Page 61 of Fractured Ice

"Let me walk you home."

"Absolutely not."

Ethan falls into step beside me anyway, same as he always does, like my preference is a suggestion he's heard and set aside. "It's late."

"It's nine-thirty."

"You're walking alone."

"I walk alone constantly."

"Not since the party, you don't." He says it simply, not dramatically, just a statement of something he's apparently decided. "I'll walk you home and then leave. You don't have to talk to me."

I don't say anything. He takes this as agreement, which it isn't, and we walk in silence for one block and then two. I'm fuming in a way that's taken a few minutes to fully develop but has now arrived at full volume, and when we hit the end of the second block I stop.

"You ruined my date."

He stops. "I was having dinner."

"You sat thirty feet away and stared at me for an hour."

"I was in a restaurant."

"You were watching me."

"Sienna—"

"Was it a coincidence?" I turn to face him. "Be honest. Was it a coincidence that you walked into the exact restaurant I was having dinner at, at the exact same time as our date?"

He looks at me for a long moment. "Knox mentioned he heard Slapshot Burgers was good."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the answer I've got."

I start walking again. "You are too competitive for your own good. You couldn't stand that another athlete was somewhere in your vicinity getting attention."

"That's what you think that was?"

"What else would it be?"

He doesn't answer, which I take as confirmation, and we keep walking.

"The date was going fine," I say, after a moment.

"You looked bored."

"I wasn't bored."

"You were. You do this thing with your pen when you're in an interview and the subject isn't giving you anything useful, and you were doing it with your fork."

"I don't—" I stop. "I wasn't doing that."

"You were. About ten minutes after we showed up, right after he started talking about the playoffs. I couldn’t make it all out, but you seemed bored."

"You were watching me closely enough to track my fork?"

"I wasn't trying to." He says it simply. "I just was."