Page 42 of Thin Ice

“Noah?” Aidan calls. “Are you still there?”

Quinn raises an eyebrow that asks, Are you going to answer him?

“I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for the call.”

“Don’t melt,” he says before the line goes dead.

I place my cell next to me, eyes never leaving my wife’s.

“Work?” she asks.

“Yeah. Aidan kept messaging; there’s a brand deal he wants me to look at.”

“Oh.”

The evidence of annoyance is hard to miss in her voice—it’s also written all over her face in the furrow of her brow. There was never any talk of work or phones being off-limits during the trip, but despite the disconnect Quinn and I have had or how she believes I don’t see her, I do.

I’m also not stupid—at least, not most of the time. And I think that was the last time I’m talking to Aidan on this trip. Not that I’m going to complain; I’d much rather be speaking to Quinn, even if my career and hockey is always a shadow over everything in our lives.

I pick my phone back up, and Quinn’s lips purse. I hold it in the air between us and then press the buttons to power the phone off. Once the screen is black, I chuck it on a nearby chair where I stashed a towel.

“Come and sit by me, put your feet in,” I request.

Quinn tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and I’m happy to report she looks better now that I’ve discarded my phone. She probably would have been even happier had I thrown it in the pool. Maybe I should have.

“I’m surprised you’re here of your own free will. When I came out of the bathroom and you weren’t in the room, I thought you’d run to the gym.”

I extend my hand for her to use to lower herself to the ground. “I said we’d swim. I also promised you I wouldn’t run.”

To my relief, she places her hand in mine, her smooth palm soft against my calloused one. “And you promised Beck.”

My insides do a little flip. It’s weird to hear her say his name. It’s weird to hear his name in general after doing everything in my power to not think about or hear it for the last ten years.

Quinn situates herself next to me, sucking in a breath when her feet and calves sink beneath the water. I grip her hand tighter, holding it on my lap.

“Do you want to go there now?” I ask.

She swirls the water around her feet, the disturbed surface lapping at my skin. “You said we would.”

“I did.”

“Do you not want to talk about him?”

“No,” I say honestly. Her face falls, eyes peering into the water. “But I’m going to,” I add.

Her head turns so our eyes connect, and we stare at each other, something we’ve been doing a lot of since we’ve been here—that and breathing under the tutelage of Beck.

I switch my train of thought before I can dwell on what transpired between the three of us earlier…whatever that was.

Quinn sighs. “If you really don’t want to tell me about him, you don’t have to.”

I shake my head. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It’s because I’ve tried to forget it.”

“And by it, you mean Beck?”

“Beck.” I exhale his name, the breath painful. “Our relationship.” His words from earlier ring through my skull, “In order to be an ex, you’d need to be dating. And we didn’t date, did we, Noah?”

I hold Quinn’s hand impossibly tighter, so tight I’m surprised she doesn’t flinch or pull away. But I’m glad for it, because I need the connection. I want to feel her here with me and know that she’s still mine. That despite my past failures with Beck, she is my wife, the love of my life, and I haven’t fucked it up with her like I did with him. At least not yet.