Page 74 of Fractured Ice

"She prefers pink," Ethan says.

Dylan looks at him.

I look at Ethan.

"Pink cotton candy," Ethan says. "Classic. She's had it that way since we were kids."

The vendor looks between all three of us with an expression of profound neutrality and waits.

"Is that true?" Dylan asks me.

I want to say no. I want to say I've developed new cotton candy opinions since childhood and blue raspberry is perfectly fine and Ethan Walker doesn't know what he's talking about. "It's true," I say, because it's true. "Pink."

Dylan laughs and orders pink, because he's nothing if not adaptable, and Ethan looks deeply, infuriatingly pleased with himself. I take the cotton candy and eat a piece, refusing to make eye contact with either of them, even when Ethan grabs pieces for himself.

"How do you even remember that?" I ask Ethan.

He shrugs. "I pay attention."

"You were, like, twelve the last time we got cotton candy together."

"I was attentive at twelve."

"You knocked my science project into a lake at twelve."

"I can be attentive and have poor spatial awareness at the same time." He takes a piece of my cotton candy without asking, which I would object to if it weren't so consistent with every interaction we've ever had. "They're not mutually exclusive."

Dylan watches this exchange with an expression that's doing its best to stay easy and is mostly succeeding.

We keep going through the fair. Pointing out things. Discussing how rigged most of the games are, until we find one and decide to give it a shot.

The ring toss goes badly for everyone.

Dylan goes first and nearly lands three, nearly being the operative word. He turns to me after each miss like someone who's used to winning physical challenges and finds the gap between attempt and success genuinely surprising. Ethan goes next and somehow manages to be worse, which shouldn't be possible given his hand-eye coordination on ice. I'd accuse him of doing it on purpose except the frustrated expression seems genuine.

"Distraction," Ethan says, after his fourth miss.

"From what?" Dylan asks.

"General environmental factors."

"That's not an excuse."

"Nah, but it’s a reason."

I laugh. “I told you guys these are rigged.”

The booth operator, a middle-aged man who has clearly watched this exact dynamic play out several hundred times today, silently produces a lollipop and hands it to me. Cherry flavored.

"You always traded those away," Ethan says.

I look at the lollipop. Then at him. "What?"

"When we were kids. At the Fourth of July thing. Your parents always gave you the cherry ones from the mixed bag and you'd go find whoever would trade you for strawberry." He takes the cherry lollipop from my hand, examines it, and gives it back. "You made Knox do it for three years in a row before he figured out what you were doing and started hiding the strawberry ones."

I have not thought about this in approximately a decade.

"How do you know that?" I say.