Page 59 of Fractured Ice

I glance over once, just to confirm what I already know, and Ethan is watching with an expression that's doing its best impression of casual and not quite getting there. Knox is talking. Ethan's glass is in his hand. He hasn't looked at his own table in ten minutes.

Dylan asks me something about my plans after graduation and I answer, and while I'm talking his hand moves from my arm to the table, close to mine but not touching, and I keep talking. Then he laughs at something I say and his hand covers mine briefly before it pulls back. Normal. Perfectly normal first-date contact. I am aware of it entirely out of proportion to its significance.

Across the room, Ethan sets his glass down with slightly more force than necessary.

Knox glances at him. Ethan says something. Knox looks back at his food.

Dylan tops off my water from the carafe without being asked, which is a thoughtful thing to do, and leans forward as he does it, close enough that I can smell his cologne. He says something about how he hasn't had a conversation this easy in a while, and I smile because it's a nice thing to say and something I’d agree with.

"Tell me something nobody knows about you," he says.

"That's a first-date question?"

"It's exactly a first-date question." He tilts his head. "I'll go first if you need me to."

"Go first."

"I'm afraid of birds," he says, completely straight-faced. "Not phobic. Just deeply suspicious. They make decisions I don't understand."

I laugh, a real one, and Dylan's expression does something pleased, and under the table his hand settles on my knee.

I don't move.

It's a light touch. Warm. His thumb traces a small absent arc and then stills. I'm looking at his face and registering the contact, deciding how I feel about it and landing somewhere between neutral and uncertain. Then I look over at Ethan because I can't seem to stop doing that tonight.

Ethan is staring at Dylan's arm.

He can't see the hand from where he's sitting, but he's looked over at the exact wrong moment, registered the angle of Dylan's body, and worked out the geometry. His jaw has gone tight in a way that reads, to anyone who has spent months watching his face, as something he's actively working to control. Noah says something to him. Ethan doesn't respond. Knox follows his eyeline, looks at me and Dylan, and very carefully looks back at his plate.

Dylan's thumb moves again, just slightly.

I look back at Dylan and make myself pay attention to him, which is where my attention is supposed to be. He's still watching me with that easy, interested expression. I think about Professor Bennett's comment this morning, Ethan on the sidewalk. Emma's coffee. This date has been pleasant. I still can't fully settle into it, for some reason.

"Something nobody knows about me," I say. "I used to want to be an architect."

"What changed?"

"I realized I wanted to tell stories about buildings more than I wanted to build them."

"That's the most journalist answer I've ever heard."

"I know."

He grins, warm and uncomplicated, and his hand stays where it is. Across the room, Ethan looks like he's counting to ten and losing track somewhere around four.

Dylan pays the bill before I can offer, which I let happen, and we walk outside into the cold. It's the first moment of the evening where I feel something loosen. The restaurant air had been too warm and too full. Outside, it’s March, and quiet, and my own.

He turns toward me on the sidewalk.

"I had a great time," he says.

"So did I."

He smiles, unhurried, and leans in. I let him kiss me. It's a good kiss, technically. He knows what he's doing. I wait to feel something and the something doesn't arrive, just the cold and the faint smell of the restaurant from the vent above the door and a general awareness of being kissed by a handsome person, then it's over.

"I'm definitely calling you again," he says.

"Okay."