Page 61 of Cross Ice

“You said not to get my hopes up.”

“I never said I was bad at cooking.”

He grinned and took another bite.

We ate, talked, and I made the mistake of asking why the Lasers’ social media presence was so bland. Nico spent fifteen minutes defending the team’s PR director while I listed everything wrong with their Instagram strategy. When we’d finished, Nico helped me clear the table.

“Want to get dessert?” he asked. “We could walk to the frozen yogurt place a few blocks from here.”

I hesitated. Going out in public together was different from staying in my apartment. It was just frozen yogurt, just a few blocks away, but it was also the first time we’d be out somewhere together—not a private hike, not dinner delivered to my door, but an actual public place where anyone could walk in.

“Sure,” I said. “Yeah, okay.”

The frozen yogurt shop was small and brightly lit, with a handful of other customers scattered around the tables. We filled our cups—mine with chocolate and strawberries, Nico’s with an alarming number of toppings—and found a table by the window. It felt normal. Easy. I started to relax.

“You’re going to regret all that candy,” I said, watching him take his first bite.

“Worth it.”

We were halfway through our yogurt when I noticed someone staring at us from across the shop. A guy in his early twenties, wearing a Lasers hoodie, phone already in his hand.

My stomach tightened. The phone. That was the thing that registered first—not the staring, but the phone already out.

The guy stood up and walked over to our table.

“Excuse me,” he said, looking directly at Nico. “You’re Nicolás Briggs, right?”

Nico’s entire demeanor shifted. His smile widened, his posture opened up, and his energy became more animated. The private Nico I knew disappeared, replaced by the public version—charming, approachable, effortlessly friendly. The transformation was so complete and so instant that it stopped my breath for a second.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said warmly.

“Oh man, I’m a huge fan. I was at the game last night. That goal you scored was incredible.” The guy was practically bouncing. “Could I get a picture with you?”

“Sure.” Nico stood, easy and gracious, like this happened all the time.

Because it did. I was just learning that now, in real time, in a frozen yogurt shop on a Tuesday night.

The guy held out his phone to me. “Would you mind?”

I took it. Stood a few feet back, held up his phone, and watched through the screen while Nico posed with his arm around the fan’s shoulders, both of them grinning.

“Thanks, man,” the fan said, taking the phone back. Then his eyes flicked to me, just for a second. A quick look, up and down, like he was filing something away. “You guys have a good night.”

He walked back to his table. I watched him sit down and start typing on his phone.

My stomach hadn’t unclenched since he stood up.

Nico sat back down like nothing had happened. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

But I wasn’t. My hands were shaking, and my mind had already run to the part that scared me most—not that it had happened, but how easily it had happened. How casually. A stranger had walked up to our table mid-conversation, and Nico had become someone else entirely. I had held a stranger’s phone with shaking hands while our private Tuesday evening became something that would end up in someone’s camera roll.

And I wasn’t just some anonymous guy holding the phone. I was Evan Hunter. I’d been photographed on red carpets, had my name in gossip columns, had my face attached to Ryan Pierce’s story in ways that didn’t disappear just because I’d moved cities and changed my name. Anyone who’d covered that story would know exactly who I was. And if someone connected Evan Hunter to Nicolás Briggs, they wouldn’t be asking questions about me. They’d be asking questions about Nico.

“Evan.” He leaned forward slightly, his voice low enough that no one else could hear. “You’re not fine. Talk to me.”

I met his gaze. “Can we go? Please?”