Page 1 of Thin Ice

Chapter 1: Liam

The bus north out of Ashford smelled like diesel and somebody's egg sandwich.

I had the window seat, my duffel between my feet, Noah's whale dock wrapped in a hoodie inside it. Four hours to Brackett Lake. I'd made this ride a dozen times since freshman year, and I'd spent every one of them braced. Grades. Money. The scholarship. My secret feelings for Alex.

Something always rode home with me.

This time was different. The secret was out. The hearing was over. Alex was mine, and I was his, and the entire world knew it, and I should've been sitting on this bus feeling lighter than I'd felt in two years.

I wasn't.

Part of me was relieved to be leaving school after everything that had happened. A few weeks away from campus, from the looks, from the hallways that still felt like they were watching. It'd be a good break.

The other part of me was doing math I didn't want to be doing. Alex was driving up tomorrow. To the lake. To my side of the lake. And at some point this week he was going to walk through the door of my house and stand in the kitchen and see everything — not the D1 athlete version of me, but the actual version. The poor version.

Outside the window, the landscape turned to box stores, then car lots, then farms, then the hills and tall pines dusted in snow. Before we made it too far north, the bus stopped at a gas station. I found a nice pair of gloves as a Christmas gift for my mom; her hands were always cold.

After I got back on the bus my phone buzzed against my thigh.

Alex

Leaving at 9 tomorrow. At the lake by 11.

Liam

When can I see you?

Alex

I don't know yet. My dad's got this whole week choreographed. Dinners, meetings, "conversations."

Liam

So when?

Alex

Soon. I promise. I just have to figure out the lay of the land first.

I read soon and felt uneasy.

Because soon meant he could mean he'd come the day he got here, or it could be a week later. The thought of either made me anxious.

What happens when he sees where I actually live?

I wanted him in it. I also wanted to burn it down before he got there.

Liam

Just let me know when. I'll make it work.

Alex

I will. I promise.

Liam

You owe me a snowball fight by the way.