Page 97 of Thin Ice

Tyler's face went blank. Then his eyes got wide. He grabbed the phone with both hands and pulled it close.

"No."

"Yeah," Remy said.

"NO."

"It's the '67. Alex found it."

"WHERE?"

"His dad's house. It was there the whole time."

Tyler screamed. Not a word. Just a sound. Pure, unhinged joy. The people at his party turned around. He was jumping up and down, holding his phone and screaming, and we were all laughing, all of us, the cabin full of noise and Tyler's voice through the speaker yelling, "I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT WAS AT A LAKE HOUSE. I SAID IT WAS AT A LAKE HOUSE."

"You said it was the Lockwood house," Remy said.

"I SAID IT WAS A LAKE HOUSE AND I WAS RIGHT AND EVERYONE OWES ME AN APOLOGY."

The countdown started on the coffee table. Ethan's phone, the numbers ticking down. One minute.

Noah grabbed the champagne. Twisted the cage. The cork blew and hit the ceiling, and foam went everywhere, and Priya shrieked, and Noah poured into plastic cups, sloshing, spilling, handing them out.

Thirty seconds.

Six cups raised. Tyler still on FaceTime, holding his own drink to the camera. The trophy on the coffee table between us. The fire going. The music going. Snow on the windows and the lake frozen silver outside.

Ten seconds.

We counted. All of us. Out loud. Remy's voice underneath, steady, the coxswain's count. Ethan's arm around him. Noah and Priya pressed together. Alex beside me, his hand in mine, his shoulder against my shoulder.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

The cabin erupted. Everyone yelling, cups in the air, champagne spilling. Tyler screaming through the phone. Noah dipped Priya, and she grabbed his collar and kissed him, and he almost dropped her. Ethan took Remy's face in both hands and kissed him, and he didn't pull away.

I turned to Alex. He was already looking at me. His face open and bright and his eyes full and his mouth turning up at the corners and I could see it all. Everything we'd been through. The dock, the summer, the year apart, the double scull, the semester, the Charles, the disowning, the chili, the marina, the ice, the fight, the clearing, the words: I love you.

I kissed him. In front of everyone. In the noise, and the warmth, and the chaos. His hand on my chest and mine on the back of his neck, and the taste of cheap champagne between us.

"Happy New Year," he said against my mouth.

"Happy New Year."

Tyler was still screaming. Someone turned the music up. Remy was holding the trophy again, sitting in his chair, reading the names one more time.

After midnight the energy settled like snow. The fire burned low. The champagne was gone, and the music had gone from loud to something quieter, something Remy had chosen, a piano that filled the room without crowding it.

Noah and Priya were asleep on the couch. Her head on his chest, his arm around her, the blanket pulled to their chins. They'd lasted twenty minutes past midnight.

Ethan was on the floor scrolling his phone. Remy was still in his chair. His feet up. His eyes closed. Not asleep. Just resting. His hand hanging off the armrest where Ethan could reach it, and every few minutes Ethan's hand came up and touched his fingers and then went back to the phone.

Alex was next to me on the floor, his back against the couch, the trophy between us. I kept looking at it. Kept reading the names. 1967. The year Riverside won the only championship that mattered and then had the proof taken from them by a family that thought trophies, like everything else, belonged to them.

Alex put his head on my shoulder.

"We have to give it to Hale," I said.

"I know."