He glanced at me, eyes softer now but still shadowed. “Better.”
I lined up another shot. “I could do this all night.”
“Don’t,” he said, faint smile ghosting. “You’ll burn out.”
“I thought pain made character.”
“That’s what we tell rookies, so they shut up and skate.”
I laughed, the sound echoing across empty seats. He looked at me then—really looked. For once, no barked order behindit. Just something quiet, almost proud, that melted the space between restraint and whatever this was turning into.
The puck skated away from us, spinning lazy circles before tilting to a stop near the crease. I wanted to move toward it, break the tension, but his voice caught me before I did.
“Good work, Donovan,” he said, low again. “You found your center.”
We were still too close. His breath brushed the back of my neck, warm against the chill rising off the ice. I could feel it scrape down my spine like static. When I turned, we locked eyes, and the sound of the rink—the hum, the buzz, the faint rattle of pipes overhead—fell away.
His pupils were wide, haloed by tired gray. Up close, the scar near his temple caught the harsh fluorescent light. Everything in me went still except for the tiny hitch in my chest that I couldn’t control.
He didn’t blink. Neither did I. We just… stayed there. Two people who had already made one mistake, hanging in the middle of another.
He stepped back first, sharp and quick, like the distance burned him.
The sudden cold crawled over the parts of me he’d touched—hips, ribs, hands. The echo of his grip stayed, phantom heat under the gear.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he rasped.
“Right. Yeah.” My voice cracked halfway through. “Thanks.”
I bent for my stick, pretending not to notice how my fingers shook. The blade clattered against the ice when I missed my grip.Smooth, Donovan. Very professional.
He didn’t come closer to help. Just stood there, jaw tight, eyes trained on the net like it might save him from saying more.
I shoved my gear into my bag and skated off, every glide too loud against the emptiness. When I reached the bench, I glancedover my shoulder once—habit, not hope. He hadn’t moved. Still staring down that net like the damn thing was whispering secrets he didn’t want to hear.
The locker room lights buzzed harder than usual. I sank onto the nearest bench and tugged off my gloves. The air smelled like wet tape and ice shavings. My pulse wouldn’t slow. Every spot his hands had been felt alive, pulsing under my jersey, begging for air. I pushed both palms against my thighs and breathed until the shaking dulled.
What the hell was that? Coaching didn’t usually come with hands and proximity and silence heavy enough to drown in.
I peeled off my pads piece by piece. When I reached my undershirt, I caught my reflection in the metal locker door—flushed cheeks, hair sticking to my neck, eyes too bright. I looked like someone who’d forgotten which side of the line she was on.
Zipping up my coat, I almost laughed. There wasn’t a handbook for this kind of disaster. You didn’t kiss your coach, fall for his drills, then stand shivering on an empty rink because he still made you feel like you could fly.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and didn’t let myself look back through the glass window. I didn’t want to see if he was still there, still watching the net as if it had tried to answer.
Outside, night lay over the parking lot like a thin sheet of frost. My breath ghosted white in front of me. I walked faster, hoping the cold would steal what little heat was left.
The walk to my dorm back cut through the dark like a punishment. My skates banged against my hip, each step ringing louder than it should. The streetlights threw long, cold shadows, but all I could see was the rink—his eyes, his voice, the way his hands had steadied me like he actually believed I could do it.
He believed in me. No one ever has like that.
And that’s the problem.
Every breath scraped my chest raw. I shouldn’t care. It was just coaching. Just corrections. Except it wasn’t—not in that silence that felt like it could swallow us whole.
By the time I reached my building, my pulse still hadn’t found its rhythm. I went straight to my room, dropped my bag, locked the door. The dull click sounded final, like sealing something dangerous on the other side.
The desk lamp flickered when I turned it on. My textbook waited, open to the same page I’d been pretending to study for days. The words refused to hold still. Sentences blurred into white space. I tried to focus on the formulas, the neat margins, anything.
