Page 47 of Shattered Ice
“If you’re scared of being wrong, just say so.” My voice cuts sharper than I expected. “It’s a memory trick,” I add, my voice steady again. “The Civil Rights Act of 1866. Who on the team wears 66?”
“No one,” he says instantly. “But Rylan’s 6. Calder’s 16.”
“Close enough. Picture them on the ice. Anchor the numbers to something you can already see.”
He stares at me, his jaw tight with resistance. But then, with a low, frustrated sigh, he tries it. I can see his eyes unfocus slightly as he visualizes the rink. The muscle in his jaw jumps—equal parts fury and triumph. He recites the date back to me. Correctly.
The look on his face is a complex mixture of shock, frustration, and a profound, grudging surprise. He looks down at the number on the page as if it’s performed a magic trick. The quiet victory I feel is so intense it almost hurts, a dangerous, thrilling surge of having cracked a code no one else could.
“You read like that for anyone else, Harrington, and I’ll make sure they regret it.” His voice is low, possessive, and it thrums under my skin.
The rest of the hour passes in this new, strange truce. It’s not a fight. It’s quiet, focused, and more intense than any of our previous battles, an illicit feeling of baring my throat and watching him notice.
When our time is up, the silence that settles over the room is different. Not hostile. Vulnerable. He breaks it, his voice quieter than I’ve ever heard it, stripped of its usual arrogance.
“No one’s ever… explained it like that before,” he says, not looking at me, but at the notes on the table. “How didyouknow to do that?”
The question is so genuine, so raw, that it undoes me, dragging heat up my neck like exposure. I find myself offering a piece of my own story. “My dad,” I say softly. “He used to explain everything with hockey metaphors. It’s just… a way of translating one system into another. Finding a language your brain already speaks.”
“You start talking to me like that, I can’t hear anyone else.” His words are jagged, almost a confession, hanging in the charged air between us.
He finally looks up, and the expression in his eyes is one of such raw, unguarded awe that I have to look away, my own chest aching with a feeling I don’t dare name.
The bell signaling the library’s closing rings, the sound jarring and loud, shattering the fragile bubble we’ve built. The clang splits the air, shattering our truce like brittle glass. Adrian stands without a word and walks out, but not before pausing in the doorway, forcing me to pass close enough that his heat brands me.
As I gather my papers, another student glances in, eyes narrowing at how close we’d sat. A flicker of judgment, or suspicion. My pulse spikes. Rumors spread fast here.
The battle is over. The anxiety is still there, but now it’s layered with a fragile sense of hope. I look down at the papers on the desk, at the evidence of our work. For the first time, we weren’t just a tutor and a student. We were a team.
We weren’t a team. We were locked in conspiracy.
And conspiracies burn.
Chapter 28
Clara
ThehallwayoutsideLansing’slecture hall is a loud, anxious sea of bodies. The air is thick with the scent of day-old coffee, nervous sweat, and the frantic, papery rustle of students cramming a semester’s worth of history into their brains. My own heart is a frantic drum against my ribs, my palms clammy as I clutch the strap of my bag.This is it.The first real test. Not just for him, but for my hypothesis. For my entire strategy. Everything comes down to what happens in the next three hours. I feel a dizzying surge of responsibility that is completely separate from my scholarship; it’s the terrifying, protective feeling of having seen someone’s vulnerability and wanting, desperately, for them to succeed.
My eyes scan the crowd, searching for a familiar dark hoodie. My stomach is a tight, churning knot. I spot him then, across the hall. He’s not with the team. He’s alone, leaning against the far wall, his gaze fixed on the floor. He isn’t exuding his usual arrogant confidence. Instead, he holds himself with a tense, coiled stillness. He looks like a player in the tunnel right before a big game—focused, contained, and utterly alone. Students shift out of his way without even realizing it, as if his presence carves its own space.
He sees me, and for a second, the entire noisy hallway seems to fall away. His eyes lock onto mine. He pushes off the wall, moving through the crowd toward me with a quiet, undeniable purpose. He stops in front of me, and the space between us is a bubble of charged silence. The arrogant smirk is gone. The aggressive posture is gone. All that’s left is a raw, nervous energy that mirrors my own.
“Hey,” I say, my voice softer than I intend. “You ready for this?”
He gives a short, sharp nod, his eyes still holding mine. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Remember the game plan,” I say, my voice dropping to a near-whisper, creating a private space just for us. “Thesis is the breakout play. Clean and direct. Anchor the dates to the jerseys. You know this stuff. You’ve got this.”
He listens, his expression serious. Then he speaks, his voice low and firm, stripped of all its usual games. “Clara.”
The sound of my first name on his lips is a low vibration that travels straight through me, so serious and direct it makes my breath catch.
“Before we go in there,” he continues, “I need you to hear me. Whatever happens on this test… you arenotgoing to lose your scholarship.”
I stare at him, the words not making sense. A confused laugh escapes me. “What? But Lansing, your father, the donor fund…”
“I handled it,” he cuts in, his gaze unwavering. He steps close enough that a few students glance over, their whispers pricking at my skin, but he doesn’t move back. “It’s done. It was never your burden to carry in the first place. This is on me. My grade, my consequences. Not yours. So go in there and get your A. Don’t even think about me.”
