We reset.
I push through the next set harder than I need to, mostly because the ice is the only place where things make sense. You show up, you work, you get better. You don’t overthink the parts that don’t belong in a locker room.
Like the way a woman’s attention can feel quiet and steady instead of loud and demanding.
Like the way I feel something stupidly warm when I picture her standing there, chin lifted, taking it all in and handling the circus.
Dex skates by again and sings, “Captain’s glowwwiiing.”
“I am not glowing.”
“You’re glowing,” Mason says. “You look like a man who slept well.”
Coach skates past us, arms crossed. “If you slept well, you’re skating like crap. Pick one.”
“I’m skating fine,” I say.
Coach points at my feet. “Your left edge is lazy.”
Dex snorts. “That’s what she said.”
The entire rink goes silent.
Coach slowly turns his head. “Miller.”
Dex lifts both hands. “I’m sorry. It was there. The joke wasthere.”
Coach doesn’t blink. “Bunny hops. Everyone.”
“Coach!” Mason protests.
Coach’s gaze sweeps over us. “You are all guilty by association.”
We do bunny hops across half the rink like a pack of overgrown toddlers in skates, and the humiliation is so intense it circles back around into funny. I let it crack me just enough.
Dex sees it and lights up like Christmas. “HE’S SMILING. HE’S DOWN BAD.”
Coach blows the whistle again. “Miller, skate.”
Dex takes off with dramatic suffering. “This is oppression!”
“Pass,” Coach yells.
We pass.
Ten minutes later, Gregory tries again, because Gregory has the curiosity of a cat and the subtlety of a surgeon. “So, is she famous or just stage-adjacent famous?”
“She’s a music manager,” I say, because there’s no point hiding it. They saw her. Half of Nashville saw her.
That earns me another full stop.
Dex’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. So she’s smart.”
“Yup.”
“And hot,” Mason adds, because Mason has never once stopped to think before speaking.
I shrug. “Objectively.”
