Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

            Still, I can’t quite get over the relative ease with which he made his way through glaciated plateaus for over an hour, wading through old and fresh snow, sidestepping rocky formations and ice algae, never once complaining about my arms coiled tight around his neck.

            He almost slipped twice. Both times, I felt the steel of his muscles as they tensed to avoid the fall, his large body solid and reliable as it balanced and reoriented before picking up the pace again. Both times, I felt bizarrely, incomprehensibly safe.

            “I need you to let AMASE know that you’re safe,” he tells me the second we’re on the boat. I look around, noticing for the first time that there are no other passengers on board. “And that you don’t need responders to come out once the storm lets up.”

            I frown. “Wouldn’t they know that you already—”

            “Right now. Please.” He stares pointedly until I compose and send a message to the entire AMASE group, in a way that reminds me that he is very much a leader. Used to people doing as he says. “We have a space heater, but it’s not going to do a whole lot in this temperature.” He takes off his jacket, revealing a black thermal underneath. His hair is messy, and bright, and beautiful. Not nearly as disgustingly hat-squished as mine, an inexplicable phenomenon that should be the object of several research studies. Maybe I’ll apply for a grant to investigate it. Then Ian will veto me, and we’ll be back to Mutual Hate square one. “The winds are more severe than I’d like, but on board is still a safer option than ashore. We’re anchored, but the waves might get nasty. There’s anti-seasickness meds next to your bunk, and—”

            “Ian.”

            He falls quiet.

            “Why are you not wearing a NASA survival suit?”

            He doesn’t look at me. Instead he drops to his knees in front of me and begins to work on my brace. His large hands are firm but delicate on my calf. “Are you sure it’s not broken? Is it painful?”

            “Yes. And yes, but getting better.” The heat, or at least the lack of freezing winds, is helping. Ian’s grip, comforting and warm around my swollen ankle, doesn’t hurt, either. “This isn’t a NASA boat, either.” Not that I expected it to be. I think I know what’s going on here.

            “It’s what we had at our disposal.”

            “We?”

            He still doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead he tightens the brace and pulls a thick woolen sock over my foot. I think I feel the ghosts of fingertips trailing briefly across my toe, but maybe it’s my impression. It must be.

            “You should drink. And eat.” He straightens. “I’ll get you—”

            “Ian,” I interrupt softly. He pauses, and we both seem simultaneously taken aback at my tone. It’s just . . . pleading. Tired. I’m usually not one for displays of vulnerability, but . . . Ian has come for me, in a small rocking boat, across the fjords. We are alone in the Arctic Basin, surrounded by twenty-thousand-year-old glaciers and shrieking winds. There is nothing usual about this. “Why are you here?”

            He lifts one eyebrow. “What? You miss your crevasse? I can take you back if—”

            “No, really—why are you here? On this boat? You’re not part of this year’s AMASE. You shouldn’t even be in Norway. Don’t they need you at JPL?”

            “They’ll be fine. Plus, sailing is a passion of mine.” He’s obviously being evasive, but the cold must have frozen my brain cells, because all I want right now is to find out more about Ian Floyd’s passions. True or made up.

            “Is it really?”

            He shrugs, noncommittal. “We used to sail a lot when I was a kid.”

            “We?”

            “My dad and I.” He stands and turns away from me, starting to rummage in the little compartments in the hull. “He’d bring me along when he had to work.”

            “Oh. Was he a fisherman?”

            I hear a fond snort. “He smuggled drugs.”

            “He what?”

            “He smuggled drugs. Weed, for the most—”