Daisy stays right beside me without a word.
We don’t look at each other.
Just stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the quiet echo of the rink.
After a long beat, she says, “You really loved him.”
It’s not a question.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Stupid, right?”
“No.” Her voice is soft. “Just…hard to come back from. Loving someone like that.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I come here for practice every day and pretend he didn’t mean everything to me—for a week.” I let out a short, bitter laugh. “A week. That’s not a long time, but it felt long enough. I thought that if I ever saw him again, it would destroy me. But it didn’t. It just…made everything heavier. More real.”
Daisy shifts a little closer. “Just because the team knows he’s an asshole doesn’t mean you have to make any kind of decision. I’m all for using him to win Nationals and then kicking him to the curb. You don’t have to figure it all out today.”
I give a short laugh, rough at the edges. “Tell that to my overachiever brain.”
“Tell it to the three alphas who look at you like you hung the damn moon. I’m sure they’ll figure it out for you.”
That makes me go still.
“Don’t think I haven’t seen it,” Daisy adds, nudging me. “You’ve got a whole pack playing guard dog around you, and not one of them blinks without checking where you are.Making sure you’re okay. That’s worth way more than some scent match who broke your heart.”
“They’re…complicated.”
“Yeah. So are you. Sounds like a perfect situation to me.”
I look at her finally, and she smiles. “But you’re also kind of amazing, and whatever you decide—whether it’s them, or Landon, or none of it—you’ve still got us. This team. Me.”
The knot in my chest loosens, just a little.
“I know,” I say. And I mean it.
Daisy bumps her shoulder against mine. “Now c’mon. Let’s finish warm-ups before Coach Crusher starts swinging her whistle like a weapon.”
I tuck the necklace carefully into my pocket, take a breath, and follow her out onto the rink.
The music pulsesthrough the speakers, but my focus is somewhere else entirely.
Every pivot, every cutback, every shoulder-check—I throw myself into it. I need to move, need to get out of my head before the emotions catch up. My skates bite into the track, an extension of me, and I let them carry the weight for a while.
The team rallies around me without saying a word.
Daisy sticks close, flanking me like a bodyguard one minute, throwing sarcastic one-liners the next. Every joke makes me laugh just enough to breathe again. Cheese and Knox flank us during drills, their usual competitive banter dulled with something gentler today—an unspoken understanding that maybe I’m not ready to spar, just yet.
Crusher barks instructions, her whistle loud as ever, but her eyes linger on me a little longer than normal.
And through it all, Landon stays near the edge of thetrack, hands on his hips, watching. He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t correct me. He watches me skate as though it’s the last time he’ll ever get to.
When I finally pull to a stop at the water station, sweat slicking my skin and my chest heaving, I see him pick up his duffel. He catches my eye across the rink.
And for the first time since I left him behind in Georgia, there’s no heat in his gaze. No desperation. Just something quieter. Resigned. He lifts his hand in a subtle wave—just for me—then turns and walks toward the doors.
He doesn’t look back.
I don’t think for even a second before I go after him. I rip off my helmet, tugging it free from the tangled mess of my hair, and shove it into Daisy’s hands.
