Page 21 of Fractured Ice

I help him get the jersey over his head, which is easier when he stops trying to manage it himself. Then I'm standing there holding a hockey jersey, while Ethan sits on the bench in front of me without a shirt on. I take one moment to register that this is now the second time in a week I've been in a room with Ethan Walker and a significant absence of clothing.

I hand him the ice pack.

"You need to hold that against the joint," I say, "not the muscle."

"I know how to ice a shoulder."

"Then do it correctly."

He adjusts it, jaw tightening at the cold, and I sit down on the bench across from him with my notebook because I might as well get something productive out of this.

"Does this happen a lot?" I ask.

"Getting hit? Yeah. It's hockey."

"Does it hurt every time?"

"Depends on the hit." He shifts the ice pack. "That one caught me wrong."

"Because you were watching the stands instead of the drill."

He has the decency to look slightly pained about it. "Yeah."

"I don't understand it," I say. "I genuinely don't. You're willingly doing something that has a reasonable chance of breaking parts of you."

"The good parts make it worth it." He says it simply, no performance behind it. "There's nothing that feels like being on the ice when everything's working. Not for me. I've never found anything else that comes close." He looks at me. "You don't have anything like that?"

"Getting a story right," I say. "When you've done enough interviews that you understand what someone actually wants to say instead of what they're saying, and you can put it on a page in a way that's true." I pause. "That feels pretty good."

"Then you get it."

I do get it. I don't say that.

"My ex never understood it either," I say. "The injury thing. He purposely chose a sport where he wouldn’t get hurt."

"Connor Walsh," Ethan says with a frown.

I look up from my notebook.

"He played golf," he adds. "Yeah. Old man's sport."

"How do you know who I dated?"

He's quiet for a second. The ice pack shifts. "I've kept tabs," he says while looking at the floor, and it comes out like something he didn't entirely plan to say.

I wait.

"On you," he adds, unnecessarily. "Over the years. I know, it sounds…" He stops. "It's not weird. We grew up down the street from each other. I just wanted to know you were doing alright."

I look at him for a moment. There's something in it that's unexpectedly earnest, and it catches me somewhere I wasn't braced for. He's been paying enough attention to know who I dated, and he didn't say it like a fact he picked up somewhere. He said it like something he filed away.

Then I remember who he is.

"That's interesting," I say, "coming from someone whose dating life has basically been a public record since freshman year."

He goes very still.

"I mean, the stories get around," I say. "You know how it is. Different girl every night of the week. A lineup. At least that's what I've heard."