"Also untrue. Are you going to shower?"
I wrinkle my nose.
"I have to unless you enjoy the smell of elephant. Because that is what I currently resemble. An elephant who ran a marathon through a sauna and then fell into a vat of gym socks."
He chuckles, his vanilla ice cream and dark sandalwood scent curling through the air between us with an unfair attractiveness given that I smell like the inside of a hockey glove.
"You smell divine when you are sweaty," he says. "But I can think of other activities that would produce a more enjoyable version of that particular fragrance."
"SHH!" I hiss, my cheeks igniting with a heat that has nothing to do with seven hours of cardio. I glance aroundthe training facility, confirming that the last stragglers are disappearing through the locker room doors. "We are around people! You cannot just say things like that with your whole chest in a public facility! There are acoustics in here! Sound carries!"
He is entirely unbothered by my distress. The man possesses an immunity to embarrassment that I am beginning to suspect is a French cultural trait rather than an individual personality quirk.
"Did you bring your skates?" he asks, pivoting topics with the smooth redirect of a man who knows exactly when to escalate and when to retreat.
I pout, the expression automatic and involuntary, a reflex that activates whenever Raphaël asks me a question that I suspect is leading somewhere I did not anticipate.
"Yes," I admit.
"Good. Can we try a few things before you shower? The ice is open for the next forty minutes before the figure skating team arrives, and I want to see how you move with a partner."
The request is casual. Professional, even. The tone of a coach proposing a brief assessment, nothing more, nothing less. But beneath the professional veneer, I catch the faintest shift in his scent, a warming of the sandalwood notes that tells me this is not purely clinical.
"Sure," I say.
I retrieve my skates from my bag in the changing area, lacing them with a practiced efficiency that my exhausted fingers protest but execute on muscle memory alone. The blades feel familiar beneath my feet, the extension of my body that has been missing for years and has only recently been reintroduced to my daily vocabulary. I step onto the ice, and the surface greets me with the whispered hiss of steel on frozen water that makes my chest expand with a breath I did not know I was holding.
Raphaël follows.
He has removed his jacket, revealing the fitted long-sleeve black shirt beneath that clings to his torso with the fidelity of a garment that knows exactly what it is covering and is proud of it. His black training leggings follow the line of his legs with a precision that makes me blink twice and look away before my brain starts cataloguing details that will distract me from whatever he is about to propose.
I am wearing brighter attire. The neon pink leggings he ordered for me, which arrived last night in a package alongside a collection of workout clothes that made me cry in my room for six minutes because no one has ever purchased an entire wardrobe of athletic wear specifically for my body and my preferences without being asked. The matching sports bra sits beneath a cropped training top, the vivid pink a stark contrast to his all-black ensemble, the two of us looking like a visual argument between midnight and sunrise sharing the same ice.
"I want to see what you can do with a partner," he says, skating to center ice with the fluid ease of someone whose relationship with the surface extends far beyond hockey. "I am going to observe posture, timing, and synchronization. Perform properly. No shortcuts."
I nod.
He pulls a small remote from his pocket and points it at the speaker system mounted in the corner of the rink. Music fills the arena.
The opening notes cascade through the empty space with a resonance that makes my spine straighten before my brain identifies the piece. A piano melody, delicate and insistent, building with the gradual intensity of a sunrise, the kind of composition that figure skaters dream about because it provides the emotional architecture for every element in the routine.
I am not nervous about being watched. The facility is emptying. The team is in the showers. The figure skating squad will not arrive for another thirty minutes. It is just me and Raphaël and the ice and the music, and the privacy of the moment allows me to release the tension that typically accompanies performance and settle into the pure, unwitnessed joy of movement.
We begin.
The first chorus is rough.
I will not pretend otherwise. I have not danced with a partner in over two years, and the muscle memory that governs solo performance operates on a different frequency than the trust required for paired skating. My timing is a fraction late on the first sequence, my body anticipating the movement but hesitating at the point where I need to release control to the person beside me. A crossover that should flow into a synchronized glide stutters as I overcorrect my edge, my blade catching the ice with a scrape that makes me wince.
But Raphaël adjusts.
Seamlessly. Without instruction or complaint, he modifies his pace to match mine, slowing the sequence by a half-beat that allows me to find the rhythm without feeling rushed. His hand finds my waist during the first lift preparation, his grip steady and warm, his body providing the counterbalance that my solo instincts keep trying to provide for themselves.
And I realize, with a clarity that builds like the music itself, that syncing with Raphaël is easy.
Not forced. Not mechanical. Not the labored coordination of two athletes who have rehearsed a routine until compliance replaces chemistry. This is organic. His movements are smooth and flexible, carrying a liquidity that his height and build should theoretically prohibit but instead enhance, his frame glidingthrough transitions with a grace that makes me admire him in a capacity that extends beyond coaching and into artistry.
By the second chorus, we are synchronized.
