isn't work, and I'm reasonably good at compartmentalizing, but the journalist in me keeps noticing what the storytelling choices reveal. He talks about the team in terms of what they do for him more than what they do together, and I notice it but let it go.

"What do you do when you're not working?" he asks.

"Read. Take photos. Emma drags me to things I don't want to go to."

"Emma Lawson?"