LUKA
I'm not looking for the café. I tell myself after getting her text.
The village is small enough that walking in circles becomes obvious after the third pass, but the night air bites clean and sharp, and moving keeps the thoughts from settling too deep. My jacket's zipped to my throat, hands shoved in my pockets because they need something to focus on that isn't the way I’ve been avoiding her.
Snow muffles the sound of my boots. Each step a reminder that I shouldn't be here. That instinct is a dangerous thing when you've spent your whole life learning not to trust it.
I turn the corner near the clock tower and then stop.
The café sits halfway down the street, windows glowing amber against the dark. Warm light spills across wooden tables inside.I can almost hear the hiss of the espresso machine inside. I don't need to get closer.
Through the window, at a table near the front, I see movement. A flash of cream-colored fabric. Dark hair catching the light.
Natalia.
I take three steps forward before I realize I'm moving.
She shifts in her chair, and something in the angle changes. The light hits her differently. Her hair falls around her shoulders in dark waves, like it did that night she walked into the bar in that burgundy sweater and told the skier that she was with someone.
She has one leg tucked under her, the other stretched out—protecting her injured ankle, probably. This cream sweater looks soft, the kind of soft that makes you think about textures. About what it would feel like under your palm.
I don’t let myself think about that.
Then Zack leans across the table, elbows planted, mug cradled in both hands. He says something I can’t make out.
She smiles back and nods, leaning in against the coffee table too, like they’re trading private stories—small secrets that only exist between two people who aren’t bracing for impact.
My hands tighten in my pockets.
This is good, I tell myself. This is how it’s supposed to be. She’s safe, and she’s not with someone who would drag her into the kind of mess she doesn’t deserve.
Not with someone whose life is always one headline away from detonating. Not with someone who learned early that love is leverage, that softness gets used against you, that people don’t stay unless they want something.
My father never loved anyone in a way that didn’t come with strings. He only knew how to own, how to control, how to punish.
If I let her stay close, I’ll ruin her, eventually. That’s what men like my father do. And I’m his son.
No matter how far I’ve run from him, no matter how many times I’ve sworn I’m nothing like him, there are moments I feel the same damage sitting in my blood.
Because he didn’t raise me, he built me.
Watching her laugh at something Zack says, watching the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, watching the ease in her shoulders that I’ve only ever seen in glimpses—it hurts in a way I don’t have words for. In a way that makes me understand why people use violence to solve things. Because at least violence is concrete. You can measure the damage, count the stitches, and calculate the recovery time.
This just bleeds.
I force myself to look away. To turn and to walk.
But then Natalia looks over, and our eyes meet. I take a step closer, ready to step into the café with no idea what I would say, but then my attention shifts to Zack, remembering that he’s there too.
I turn and leave, feeling Natalia’s eyes on me.
I've spent my entire life learning to control force. On the ice, in my hands, in my temper. Channeling it into something useful, something that earns a paycheck and keeps me just on the right side of suspension.
This should be easy, but it's not.
And the worst part—the part that sits ugly in my chest—is that I haven't touched anyone since she arrived. Not once. Not because I'm noble or virtuous or any of the things people might assume, but because I can't. Because since the moment Natalia Kovac walked into the media room in Seattle, something shifted, and I have no idea how to shift it back.
I used to be good at compartmentalizing. At keeping things simple, transactional, and meaningless. Physical release with nostrings, no complications, and no risk of permanent damage like broken hearts or misplaced trust.
