DELAYED PENALTY
Nate
“I’d lace her skates a thousand times.”
Inside, the rink air hit him like a memory. Cold. Biting.Right. The chill settled in his lungs and whisperedthis is home. But he barely registered it. Not with Holly bent over beside him on the bench, tugging at her laces with her brows furrowed in concentration and her tongue poking out like she was solving a goddamn national emergency.
“You want help?” he asked, crouching down beside her, knees cracking like old ice.
“I’m good,” she insisted, right before the laces slipped from her grip and whipped her knuckles.
“Right,” he grinned. “Nailed it.”
She smacked his shoulder, muttering, “Don’t start,” but he was already reaching for her foot.
“C’mere.”
She let him. No sass this time. Just silence as he braced her ankle, fingers sure and steady, tightening the laces and tyingpracticed loops. His hand dwarfed the skate, her calf warm and solid under his palm, and when he looked up, there she was. Watching him. Eyes soft, curious, a little too open. Like maybe she’d finally stepped off the ledge too.
“Other foot,” he said, throat tight.
“Bossy,” she murmured, but lifted it anyway. He tied that one too, just as careful, just as quiet. She stood, inches away from him with her breath fogging between them. Holly, inhisworld, looking like every dream he never let himself have.
She tilted her head, smirking.“Dick.You’re picturing me naked right now, aren’t you?”
He huffed out a breath that was part laugh, part prayer. “No,” he said softly. “I’m picturing you on a porch swing. Twenty years from now. Still giving me shit. Still wrecking me.”
“Yeah?” Her voice dipped into a challenge, husky enough to make something in his chest tighten. “If you let me fall on my ass out there, Iwillwreck you, Eriksson. No jury would convict me.”
He smirked. “Reckon I’d enjoy it.”
Holly rolled her eyes like he didn’t fluster her, but the flush across her cheeks said otherwise.
They stepped onto the ice together, and the second her fingers tightened around his arm like a lifeline, Nate felt something in his chest go soft in a way that made him want to swear. He’d never seen anything more beautiful than her in rented skates and sheer, stubborn audacity, clutching him like she trusted him not to let her fall.
It shouldn’t have been a big deal. But the way she leaned into him, warm through her jacket, made it feel like something holy. Like a door opening. Like he’d been holding his breath his whole damn life and had only just realized it. Her perfume cut through the rink’s sharp chemical chill, and he was just noticing the baby curls at her temples that had come loose from her ponytail when she wobbled.
It happened instantly. Heels skidding, arms flailing, a flash of panic crossing her face. Nate reacted before his thoughts intervened. One smooth catch at her waist, one firm pull, and suddenly she was flush against him, breathless and wide-eyed, her palms pressed to his chest like she’d meant to land there all along. His grip was easy and practiced, with a strength that could have been cruel but turned gentle for her without him even trying.
The softness of it surprised him every time. It surprised him that he wanted to be careful. That he wanted to keep her safe, not because she needed it but because he wanted to be the man whocould. He smirked anyway, because that was safer than letting her see the way his pulse had jumped.
“Easy, killer,” he murmured, voice warm with teasing. “Anyone’d think you did that on purpose just to feel me up.”
She lifted her brows, all haughty elegance even while clutching him for dear life. “I wouldnever,”she said loftily.
Nate saw the tiny tug at the corner of her mouth, the gleam in her eyes that betrayed her. That spark. That wicked little willingness. It went straight through him like a hook. He grinned, showing her the Hammerhead everyone feared. The one who would smash a dude into the boards and smile after. But only because she liked the bite.
“Oh, I think you absolutely would,” he said, his hand sliding a fraction lower on her waist, deliberate enough to make meaning. A test to see what would happen if he touched her like hewanted to. “In fact,” he added, voice dropping, arctic gaze glittering with wicked mischief, “I’m fuckin’ counting on it.”
Holly snorted and elbowed him half-heartedly in the ribs, like she needed to prove she still had teeth. “You’re so full of shit,” she snapped, but her cheeks were pink and her hands stayed right where they were, gripping his hoodie like she belonged there.
Nate’s laugh came out low and helpless because he was gone for her in a way he didn’t know how to explain. By the fact she’d shown up like this was normal, like there were no cameras, no League, no consequences. Just them in the quiet morning air, pretending for a second that the world couldn’t touch them.
“Careful,” he warned softly. “You might make me let go.” And then he loosened his hold just enough to let her wobble, just enough to make her squeak and grab him harder.
“Nate!”
His name bounced off the empty rink like bright, startled music, and it hit him right in the ribs. Right in the place he kept locked down. It made him want to laugh and kiss her and hold her forever all at once. He flashed her a crooked grin like a devil about to make a deal, tightening his grip again, anchoring her the way he always would if she let him. This was theirs. A stolen piece of what their relationship could look like if they ever stopped running. If they ever stopped pretending they didn’t want it. If he ever dared to believe she could choose him without needing a reason.
