“Hey,” I answer, lowering onto the bench beside her. “Big crowd.”
She nods, finishing her laces and glancing at my brace. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
She crouches, checking the brace. Her gloves brush my calf, quick and professional.
“Keep your weight even when you step out. They’re going to want photos right away.”
“Standing only,” I remind her, and she smirks. “I know. You think I’d let you forget protocol now?”
I huff out a quiet laugh as she stands, skates clicking lightly on the rubber mat. Together we move toward the rink door.
“She’ll be out there with you,” the PR coordinator says from behind us. “I’ll stay with Sophie. She’s already got hot chocolate.”
Charlotte glances back, reassured, then nods for me to go first.
The first breath of rink air hits my lungs as I step onto the ice and stop immediately by the boards, skates planted. Cameras flash, the crowd claps politely.
“Looks good,” Charlotte says under her breath as she skates out a few feet beside me. “Just don’t try to impress anyone.”
I grin. “Not even the kids?”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t hide her smile.
The sponsor waves a group of youth players over to me: tiny kids in oversized Foxes jerseys, grinning like it’s Christmas. Cameras flash, and I shake hands, lean carefully for photos, my brace locked, my smile practiced.
Charlotte hangs back a few strides away. She’s close enough to keep an eye on my balance, but far enough that no one could mistake her for anything but staff.
When it’s over, the PR coordinator nods toward the tunnel where Sophie’s waiting by the railing, hot chocolate in hand, a grin stretching wide.
I lift a hand in a wave. Her whole face lights up, and it makes the whole thing worth it.
Charlotte catches the moment, her expression soft but professional, and I know she understands why I needed this day to go right.
By the time we get home, my knee’s throbbing beneath the brace. Sophie’s still mid-story as I park. She’s saying something about the kids on the ice and how the mascot nearly face-planted twice but “stuck the landing.”
Inside, she kicks off her shoes and tosses her Foxes hoodie—the gray one with my number stitched on the sleeve—onto the couch.
“That was awesome,” she says, cheeks still pink. “You looked like yourself again.”
“Pretty sure ‘myself’ is about ten years younger and not this sore.”
She grins, heads to the freezer, and comes back with an ice pack wrapped in a towel. “Here. Doctor’s orders.”
“Bossy.”
“Learned from Charlotte,” she says easily, sitting down beside me.
She leans her shoulder into mine, quieter now.
Sophie’s voice softens. “She’s so nice.”
“Yeah?”
“She talked to me during the break, helped one of the little kids fix his helmet. She’s funny. Not, like, trying-to-be-funny—just normal. It’s weird that she works for the team and she still feels…normal.”
That hits somewhere quiet inside me. “Yeah. She’s good at that.”
