21. Chapter 21 Liam
Alex was inside. He'd been inside for twenty minutes, opening every door and cabinet like he'd been handed a present. I could hear him through the window.
"Liam, there's a hot tub," and then two seconds later, "there's a woodstove too!" Then a drawer opening, and then "there's a deck of cards in here."
He'd been like this since we pulled up. Grinning. Bouncing on his toes in the gravel. The same guy who'd been staring at the ceiling doing tuition math four days ago was now excited about a ceramic frog planter.
I was on the porch. Waiting. The lake was frozen and flat and the sky was white and the air tasted like January was coming whether we were ready or not. Soon, all of our friends would pull up, and this place would be full of people who cared about us.
I wanted that. I wanted it badly. I was standing on the porch in the cold, watching the lake road because sitting inside and waiting felt like wasting it.
Alex opened the screen door behind me. "There's a fire pit out back too."
"I saw it."
"We should use it tonight. S'mores or something."
"Sounds like a plan."
He stood beside me and looked at the road. "When did Noah say they'd be here?"
"Eleven."
He checked his phone. Ten fifty-five.
Then I heard it, Noahs broken muffler down the road.
"They're here."
"How do you know?"
"The sound of poor college kids."
I paused.
Alex laughed. "I hear it."
I put my arm around his shoulders. He leaned in. We stood there on the porch watching the empty lake road, and I could feel the excitement in him, and it made me happy. With everything that was going on, Alex needed this distraction, and so did I.
Noah's green Subaru pulled into the driveway.
The car stopped, and both doors opened at once, and Noah was out first, stretching his back, squinting at the lake.
"Captain Moore." He spread his arms. "Two years I've been hearing about this lake. Two years."
"And?"
"It's not a pond."
"I told you it's not a pond."
"I know you told me. I just assumed you were being sentimental.
" He grabbed me and hugged me, hard, committed, no distance.
Then held me at arm's length and looked at my face the way he looked at everything — like he was filing the information somewhere specific.
"You look different. Relaxed. That's suspicious. "
Priya came around the car already talking. "— because the GPS said left, and he said right and then we were at a boat launch watching a man on the ice stare at us, so." She had two bags and a Trader Joe's tote. She hugged me — quick, efficient, warm. "Liam. Finally."
"How was the drive?"
"Four hours. Noah narrated the last forty minutes like a nature documentary. I have a headache."
"I was setting the scene."
"You were describing trees."
"Trees are the scene, Priya."
She looked past me at the lake and the house and the dock, and the stripped trees along the shore. Her glasses were slightly crooked. She pushed them up with one finger, and I watched her take it all in.
"Good," she said. Not to me. To the lake, maybe. Then she picked up her bags and walked inside.
***
Ethan and Remy pulled in forty minutes later. A black Mazda that Ethan drove, Remy in the passenger seat with his shoes off and his feet on the dash, earbuds around his neck.
Remy got out first. Took his time. Stood in the gravel and looked at the lake the way he looked at a race course before the start.
He was so observant; I was sure he was looking at where the ice was thick, where the shore bent, where the wind came from.
I'd seen him do this a hundred times in the boat.
His brain ran spatial calculations the way other people breathed.
"Moore." We did the handshake-pull, half hug. His grip always surprised me.
"You made it."
"Ethan stopped three times."
"Twice." Ethan was out of the car. "Two stops. And one of them was for Remy's coffee."
"You offered."
"Because you were doing that thing with your knee."
"What thing with my knee?"
"The bouncing. The pre-caffeine bounce. I can feel it through the seat."
"That's not a thing."
"It's absolutely a thing. It starts and doesn't stop until you have a cup in your hand."
Remy looked at me. "He's making this up."
Ethan just shook his head.
Alex came out of the house. Ethan crossed the yard immediately and pulled him into a hug. His hand on the back of Alex's head, holding him there for a few seconds. He said something low that I couldn't hear. Alex nodded. They both smiled when they pulled apart. True friends.
Remy went next. Shorter, no ceremony. He looked Alex in the face. "You eating?"
"Yeah."
"You sleeping?"
"Mostly."
Remy held the look for one more second. "Good." And he walked past him toward the house, already scanning the kitchen through the window, probably clocking whether there was food that met his standards or whether he'd need to intervene.
The rental was a mile down the shore road. A-frame cabin, cedar siding, a dock that had been pulled for winter. Three bedrooms. Noah and Priya in one, Ethan and Remy in another, spare for overflow.
We unloaded the cars. Remy walked through the cabin once, opened every door, checked every window, and chose his room in under a minute — the one with the view of the frozen lake and a chair by the window.
He dropped his bag and sat in the chair, and had his phone out before anyone else had found a light switch.
"He did this at the hotel in Boston too," Ethan said, watching him from the hallway. "Looking for the perfect spot to post up."
"It's not perfect. It's just the only chair that faces the water."
"Which is the perfect chair."
"Which is the correct chair."
Noah was in the kitchen unpacking the Trader Joe's tote. Actual groceries and a bunch of fancy snacks. Crackers, hummus, three kinds of cheese, trail mix, sparkling water, a bag of clementines.
"Priya made a plan," he said.
"A plan."
"For meals. For the weekend. There are columns." He held up his phone and showed me a spreadsheet. Meals across the top, days down the side, a color-coded column for dietary notes. Noah's row said EXCESSIVE CARBS in red.
"She knows your diet, that's for sure."
He nodded and laughed.
***
By two o'clock we were on the ice.
The lake had frozen hard after Christmas — four inches at the cove, more toward the center. The surface was rough in places, glassy in others, and the sky was low and white, and the cold tasted like metal.
I had two pairs of skates. Mine and my dad's old ones. Alex fit into my dad's weirdly enough.
Noah didn't have skates. Noah had boots and a red North Face puffer he'd owned since high school, and confidence, which turned out to be one too many things, because he stepped onto the ice and his feet went immediately sideways and he grabbed for Priya and she moved away.
"Priya!"
"I'm not going down with you."
"I'm your boyfriend."
"You're a risk factor." She skated away from him — smooth, low, arms behind her back, a wine-colored beanie pulled over her ears and Noah's scarf wrapped twice around her neck.
She took the turn at the edge of the cove and came back around and Noah was still standing in the same spot, gripping his knees.
Noah regained his footing and called to her, "Where did you learn to do that?"
She didn't answer. Just kept skating.
"She's not going to tell you," I said.
"She's never going to tell me. She has these pockets of competence that she just deploys without warning."
"And that bothers you?"
"No." He watched her carve a figure-eight. "No, it really doesn't. She's amazing."
Remy was already gone. Black hoodie under a denim jacket that was too thin for the weather and he didn't seem to care.
He'd laced up and hit the ice and within thirty seconds he was moving fast, cutting the surface in tight arcs, testing the edges the way he tested everything — pushing it until he found the limit, then backing off one degree. Low center of gravity. No hesitation.
He took a corner too hard and almost went down and caught himself with one hand on the ice and pushed back up without stopping. One full lap of the cove, fast, carving, and then he slowed and circled back to the bank where Ethan was sitting on a rock with his blue peacoat buttoned-up to his chin.
"Come on," Remy said.
"I'm fine here."
"You're not here to watch."
"I'm here to support. Emotionally. From land."
Remy skated to the edge and held out his hand. Ethan looked at it.
"I'm going to fall," Ethan said.
"You're going to fall. And then you're going to get up. Come on."
Ethan took his hand. Stepped onto the ice. His feet went immediately wrong — too wide, ankles buckling — and Remy caught him by the elbow before he went down.
"Bend your knees."
"My knees are bent."
"More. Lower. You're standing like you're waiting for a bus," Remy positioned himself beside Ethan, one hand on his arm, skating backward so he could face him. A completely different person than the one who'd just torn across the cove. "Small steps. Don't push off, just glide. Feel the edge."
"I don't know what that means."
"The inside of the blade. Lean into it. Barely. Like you're leaning into a wall that might not be there."
Ethan tried. Wobbled. Remy's hand tightened on his arm.
"That's it. Keep going."
They moved across the ice together, slow, Remy skating backward without looking, guiding Ethan through the first ten yards like he'd done this before — which he probably had on some rink in Hartford.
The patience was practiced. Not the kind you perform because someone's watching.
The kind that's been worn smooth from years of teaching someone smaller or younger or less sure how to do the thing you already know.
"Okay," Remy said. "Now push. Right foot. Gentle."
Ethan pushed. Glided. Didn't fall.
"There you go."
"I did one push."
"One push is skating. Do it again."