Chapter 9: Too Close

"You've been weird for like two weeks."

Mason said it around a mouthful of cereal, Sunday morning, sprawled across my kitchen table like he owned it, which, given how often he showed up uninvited, he basically did.

"I've been busy."

"You've been busy for two years. This is different." He pointed his spoon at me, entirely too perceptive for someone who claimed to notice nothing. "You jump every time your phone buzzes. You've been asking around about people from high school. And Ethan's been acting strange too, which, honestly, is the part that's actually bothering me."

My whole body went very still. "Strange how?"

"I don't know. Distracted. He missed a defensive read yesterday he never misses, and when I asked him about it he just said he had a lot on his mind." Mason frowned, genuine concern working across his face in a way that made my chest hurt with guilt. "You two aren't fighting about something, are you? He mentioned you interviewed him a few times for the piece."

"We're not fighting."

"Okay, but are you like, not fighting in a way that's actually something else?"

I nearly choked on my coffee. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, Lil. I've known you both my whole life. You get a specific voice when you talk about him now that you didn't have a month ago." Mason shrugged, entirely too casual for how close he'd just walked to the exact truth. "I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I just, I don't know. I'd want to know. If something was going on."

"Nothing's going on."

"Okay." He said it easily, apparently satisfied, already moving on to complaining about Coach's new conditioning schedule, and I sat there with my heart hammering, replaying every single word of that conversation and trying to figure out exactly how much he actually suspected versus how much I was projecting my own guilt onto an entirely innocent comment about cereal.

He left an hour later, and I spent the rest of the afternoon unable to concentrate on anything, Mason's questions circling in my head alongside everything Savannah had told me, alongside Ethan's father, alongside a stranger who apparently knew things about all of it before I did.

Ethan showed up at my door at eight that night, which he had never once done in three years, and I opened it already half panicking about what Mason might think if he ever found out.

"You can't be here."

"I know. I needed thirty seconds." He stepped inside anyway, and I closed the door behind him fast, some instinct making me check the hallway before I did. "Mason cornered me after practice. Asked me almost the exact same thing he apparently asked you this morning."

"He suspects something."

"He suspects something's off. I don't think he's put together what yet." Ethan ran a hand through his hair, restless in a way I recognized now, the tell that meant he was more rattled than he wanted to show. "I told him I've had a lot going on with my dad's estate stuff. It's not entirely a lie."

"That's dangerously close to the truth for someone who wanted to keep it hidden."

"I know. I panicked." He almost laughed, no real humor in it. "I'm good under pressure on the ice, Lily. Apparently not so much when your brother looks at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like he already half knows and is just waiting for one of us to confirm it." Ethan's eyes found mine, steady despite everything. "We can't keep doing this. Meeting like this, I mean. Every time we get close, it gets harder to explain, and I don't want the first time Mason finds out to be an accident. If this happens, if we happen, I want it to be because we chose to tell him, not because he caught us."

"If we happen."

"If." He said it carefully, watching my face for permission I hadn't given yet. "I'm not going to push you, Lily. I know there's still Savannah's warning, and the texts, and my father, and about a dozen things neither of us has answered yet. I just needed you to know I'm not imagining what's happening between us, whatever we end up calling it."

I didn't answer right away, and he seemed to understand that some silences needed room instead of pressure, because he didn't fill it.

"You should go," I said finally. "Before Mason decides to drop by unannounced like he does every other Sunday."

"Right." He moved toward the door, then paused, hand on the frame, the same particular pause I remembered from another doorway weeks ago. "For what it's worth. I'd rather get caught choosing you than keep hiding and lose you the exact same way I did last time."

He left before I could figure out what to say to that, and I stood in my own apartment a long time, phone silent for once, wondering how much longer either of us could keep walking this particular line before something, or someone, finally pushed us off it.