Christmas at the Frozen Lake

Alex Harrington heads to his family's house on Brackett Lake over Christmas break for a Friday dinner, after kissing Liam Moore and telling him he would be fine without looking at him.

Thomas Harrington already knows about Liam and the semester, and he sits Alex down with a folder: withdraw from the joint program, follow the life mapped for a Harrington, and sign by the deadline if the trust, the tuition, and the name are to stay.

If Alex refuses, his father will cut funding that supports scholarship athletes, the boathouse, and kids who were never part of this.

Liam works an eighty-dollar-a-day marina job and has always known he cannot compete with that fortune, that surname, and twenty years spent bending Alex into shape.

He can only leave space for Alex to come back, while a frozen lake and a word neither of them can say sit between a life with Liam and everyone else who would pay if Alex says no.