Page 88 of Fractured Ice

Emma considers this with genuine seriousness, which I appreciate more than any easy reassurance would be. "Then you'll know," she says. "And you'll be no worse off than you are right now, which is sitting in your kitchen at eight in the morning without your underwear after enjoying a wonderful night of… fun."

I look at her.

She looks back at me, expression perfectly composed for approximately four seconds, and then she loses it. I drop my head into my hands as her laugh fills the kitchen, and despite everything, despite all of it, I start laughing too.

"Go shower," she says, when she can talk. "And then figure out what you want to say."

"I don't know what I want to say."

"You'll figure it out." She tops off her coffee one more time and takes my mug to the sink. "You're the best writer I know. You can find the words."

I stay at the counter after she gets a call and heads upstairs, hands wrapped around my mug, and I think about Ethan asleep with his face against my thigh like that was where he belonged, and the way he looked up at me across the room at the fair when I walked in, and the sound of his voice in the dark last night when he told me I was incredible.

I think about all the things in the file I've been building.

And I think about everything that's not in the file.

There's a lot that's not in the file.

I finish my coffee. I go upstairs. And I start trying to find the words.

21

Sienna

I've been standing outside the hockey house for four minutes. At night. Just staring.

This is not my best look.

The party noise is clearly audible from the sidewalk, bass and voices drift out into the street calling me closer, and I'm standing here in the cold trying to talk myself into walking through the front door, which should not be this complicated.

Two days. It's been two days since I woke up in his bed and snuck out, and I haven't heard from him. I don't know what that means. Maybe he's done. Maybe I finally exhausted his patience and he moved on to the next person in line, which would make sense given everything I know about Ethan Walker, and which makes my chest ache.

I go inside.

The house is packed and warm and someone presses a drink into my hand before I've fully made it through the foyer, which I take as a good sign and drain most of it immediately, because my heart is hammering and my hands aren't entirely steady. I have not felt this nervous walking into a party since I was seventeen-years old.

I look for him everywhere. The living room, the kitchen, the back porch. I find Declan and Luca arguing about something near the drinks table. I find Noah eating chips in the corner with impressive focus. I find Knox near the kitchen doorway, talking to Laura, and I make my way over and touch his arm.

He turns.

"Is Ethan here?" I ask.

"Upstairs." He reads my face for a second. "He's been up there most of the night."

"Is he—" I stop. "Is he alone?"

Knox looks at me with an expression that's somewhere between fond and exasperated. "Sienna. The woman he wants is standing right in front of me. Yes, he's alone." He tips his head toward the stairs. "Go."

I look at the stairs.

"Go," Knox says again.

I go.

The hallway upstairs is quieter, the party noise muffled enough that I can hear my own pulse. I know which door is his. I've been in his room twice now and the knowledge sits in my body differently than it used to.

I stop outside his door.