Page 27 of Thin Ice

Something. I hoped it was the same something that I felt towards him, but both of us were probably too chicken to say it.

He sat up, and the cold found the gap where his body had been, and I wanted to pull him back down and not let go.

"I have to go," he said. "If the car's not in the driveway by midnight, he'll ask questions."

"I know."

He started pulling layers back on — thermal, flannel, hoodie, peacoat, the whole Everest kit in reverse — and I watched him dress in the low light and thought about the thousands of times I'd watched him put armor on. Blazer after a regatta. Mask before a hallway. Composure in front of his Kingswell people. He dressed the way soldiers dress, one piece at a time, each one taking him further from the person he'd been thirty seconds ago.

I sat up. Pulled my shirt on. The cold was real now; the heater losing against the cold, and the spell of the cocoon was breaking.

I should tell him about Christmas Eve.

I'd been carrying the invitation around for days. My mom had invited him, and she'd said it like it wasn't a big deal, and maybe it wasn't, but it felt like it was.

Telling him meant bringing him inside for a whole evening, in my actual house, with my actual family, eating food that costs four dollars to make, sitting on folding chairs that don't match. Every cousin, every aunt, every square foot of what I come from, all at once, nowhere to hide.

"So." I kept my voice easy. "My mom's setting a place for you. Christmas Eve." I felt my own pulse in it, which was stupid; it was just an invitation.

He was quiet a beat too long.

"I want to," he said.

Want. He put weight on it, and the weight was real, I could hear that it was real.

"But I can't promise."

The heater ticked. Outside, far off, the ice groaned.

"My father wants answers by Friday. I don't know if he's going to bring up the financial stuff."

"I get it." I nodded.

"I don't know what Christmas looks like over there yet. It could be quiet. It could be the whole thing coming down. And if it comes down — I can't promise you. I want to…"

It was the honest answer. I knew that even while it was happening. It was the responsible answer, the grown-up one, the one that didn't make a promise he couldn't keep, which is more than my father ever managed.

Didn't matter. My body doesn't run on honest.

Because underneath the warmth of him, underneath the boat and the lantern and the best night I'd built with my own two hands, there was a kid at a kitchen table watching a chair stay empty.

Fucking still.

I felt the old heat come up behind my ribs. The going-quiet thing. The door-closing thing.

I felt myself do it. Felt the notch turn down inside me, the temperature drop a degree, my body pulling back into the shell one inch to get ahead of the leaving.

"Sure," I said. "No, yeah. That makes sense."

And he felt it. Of course he felt it… he read me better than anyone alive. His hand found my jaw in the low light.

"Liam. Hey. That's not a no."

"I know."

"I mean it. That's a… the situation is insane, not a… I don't want your family."

"I know, Alex. It's fine. It's a lot over there. I get it."