The second straightaway, he caught up. His breathing was hard and close, the heat of him right behind my shoulder. On the third lap, he pulled ahead again, but every corner was mine. By lap four, we were dead even, close enough to touch.
Lap five, I decided to show off. He was on my inside coming out of the turn, ready to blow past me on the straight. Instead of pushing forward, I transitioned into backward crossovers, facing him as I skated. His eyes went wide. I held the position for three beats, matching his speed while skating in reverse, and then spun forward and accelerated.
"What the fuck," he panted behind me.
"Keep up, Red."
By lap seven, my thighs were burning. He was still right there, refusing to drop back. Stubborn bastard.
Then, on lap eight, he did something I didn't expect.
He'd been taking corners wide the whole race, but this time he dropped his inside shoulder and carved the turn tight, so tight his knee nearly scraped the ice, and came out ahead of me.
The fury hit like a fist to the chest. This AHL nobody had just taken my move.
I dug deeper and caught him on the straight. We were shoulder to shoulder going into lap nine. His breathing was ragged, almost gasping. Mine wasn't much better.
He glanced over at me, face flushed, hair dark with sweat, lips parted around each harsh breath. He was grinning like this was the best thing that had happened to him all week.
And so was I.
Final lap. We hit the last straightaway neck and neck. He was digging for something extra. So was I. I'd been training for quads, for programs that demanded three and a half minutes of peak performance.
I pushed harder. He pushed even harder. The finish line was the center mark.
We crossed at the same time.
I coasted to a stop, hands on my knees, chest heaving. The race was supposed to put him in his place, make him small enough to ignore.
Instead, we'd spent ten laps breathing the same air. I knew how he moved now. The exact rhythm of his breathing when he pushed past his limits.
"Tie," he managed between gasps.
"I was ahead."
"Bullshit. I had you by a blade."
"You cheated at the start."
"That's just hockey." He straightened up, still breathing hard, grinning so wide it was obscene. "Rematch tomorrow?"
I should say no and cut this off before it became something I couldn't control.
"Same terms," I said. "Loser buys coffee."
"Deal."
He skated toward the bench, moving gingerly now that the adrenaline was fading. I followed him.
The cold seeped through my leggings when I sat down. Red dropped onto the bench beside me, closer than he needed to be, and tipped his head back against the boards.
"Fuck," he said to the ceiling. "I'm going to feel that tomorrow."
"You're going to feel it in an hour."
"Probably." He didn't sound upset about it. He sounded satisfied, like pain was just the price of something worth doing.
I grabbed my water bottle and drank. Didn't look at him. Didn't look at the strip of stomach where his shirt had ridden up, or the way his chest was still heaving, or the flush spreading down his neck.
