Page 38 of Fractured Ice

"You know what, Sienna, the thing about this guy," Knox says, settling in like he has nowhere to be, which is technically true since the bus isn't moving yet, "is that people think he's just out here having a great time and yeah, okay, the guy gets laid, that's just facts, but here's what nobody tells you—" He points at Sienna. "Quality. Not just quantity. He actually gives a shit, you know? Like I have heard through the walls things that suggest a level of dedication that most guys do not have. He's not a quick fuck. He takes his time, makes sure everybody's taken care of, really puts in the⁠—"

"Come on, bro," I practically groan.

"I'm just saying you've got a reputation for a reason, man, don't be modest about it."

"Please stop talking."

"She should know you're not just⁠—"

"Knox." My voice comes out with enough edge that he finally actually looks at my face and then looks at Sienna's face and the math completes itself.

He stiffly turns back around in his seat.

Sienna looks out the window.

The bus starts moving.

"Until I need something for the project," she says, without looking at me, "we don't have anything to talk about." She puts her earbuds in.

I sit there and watch the athletic center disappear behind us out the window and think about how I got here. Mason, Tyler, Knox, and my own complete inability to say a single true thing in the right order, and Sienna three inches away with her eyes on the road and her ears full of whatever she's listening to that isn't me.

Around us the team is loud and easy, music from someone's phone, arguments about the game plan, somebody's terrible road trip playlist. I don't hear any of it.

She's right there. She's been right there my whole life, one street over, then one school over, and now one seat over, and I have spent more time and energy not saying the thing I actually mean to Sienna Park than I have spent on anything else in my life, and I'm starting to think the problem isn't that I can't find the right words.

The problem is I'm terrified of what happens if I say them and they're still not enough.

I look at the back of her head and the way she's watching the road like it's telling her something and I think about the line she wrote, about finding your identity in the water before you find it anywhere else.

She found hers years before I found mine.

I'm still looking.

10

Sienna

The arena is louder than Ridgehaven's, which I didn't think was possible, but away crowds have a specific energy that home crowds don't, something more concentrated and combative, and I spend the first few minutes just getting my bearings before I can think about being useful.

Rory finds me before I find her, appearing beside me in the stands with a cup of something warm and the easy manner of someone who's done this a hundred times. She has, probably. I forget sometimes that she grew up with all of this.

"Good spot," she says, dropping into the seat beside me.

Rory and I had managed a quick catch up, where I’d given her a general rundown of my assignment with Ethan. She’d known damn well I wasn’t happy about it, but we hadn’t gotten a chance to dig too deeply into the whole mess. Which was good, because I didn’t really want to get into it.

"Sightline to the whole ice."

"Smart." She looks at my notebook. "Work mode."

"Always."

The game starts and I do what I came here to do, which is pay attention. I watch the lines change, note the defensive structure, track who communicates with who and how the team moves under pressure. I write things down. I take photos. I'm professional about it.

The problem starts not even eight minutes in, when Ethan sets up a goal for a freshman winger who's been struggling all night and then skates over and says something to the kid that makes him laugh, and instead of noting the play result I write the look on the freshman's face afterward and why it matters for team morale.

That's fine. Character is part of the profile.

Twelve minutes in, after another player takes a bad penalty and comes off the ice looking gutted, Ethan's the first one to him. Whatever he says is too far away to catch, but the player sits down looking less like someone who just cost the team two minutes of power play time and more like someone who got reminded it isn't the end of the world.