Pain flashes through her eyes so fast it feels like a hit. “No.Youare something. I am a story people pick apart for weakness. If you look at me like that at the gala, I am the one they’ll shred.”
“Alycia…”
“And worse,” she adds quietly, “I would let them.”
I suck in a breath that doesn’t feel like enough. “I’m scared, too. Not of them. Of you. You walk into a room, and I forget every promise I made to keep this easy. I forget we are supposed to fake anything. I forget myself.”
“Kyle.” She takes a shaky step back, survival winning out. “Please don’t do this.”
“Tell me why.”
Her lips part, then press together again like her body is trying to answer for her, and her brain won’t let it. She doesn’t look away. She just goes still, caught between wanting and running. If she leaned in even a fraction, I would forget every line we swore not to cross.
“Because if you keep looking at me like that,” she whispers, “I’m going to fall into something I can’t climb out of.”
My chest tightens until it hurts to breathe. “Alycia.”
“I can’t risk it. Not with the cameras. Not with the team. Not with you.”
We stand there, breathing the same thin air, both pretending we aren’t remembering last night. Pretending that text did not hit as hard as it did. Maybe that is why the words climb up my throat again now. Not as a joke she can brush off. As the truth I meant the first time.
“You look good in green,” I say quietly. “But you would look better in blue.”
She shakes her head once, a small, helpless motion. “You make this damn near impossible.”
“I know.”
Another breath shudders out of her, and then she turns away before she breaks in front of me. Her heels tap quickly and unevenly against the concrete, like she is trying to outrun what almost happened.
I watch her disappear into the tunnel, swallowed by shadows and fluorescent hum. The cold wraps around me again, sharp and unforgiving. Wanting someone shouldn’t feel this much like standing alone in a quiet rink. But it does.
Especially when I know she wants me, too, and is still walking away.
Journal Entry
Kyle
I don’t even know why I opened this notebook again. Maybe because if I don’t put this somewhere, I’m going to say something I can’t take back. Or hit something that can’t hit me back. Or skate until I puke just so the noise in my chest has somewhere to go.
I can’t talk to anyone. Not Cole. Not Beau. Not fucking Cooper. And definitely not her.
So, it’s this. Ink and paper, like carving the truth out of my ribs by force.
Today hurt in a way I didn’t know a person could hurt without bleeding.
I saw her walk into the rink, and it was like the whole goddamn building tilted. Everyone else noticed the cameras, the PR setup, the schedule. I felt her before she even looked up or breathed in my direction. It hit me right in the chest—a punch of recognition so sharp my lungs forgot how to work.
And then she didn’t look at me.
I scored the cleanest shot I’ve taken in weeks—perfect angle, perfect sound, the kind of shot guys chase for entire seasons. Everyone else saw it and cheered, but she didn’t look up or even give me one second of something real. And that shouldn’t matter, but it does. It matters so much that I don’t know where to put it without choking on it. It lands like a fist straight under my sternum every time I think about it.
I skated harder than I have all season because it was the only way to keep my face calm. Every stride was a dare not to break in front of people who would never understand what it means to want someone this much. Every breath burned like the cold was chewing through me. Nothing helped or touched the place where it hurt.
But then she did look at me.
And it was worse because the look wasn’t empty. It wasn’t cold. It was everything she was trying to pretend she didn’t feel. Longing. Fear. Want. The kind of emotion that steals breath and people who aren’t careful. It destroyed me.
I walked over after practice, and the world shrank to a single point around her. Standing that close… I swear to God, every part ofme tilted toward her like I’m built on a hinge and she’s the axis. One inch closer and I would’ve kissed her again. I would’ve thrown every promise and PR guideline straight into the fire just to hear her say my name like she did outside her door.
