Joel moved like the music was coming out of him instead of the speakers. His hand traced down his chest, following the line of that silver mesh, and the gesture wasn't showing off. It was more like he was checking to see if something was still there, some wound he kept expecting to find.
Then he launched into a jump, and I stopped thinking about anything else.
I knew enough about figure skating to know what a triple axel looked like. I'd seen him land one the first day, and it had been impressive as hell. But this was different. This was the jump in context, part of something bigger, and when he landed, it was like watching a held breath release. No wobble, no adjustment, just down and forward into the next thing like he'd never doubted it for a second.
This wasn't practice. This was a program, a real one, the kind of thing you'd perform at a competition. And whoever was supposed to be in it with him wasn't there anymore. He was skating the whole thing alone, reaching for a partner who didn't exist, and I had to lean against the wall because my legs weren't doing their job.
I should leave. This was private. He was filming it, which meant he didn't want anyone to see it, and I was standing here holding three cups of coffee like an idiot while he poured something painful onto the ice.
But I couldn't make myself move.
The music kept building and Joel kept moving, and I watched him throw himself into another jump, a different one this time, and land it clean and go right into another. Back to back, the kind of thing that looked impossible, and his arms reached on every landing like he expected someone to catch him.
Nobody caught him. That was the whole point.
I'd spent years watching guys play through injuries, watching them hide the pain and keep going because that's what you did.I thought I knew what it looked like when someone was hurting and wouldn't admit it.
Joel wasn't hiding it. He was skating it. Putting it right out there on the ice where anyone could see it, except he thought no one was watching.
The song built to something that sounded like an ending, and Joel launched into one last jump, higher than the others, hanging in the air for a second that went on too long. He hit his final position as the music cut out, chest heaving, arms extended, head thrown back.
The rink went quiet.
Joel dropped his arms and skated toward the camera, pulling his phone out of somewhere to stop the recording. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling under that silver mesh, and I watched a bead of sweat trace down his throat and disappear under the costume.
Then he looked up and saw me.
For one second his face was completely open, startled and almost soft, like I'd caught him in the middle of something he couldn't take back.
I watched him shut it down. His jaw tightened first, then his shoulders pulled back, and he took a breath that looked like he was counting it. When he looked at me again, whatever I'd been seeing was gone.
He skated toward me, and his eyes never left mine.
By the time he reached the boards, his breathing had steadied. He looked like he'd been expecting me all along, like the last five minutes hadn't happened, like I hadn't just watched him rip himself open on the ice.
"How long have you been standing there?" he demanded.
"Long enough." I held up the cups. "I brought coffee. Didn't know what you liked, so I got options."
Joel didn't take them. He braced his hands on the boards and leaned forward into my space, close enough that I could see the sweat still drying at his temples. Heat came off him in waves even though he'd been on the ice for God knows how long. "You're late," he said.
I took a half-step back before I could stop myself.
His mouth curved, just a little, like he'd won something. "Over an hour late." He tilted his head, studying me the way a goalie studies a shooter.
"I wasn't sure I was coming," I said.
That was maybe the dumbest thing I could have admitted.
"And yet here you are." His gaze traveled down my body the same way I'd looked at him yesterday. "Bearing gifts."
"Caffeine." My voice came out rough. "As an apology."
"Apologies are for people who've done something wrong." He pushed off from the boards and glided backward a few feet, not breaking eye contact. "Did you do something wrong, Red?"
He said my name low and slow, like he was testing it.
"Showed up late," I said. "That's rude."
