To anyone else, it’s nothing.But to him, it says everything.
I want my mouth on you.
I want to take you apart until you forget how to stand.
And I know he hears it—because his grip tightens for half a second before the cameras steal us back.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t pull away.
His eyes cut to mine for half a second—too much, too clear.Promise tangled with warning.Don’t.Please.Both living in the same look.
My pulse answers anyway:Make me stop.Or don’t.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
We stand there, hands locked, pretending this is nothing.
“Alright,” Stacy says, mercifully.“Ice time.”
He releases me.
My hand remembers him longer than it should.
The hallway to the locker rooms smells like rubber mats and old sweat and fresh paint, a weird mix of new beginning and familiar violence.The place feels alive—people moving with purpose, skates clacking somewhere in the distance, voices bouncing off concrete.
Monty and I split into our stalls like magnets repelling each other.
We’re not required to go full gear for B-roll, but Monty still does most of it, because he can’t help himself.He lays his equipment out in a precise line.Pads.Gloves.Mask.Every piece placed like it matters.
I watch from the corner of my eye as he lines everything up like he’s building a fence around his own nerves—pads squared, gloves stacked, stick leaned just so.He tugs the Velcro on his blocker strap, checks it.Then, checks it again, like the second time is the one that convinces his brain to shut up.Then his knuckles rap the edge of the stall—two quick knocks—because he needs some part of the world to answer back in a way he can predict.
Superstition.Ritual.Control.
My mouth twists because I can’t resist.
“You do realize the puck doesn’t care about your spiritual journey, right?”I say, voice light.
Monty doesn’t even look up.“And you do realize you talk too much, right?”
I grin.“It’s my love language, babe.”I wink at him.
His shoulders shift just a fraction.He’s probably ready to punch me, but knowing him ...he’ll swallow the anger and just skate it away.
In the tunnel, when the noise gets louder and the cameras start to feel close, he finally reaches for his mask.Two taps.A pause.Then he tightens the straps in the same order—right, left, right again—like a prayer he refuses to admit is a prayer.
We step onto the ice.
The rink is cold and bright, boards clean, glass clear.The air smells like ice and metal and the faintest hint of Zamboni exhaust.The sound of our blades carving the surface is too intimate for how public this is.
“Take a lap together,” the photographer yells.“Slowly.”
Monty skates like he was born on blades.He makes it look easy in a way that irritates me on principle.
I match his pace, and for a moment, it almost feels normal.As if we’ve always done this.Like there isn’t a woman back in his apartment with a pregnancy test and a laugh that sounds like it’s trying not to break.
