Page 17 of Cold as Ice

The waitress showed up, they ordered, and then Mal decided it was time to change the subject.

“How was your date?”

Jane rolled her eyes. “A complete waste of time. He spent the whole date staring at my boobs.”

“I hate men,” Mal said. “I told you he wasn’t good enough.”

“Youlovemen.”

“I’m sexually and romantically attracted to men,” Mal said firmly. “That doesn’t mean I love them. They kind of suck, most of the time.”

“Oh, you’d like them to suckmore,” Jane teased.

Malcolm flushed, in spite of himself. Did not imagine Elliott on his knees in front of him, his never-ending bullshit finally silenced because his mouth was full . . .

He cleared his throat.

“Can wenottalk about sex?”

Jane laughed. “That’s what we do when we’re not having any, Mal. Anyway, no, the guy was a waste. But there’s plenty of fish in the sea. I’ll find someone, someday. Until then?” She grinned at him. “There’s always my dear, darling Malcolm.”

He didn’t know how she’d come by her relentless positivity, but he’d gone from finding it a waste of energy to a nice change of pace.

Anthony McCoy had told him after the single time he’d met Jane that he wished Mal had been interested in her as more than just a friend.

She’s a good one, he’d said.

After that conversation, Mal had forced down another round of guilt that he hadn’t been the son his father had wanted.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mal told her. Not just because he genuinely liked her, but because she was so sweet and relentlessly optimistic, he felt she needed protecting. People took advantage of people like that, and damned if they’d do that to Jane on his watch.

Jane shot him a warm smile as the waitress set their food down in front of him.

His dad wasn’t homophobic necessarily—just very set in his ways. And he’d raised Malcolm to be unflinchingly honest, sohe’d seen no problem voicing, at age twelve, just how he didn’t feel a thing for girls, but liked guys instead.

Never taking the easy path. That’s my Malcolm,his dad had said then, patting him on the shoulder.

It hadn’t been reassuring, necessarily, but at least he hadn’t done something terrible?

Jane would have said that was hardly anything to applaud Anthony McCoy for, but then her feelings on his father were hardly a secret.

“I think I’m going to get the lead in a new piece in the winter dance showcase,” Jane said as they finished up their food.

“Really? That’s great.” Mal didn’t understand anything about dance, but he’d learned—because she’d been forceful enough to insist, finally producing a twelve slide PowerPoint presentation, that dance was just as athletic as a regular sport was—that it wasn’t easy.

There was an excellent dance program here at Portland University, and he was proud how Jane, still just a sophomore, seemed to be one of the brightest lights in it.

“Yeah,” she said, “there’s a new choreographer coming up from U of O, kind of an exchange, and Orla said that he really loved my audition. The one you filmed last week?”

Mal nodded. “It’s a guy?”

“Don’t worry, he’s probably gay. Almost definitely gay,” Jane said wryly. “Maybe I should introduce him to you.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes. “I don’t have any time for dates. Or meeting choreographers. Especially not now that I’m going to be tutoring Jones three times a week.”

“Three times a week?” She raised an eyebrow.

Mal realized he’d made a tactical error by returning his friend’s attention back to Elliott.

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