Page 48 of Fractured Ice

"Yeah." He says it like it's obvious. "It was opening night."

I don't say anything for a moment. We walk and the team noise is around us and ahead of us Rory laughs at something Jace said.

"What's it like?" I ask. "Having a sibling."

He thinks about it. "It's weird because I was an only child until I was four. And then she was just—there. And everything changed." He's quiet for a second. "I didn't understand how much until I was older. She's the best thing that's happened in my life. I'd do anything for her." He says it simply, like it's just true and there's nothing complicated about it.

Something in my chest gives a little squeeze.

"I've always wondered," I say. "What that's like. Having a built in friend."

"Built in enemy too, sometimes," he says, grinning. "But yeah." He glances at me. "You'd have been a good big sister. You were always good with the little ones."

I don't know what to say to that. It doesn’t matter if it’s true, but it feels good to hear.

We reach the hotel and pile into the elevator with what feels like half the team, loud and warm and still replaying the game. Rory is pressed against Jace's side and she catches my eye over the noise and gives me a very small look that I absolutely ignore.

The elevator stops at two. Most of the hockey players file out, and in the shuffle Ethan ends up half in and half out, one hand on the door to hold it while people push past him.

"We usually hang out until curfew," he says, quickly, to me or to both of us, not quite looking directly at me. "The guys do cards or whatever. If you get bored up there—" He gestures at the ceiling, toward the fourth floor. "You know."

The doors start to close.

His hand comes off the frame and he steps back as the doors slide shut. I'm standing in the elevator in his jacket watching the floor numbers change and Rory is very carefully not saying anything beside me.

I look at the closed doors.

The jacket is warm.

I think about cards and a noisy hotel floor full of hockey players and Ethan being relaxed and surrounded by people he knows.

The elevator opens on four.

I haven't decided anything.

But I'm thinking about it.

12

Ethan

By nine o'clock I've convinced myself that inviting Sienna to the team hangout was the single worst idea I've had in recent memory, which is saying something, because my recent memory includes telling her she looked good wet, telling her she didn't seem to mind being bent over, and then failing to explain myself when she asked one direct question. Here, there were too many elements at play. Too many unknowns. I have no control of the situation, and I don’t like that one bit.

The thing is, she'd said maybe. And maybe from Sienna Park is not a no, which means I've been sitting in Declan's room watching Knox cheat at poker for forty-five minutes, without anyone noticing, and checking my phone every three minutes like she's going to text me an ETA, which she's obviously not going to do because that's not how any of this works and I'm an adult who should know better.

"Walker," Declan says, without looking up from his cards. "Stop."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're obsessing."

"I'm not."

Knox glances over. "You've checked it six times in the last two songs."

"I'm counting down to curfew."

"Sure," Knox says. "That's definitely what that is."