I sigh in annoyance.
I huff. “I don’t even know his name.”
Leo’s smile turns slow. Knowing.
“Oh,” he says. “You will.”
I narrow my eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Tess cuts in smoothly, “that you should go get warm.”
She steers me gently toward the seating area, her hand solid at my back.
Behind us, Leo watches the ice like he’s waiting for a sequel.
I don’t look back.
But my heart is still skating.
Chapter 2
Zane
I shouldn’t have done that interview. My agent is going to be pissed.
In the background, the announcer talks about the charity event. We have to be back on the ice again in thirty minutes while three people who have never skated before try to make it to the blue line. I can’t wait for this to be over and for the game to actually start.
The audience cheers loudly, so I turn around.
I notice her before she even takes a full step onto the ice.
Leo told me about his friend joining the challenge. I had no idea who she was, but I notice her immediately.
Not because she’s loud, she’s not. If anything, she looks like she’d rather melt into the boards than be the center of attention.
But the moment she steps through the gate, something in the rink shifts.
She’s not built like the women I usually see around the arena. Not the long-legged influencer types who show up in designer jackets and pose for pictures between periods.
She is… softer than that.
She has curves, my brain immediately starts cataloging before I can stop it, hips that fill out the pink dress she’s wearing, a steadiness in the way she holds herself, even though she clearly has no idea how to skate. When she lifts her arms to balance, the fabric shifts just enough to reveal a sliver of skin at her waist, and something in my chest goes unexpectedly tight.
She looks real.
She looks alive in a way that makes the rest of the rink fade into background noise.
And then she nearly eats it.
Her arms windmill, eyes wide, the crowd laughing affectionately as she tries to stay upright. “You can do it”, I find myself thinking.
There’s a microsecond where confidence evaporates, and instinct takes over, something I’ve learned to recognize over years on the ice.
Fear doesn’t always look like panic.
Sometimes it looks like humor.
And she looks like she’s funny.
