Page 51 of Fractured Ice

"You watched me that closely in class?"

She rolls her eyes. "I watched the back row to figure out how loud the room was about to get. You were the primary indicator."

"That sounds like watching me."

"That sounds like managing my study environment."

"Those are the same thing."

"They are extremely not the same thing." But she's almost smiling, and I know the difference between her almost smiles and her real smiles now, the way you learn people's tells when you've been paying attention to them for years whether they knew it or not.

We go back and forth like that for a while. Old teachers, old parties, the one time the entire junior class flooded the gym bathroom in protest of something nobody can now remember. She's easier than I've ever experienced her, and I know it's not going to last, I know eventually she'll remember she's talking to me and put the walls back up, but right now she's here and she's talking to me and she's laughing at the same things I'm laughing at and it's enough.

It's more than enough. It's the best night I've had in a long time.

Then someone grabs my neck from behind and I'm twisted around and someone's kissing me before I've processed what's happening.

I pull back.

It takes me a second to place the face. Brown hair, familiar enough, she's looking at me like she's just done something that should be obvious, and then it clicks. Jamie something. Freshman year. One night after an away game at this very school. I honestly haven't thought about her since.

"Why didn't you ever call me back?" she says, like it's been on her mind.

Around us, the room has noticed. Even the other girls that filtered in without me noticing. Mason makes a noise that I'd describe as inappropriately delighted. Tyler's saying something to Luca. Knox, for once in his life, is completely silent.

"I—" I start, and then I look at Sienna. The warmth is gone from her face, the walls are up, and she's looking at the girl then at me with an expression that I can read perfectly clear because I've seen it before. It means I just proved to her, yet again, why I’m not the guy for her.

"Sorry, I forgot your name," I tell her, because I have to say something and this is somehow what comes out.

The girl's face does something complicated. "It's Jamie."

"Right. Sorry, Jamie." I'm trying to figure out how to say you need to go without it being a disaster and I can't find a path. "That was… we're not… I'm in the middle of something."

"We could catch up later," she offers suggestively.

"We can't, actually." I look at Sienna again. She's looking at the card table. "I'm… this isn't a good time. I'm sorry."

"You didn't call," Jamie says, pleasantly but persistently.

"I know. That wasn't… it was nothing personal. Besides, it was a couple years ago."

"I mean, it was a little personal."

"Right, sorry, I didn't mean it like…" I drag my hand through my hair and I can feel exactly how this sounds, I can hear every word landing wrong, because I'm saying it was nothing personal and that means I'm saying she didn't matter, which is true but is a genuinely terrible thing to be saying in front of Sienna, who already thinks I'm exactly the kind of guy who treats women like they're interchangeable. "It just wasn't… I didn't think it made sense to⁠—"

"He has a short attention span," Mason helpfully contributes, from across the room.

"Thank you, Mason," I say, feeling like I’m drowning.

Jamie says something else that I respond to on autopilot, and eventually she moves away toward someone she knows at the other end of the room, and I turn back to Sienna.

She's still looking at the card table.

"That wasn't—" I start.

"You don't have to explain anything." Her voice is even. Too even.

"Sienna—"