Page 40 of Cross Ice

“Then the movie.” I kept my voice even. “One role. One film that became… you know the kind. The kind that changes everything overnight. Within a year his face was everywhere, and mine was next to it, and I hadn’t agreed to any of it.”

I told him about the paparazzi. The way it escalated from occasional to constant, from manageable to suffocating. The photographers outside our house, the ones who followed me to work, the ones who published photos of me buying groceries with a caption that used my full name and Ryan’s in the same sentence as if I’d consented to being a detail in his story.

“He started keeping me out of it,” I said. “Premieres, events, press stuff. He said it was to protect my privacy.” I paused. “I believed him. For a while I was even grateful.”

Nico’s jaw tightened. I felt it against my hair.

“It wasn’t about my privacy,” I said. “Or it wasn’t only about that.”

I told him about the evasiveness—the travel schedules that didn’t quite add up, the calls that went to voicemail, the way Ryan had become someone I lived with who was also somehow unreachable. And then the morning I’d opened my phone to seventeen notifications and found the entertainment news photos before Ryan had said a word to me. Ryan and his co-star in Vancouver, where he’d told me he was “doing press, can’t talk much, crazy schedule.”

“He suggested an open relationship,” I said. “After. Like that was the reasonable middle ground.”

“Figlio di puttana,” Nico said under his breath.

Despite everything, something loosened in my chest. “I moved out within a week. And then the paparazzi wanted a comment, the gossip sites wanted a story, and someone had taken photos of me carrying boxes out of our house without me even knowing.” I felt the old tightness in my throat and didn’t try to push it back down. “My face was everywhere. Strangers sent messages to my work email. Someone posted my personal phone number online. I had to change it.” I swallowed. “I couldn’t stay in LA. There was nothing left there that was mine.”

Nico was silent for a moment. His hand had moved from my shoulder to the back of my neck, warm and steady. His whole body had gone tense. He was angry—I could feel it—and he was holding it together because I needed him to.

“So you came here,” he said finally.

“I came here. Changed my name. Started my consulting business. Built something that was only mine, that didn’t have his name attached to it.” I looked up at him. “And then I met you at a gay club and you seemed so normal. So private. I thought… I actually thought I was finally safe.”

A wince flickered across his face. “Evan⁠—”

“I’m not saying that as an accusation.” I meant it. “I know you’re not Ryan. I knew it at two in the morning reading Instagram comments, and I know it now.” I held his gaze. “But I need you to understand what you’re asking me to step back into. Even a version of it.”

“I know.” His voice was rough. “I know exactly what I’m asking. And I’m sorry it took me so long to give you the information you needed to decide.” He brought his hand around to my jaw, tilting my face up. “For what it’s worth, I will never, for the rest of my life, watch a Ryan Pierce film.”

The laugh came out of nowhere, slightly wrecked, more genuine than anything I’d felt all day. “That’s not necessary.”

“It absolutely is.” His expression was completely serious. “I’m going to tell André, my captain. He’ll never watch one either. We’ll start a thing.”

“Please don’t start a thing.”

“The thing is already started.” He wiped a thumb under my eye, catching a tear I hadn’t realized had escaped. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I was surprised to find that I meant it. “Yeah, I actually am.”

He studied me for a long moment in a way that made me feel like the only thing in the room worth looking at. Then he leaned in and kissed me, softly at first, just his mouth on mine, his hand still cradling my jaw.

It shifted. Not urgently, but gradually, the way things between us always found their way there. His hand slid into my hair, I turned toward him, and the careful tenderness of the last hour poured itself into something warmer, more present, more necessary.

“Hey,” he murmured against my mouth.

“Hey.”

“Can we⁠—”

“Yes,” I said. “Yeah.”

We made it to the bedroom.

He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for me. I went to him, and we took our time with the kissing. When I pushed him back against the pillows and started working his shirt up, he made a low sound and let me, his hands moving to my waist, then my shoulders, then settling there like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

I pulled back enough to look at him. “I want to try something different tonight.”

His eyes searched my face. “Yeah?”