Page 87 of Fractured Ice

"The fact that I've spent months building assumptions about who he is and I don't trust my own read on him anymore, which is unacceptable for someone in my field."

"Three." She's looking at me steadily. "Tell me why he's right for you."

I open my mouth to say there isn't a list.

"He knows how you take your cotton candy," Emma says.

I close my mouth.

"He remembers things about you that you don't even remember about yourself. He went back to look for a sixth-grade science project because he felt bad. He shows up… not perfectly, not smoothly, but he shows up." She holds my gaze. "He spent the night making sure you felt good."

"Emma."

"I'm just repeating what you told me."

"I know." I look at my coffee. "He's patient. He's been patient in a way I haven't deserved, and I've thrown every possible roadblock at him and he's… stayed." I turn the mug in my hands. "He makes me laugh. Genuinely. Not polite laughing, actually laughing. And when he talks about hockey or his sister or anything he actually cares about, he's just—" I stop.

"Real," Emma says.

"Real," I agree.

"You really like him," she says.

"I really like him." Saying it twice doesn't make it easier. "I really like Ethan Walker, who has been a disaster in my vicinity since we were in diapers, and I have no idea what to do about it."

Emma does not succeed in hiding her smile. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I left this morning without saying anything. He spent the entire night—" I gesture. "And I snuck out while he was asleep. I haven't exactly been consistent about giving him signals. I've turned him down at every available opportunity and then kissed him at a charity fair and then let him—" I stop. "And then left without my underwear."

Emma bites her lip.

"Don't," I say.

"I'm not saying anything."

"Your face is saying something."

"My face is supportive and neutral." She is barely containing something. "Continue."

"If I actually like him and I've been acting the way I've been acting, and then I leave this morning without a word—" I think about Knox and Noah at the breakfast table. "He's probably writing me off right now. Which I've given him every reason to do."

"Maybe," Emma says. "Or maybe he's a man who's been paying attention to you and is very patient and is going to wait until you finally understand your feelings."

"You don't know that."

"No." She sets her mug down and turns to face me fully. "But here's what I know. Every single thing you've just described, none of that is a man running a play on a girl who's conveniently nearby. That's a person who cares about a specific person. Specifically." She tilts her head. "And there's only one way you're going to find out if I'm right."

I look at her.

"You're going to have to do something about it," she says. "The scary thing. The one you've been avoiding."

"Talk to him."

"Talk to him." She picks up her coffee. "Put yourself out there and trust him not to hurt you."

I sit with that. The morning light comes through the kitchen window and my coffee is warm in my hands and I'm thinking about waking up in his bed, how good it felt before the panic arrived.

"What if I do and he's moved on?" I say. "What if the way I've been acting was enough and he's done?"