Her eyes flick up, and it hits like open ice—fear threaded clean through the anger. “You want to skate in June?” she says, softer. “Then you get off the ice in October when I tell you to.”
Coach lifts the whistle like he might argue with God; Riley doesn’t spare him a glance. “Five minutes,” she repeats—to me, to the stopwatch, to the part of herself that wants to let me get away with recklessness because she understands it too well. “Then we re-evaluate.”
I nod and swing a leg over the boards, landing heavier than I mean to. The bench wood stings my thighs through pads—the good sting that means I’m doing the smarter thing for once. Water bottle. Two pulls. Breathe until breath stops sounding like an apology.
Riley steps in close to retape, lemon soap and cold air filling my head. “Thank you,” she says under her breath, light enough I could pretend I imagined it. Then the trainer is back, all business. “Squeeze.” I do. “Pain?” I shrug. She glares. I give her a number she can write.
From the stands, a phone chirps its little camera shutter sound, obnoxiously proud of itself. Riley doesn’t flinch yet, but I feel the ice tilt—the trouble rolling toward us in waves we can’t outskate.
Coach’s whistle slices the air. “One more, Maddox!” He jabs two fingers toward the far cone, impatience telegraphed down the line.
Riley doesn’t move. She plants herself between my skates and the ice like a door I’d have to break to go through. The tape hangs from her fingers, white against the red marks on my wrist. Her chin lifts a millimeter. Not a challenge. A boundary.
I look past her to Coach. Around us the guys go statue-still, except for the smirk I can feel three seats down and the quiet, gleeful ooooh I pretend I don’t hear.
Two voices in my head line up on either side of the red line. One is the one that made me: skate through it, swallow it, bleed later. The other sounds like last night in a dark room: Don’t be a hero. Don’t be stupid with your body.
“Green light, Coach,” I call, but I keep my ass on the bench. The words taste like compromise; the act feels like choosing.
Coach lowers the whistle half an inch. A test. “Clock’s running,” he warns.
Riley doesn’t look at him. She looks at me. The fear is gone now; what’s left is steadiness and a sliver of dare. Choose right.
I roll my wrist once in her hands, the tendons popping like quiet gravel. Pain speaks up, not a scream, a warning. I stare at the ice I’ve loved longer than anything and nod at the bench like it’s a pulpit. “Five,” I say, matching her order. “Then we reassess.”
Coach hates it. But he also loves wins, and wins don’t come from a hero with a torn tendon. He jerks a nod that translates to make it worth it and pivots to terrorize a rookie for lazy lines.
The chirps start up again as soon as his back turns. “House rules, Maddox,” someone singsongs. “Mama said no.”
“Save it for scrimmage,” I toss back, bored on purpose. I take a long pull from my bottle and let the cold sit in my mouth beforeI swallow. The ache recedes half a step, the way a wave does when it’s reconsidering its options.
Riley works in silence, close enough that I can list the different shades in her eyes. She sets the new anchor strip, checks circulation with a quick press that reads like a question: still with me? I answer by flexing inside the tape the way she taught me—no heroics, just information.
“Better?” she asks, so low only the wood under us can eavesdrop.
“Ask me in five,” I say, and the corner of her mouth thinks about softening. Doesn’t.
On the ice, the drill rotates without me. The stopwatch bleeps. My body leans to go and I make it stay. Choosing her is a fight no one can see, which might be why it matters more.
She finishes the wrap, tears the tape with her teeth, and palms the end flat. Heat knifes up my forearm and dies as the support settles. I breathe easier than I want to admit and feel the day tilt a degree toward better.
“You’re right,” I say, truth costing more than lies. “About the compensation. About all of it.”
Her eyes spark, then settle into approval like a warm hand between my shoulder blades. Up close the rink noise blurs to a hush. A tiny curl of hair has escaped by her ear, damp from the cold and whatever sleep she didn’t get. Before my brain files a protest, my knuckles skim that strand back where it belongs. A small, stupid touch—nothing anyone could call anything—and it still feels like stepping onto thin ice at noon.
Her inhale is the quiet kind you only hear if you’re listening for it. I am. The world tightens to an inch between my hand and her cheek, to the lemon-clean scent of her wrist, to the heat under her professionalism like a secret.
I pull my hand back first because I’ve learned at least one thing. She tips her chin as if she meant to move anyway, as if we didn’t just stand on the edge of something we can’t afford.
“Better?” she asks, voice steady, eyes not.
“Better,” I say, and let the word hold more than tape.
A laugh ricochets off the glass—higher, meaner. The kind you get when a rookie catches a vet in a human moment. I don’t turn. But the air shifts; I feel the presence before I hear it: the tiny, digital chk of a phone camera from the stands.
Riley goes still in that way that reads as danger if you know her. A fraction of a second later she’s just a trainer again, two steps of distance magically inserted between us. I match the move, walls sliding up out of instinct and strategy.
“Water,” she says, louder, for the microphones that might as well be everywhere. I take the bottle she hands me. Our fingers don’t touch. That feels like a loss—and survival.
