Page 56 of Fractured Ice

"You're catastrophically too much."

She grins at me, entirely unbothered. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

We cross the main quad together, Emma narrating the festival logistics with a level of detail that suggests she's been living inside this plan for weeks, booth assignments and volunteer schedules and the ongoing saga of getting the lighting equipment approved by facilities. She's got the clipboard in active use now, checking things off as she talks about them. I'm listening and also not listening, the two things running on parallel tracks the way they sometimes do when my brain has something else it won't let go of.

Ethan the hockey player. Ethan the person.

The distinction felt obvious when Professor Bennett said it. It feels less obvious now that I'm trying to put him into categories. Every observation I have about who Ethan is on the ice folds into who he seems to be off it, and the problem is that the off-ice version keeps adding detail I didn't expect. He cried when he found Rory. He drove home monthly for his sister. He volunteers with eight-year-olds on Sundays and doesn't mention it. He went back to look for a papier-mâché solar system at the bottom of a lake when he was twelve.

The other thing he did was have a strange woman climb him like a jungle gym in front of more than a dozen people, and then send me three texts I didn't answer, and the texts were apologies, which is somehow more irritating than if he'd said nothing.

"Are you listening?" Emma asks.

"I'm listening."

"What did I just say?"

"Something about facilities and lighting."

"That was four sentences ago." She looks at me with fond exasperation. "Are you thinking about the hockey player?"

"I'm thinking about my assignment."

"Those are the same thing."

"They really aren't."

"They really are." She makes another note on her clipboard. "It's okay, you know. To think about him."

"I think about my assignment constantly. That's the job."

"Right." She draws out the word the same way Rory does, the deliberate version that means she has a full opinion she's choosing not to deliver. "Well. You've got the date tonight, which will be good. Dylan's very charming. He'll be distracting."

"That's exactly what I want."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"Because you said that very quickly."

"Emma."

"I'm just checking." She holds up a hand, clipboard and all. "I hope it's great. I really do. Dylan's nice. He's like if someone took every quality a person is supposed to have and assembled them in the right order."

I wait, because there's usually more after an Emma sentence like that.

"Nothing wrong with that," she adds, looking at her clipboard.

"But."

"No but. That was the whole thought."

I look at her.

She looks at her clipboard.

"Slapshot Burgers," I say. "Seven-thirty. You'll have a full report by midnight."