Page 118 of On Thin Ice

“Why don’t you tell me what’s got you all worked up?” Finn continued. “I know you. You’re worried about something.”

Jacob hesitated.

“And,” Finn added, “you’re not the only one who can tell. I can always tell.”

He could. Jacob would find it annoying if it wasn’t so absolutely spectacularly wonderful, having someone know him this way.

“You never worry about how you’re starting your life and I’m—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re ending yours,” Finn interrupted.

“Okay, that you’restartingyour NHL career and mine’s ended?”

“No,” Finn said.

“I mean . . .”

“No,” Finn repeated again, more firmly this time.

“Oh. Okay. I just . . .I worried. I don’t want to hold you back.”

Jacob could hear Finn’s ridiculous expression through the phone. “As if you would ever.”

“I might,” Jacob said. He worried he would. That he’d be a distraction. That he’d be the thing that made Finn take his eyes off the prize. Though at least he could say with one-hundred-percent certainty that it hadn’t happened so far. Finn was playing better than ever, with a locked-in focus that Jacob recognized.

He was learning to understand himself. To believe in himself.

It was a beautiful thing to watch and Jacob wanted to be there for every second of it, but not if somehow him being around was the thing that screwed it up.

“No, you wouldn’t. I never think of it that way. I think . . .” Finn paused. “Don’t freak out, okay, I know we haven’t talked about this.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Jacob said, but his fingers were nervously tapping on his bare thigh, and he wasn’t sure he could stop them.

“I think of you next to me, during the hard parts coming up. And I know there’s gonna be hard parts. I think about you supporting me. Being there for me. Making me laugh when I only want to cry.”

Jacob swallowed hard. “I want to do that.”

“And that you’ve done it before, and that you’ve gone through it, and youknow,better than anyone else? That’s a gift, Jacob, it’s not a curse.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I wishyouthought so,” Finn countered.

“Bryan told me I was being very stupid.”

“An older brother’s prerogative,” Finn teased.

It was. Especially when he was right.

“I . . .I didn’twantto be right, Finn.” Jacob had a feeling Finn already knew this, but he wanted to say it, anyway.

“I know,” Finn said. “Just . . .I want you to believe what I believe. That this is great and wonderful and awesome.”

“I do.I do.” And he wanted to believe that it wouldn’t be that way only for now. That next year, and the year after that, they’d both believe it still.

But neither of them could make that promise. Not yet anyway. It was still too new. Besides, they still had one huge hurdle to get over before they could even begin to think that way.

Morgan.

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