Page 40 of Thin Ice

I wasn't wrong.

"Dad."

He didn't look up. He was writing on the legal pad. Already past me. Already in the next task.

"Dad."

Nothing. The pen moved.

I walked to the door. Turned around. One last look at the room. The desk. The wall. The Henley photograph. And my father, writing, the pen moving, not looking up.

My room. Three minutes.

Liam's hoodie went on first. Burgundy. Riverside Crew in cracked white letters. Then everything else in the duffel. Clothes, shoes, charger, toothbrush. Three minutes. That's how long it took to pack twenty years of this house into a bag I could carry with one hand.

The trophies stayed on the shelf, photographs stayed on the wall, and my blazer stayed in the closet. None of it was mine. None of it was who I was.

I took the Patek off my wrist. Set it on the nightstand. My grandfather's watch. The legacy on my skin from a man who stole a trophy and built a house and taught his son that love was a ledger.

I left it there.

The room was a museum again. Every object in its place. The only thing missing was the boy, and the boy had never really been there.

I picked up the duffel. Down the front stairs. Through the hallway with the class photos. Past the study door, closed now, light underneath, pen still moving.

I opened the front door into the cold December air.

The cold hit me, and I stood on the stone steps with a bag in one hand and a hoodie on my chest and nothing else. No watch, no trust, no family, no name that worked. The lake was flat and white, and the south-shore lights were there, low and warm and ordinary.

I pulled out my phone and called the only number that mattered.

It rang once.

Twice.

He picked up.

Chapter 11: Liam

We were halfway to the store before I said it.

My mom was driving along the lakeside drive, coffee in the cupholder, radio low, the lake on the left, and trees on the right.

"Mom."

"Mm."

"When Alex comes. For Christmas Eve." I watched the trees go by. "What are we gonna tell everyone?"

"What do you mean, what are we gonna tell everyone?"

"I mean — who he is. To me."

She glanced at me. Quick. Back to the road.

"He's your boyfriend, Liam."

"I know that. But does everyone else know that? Because I told you, but I didn't tell anyone else that I'm bi."