NOVEMBER
I slid into the triple axel entry for the twenty-seventh time. Every time I'd run it for the past three weeks, my hip had landed tight. It was the kind of thing the judges wouldn't see, but that didn't matter. I knew it, and I couldn't rest until I'd corrected every flaw or until I broke. So far, I was closer to perfection than breaking.
I took off from the ice and hit the rotation perfectly, but the landing was still stiff. Dammit, Joel. Do it again. And do it fucking right this time.
I skated back to the other side and ran it again.
Still not right. My ankle throbbed. I ignored it. Pain was just information. I'd stopped letting it make decisions for me a long time ago.
I turned into my backward crossovers, building speed for the full sequence, and a redheaded man stepped onto the ice directly in my path.
I carved a hard stop. Ice sprayed across the rink, and the cold rushed in along with the silence.
He raised his hands, but I wasn't looking at them.
I yanked out my earbud. "Do you have a fucking death wish?"
He blinked. "What?"
"You're on my ice in sneakers."
He looked down at his worn Nikes like he'd forgotten what he was wearing and then shrugged. "Didn't realize it was your ice."
This fucking asshole. Just who did he think he was? I took in the rust-red hair, the cocky stance, the red and white RISTRAS jersey. Hockey player. Of fucking course he was. "It is from five to seven."
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and held it up. "They double-booked us," he said.
"That's not possible." I snatched the paper out of his fingers and scanned it. Fuck, he was right. Someone, somewhere, was going to get a very angry call from my manager. Natalia was better at handling people than I was.
I stared at him. He stared back, completely unbothered, like he had all day to stand here in his sneakers on my ice.
"Look," he said, "the manager's not here until seven, so we can sort it out then. For now, we can stand here arguing about it, or you can go back to doing your..." He waved a hand at the ice behind me. "Spinny thing."
" Axels," I corrected.
"Sure, man. Look, I just need the far end. You won't even know I'm here."
I should have told him to get the fuck off my ice. I should have skated to the office and waited for someone to fix this. Instead, I turned and pushed off toward center ice without a word.
He could take that however he wanted.
I wasn't going to look at him. I was going to run my sequence and ignore him completely and pretend he didn't exist.
That lasted all of thirty seconds.
He'd made his way to the far boards in those stupid sneakers and was lacing up a pair of hockey skates. When he stood and stepped onto the ice, his whole body changed. The cockiness smoothed into an easy, loose posture.
He skated like all hockey players—low center of gravity, all power and no finesse—but there was something about the way he moved that made it hard to look away. He wasn't fighting the ice. He was just... on it. Like it belonged to him.
I'd spent twenty years earning every edge. He just existed out there like the ice had always been his.
I forced myself back into the entry sequence and missed the first turn completely.
Fuck.
I ran the sequence again and missed the second turn too, because I was watching him instead of my feet.
He'd picked up speed on the curve, letting his stride lengthen. When he carved a hard stop at the boards, ice sprayed up and caught the overhead lights, and I was just standing there in the middle of the rink like an idiot.
