The video session started. She didn't retain a single second of it.
That night, walking back to her camper in the circle of his silent presence, she finally asked the question that had been building all week.
"Why do you let me get away with it?"
"Get away with what?"
"The condiments. The phone wallpaper. The seat. Any of it." She stopped walking, forcing him to stop too, to turn and face her in the dim light. "I've been deliberately messing with your stuff. Your routine. Your whole... thing. Anyone else would have told me to stop. Why haven't you?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Around them, the parking lot was silent except for the distant hum of the arena's climate control systems and the chirp of early autumn crickets.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I should mind. I do mind. But—" He broke off, shaking his head. "When you move things, I have to think about them differently. I have to notice them again instead of just... going through the motions." His eyes found hers. "You make me notice things."
Her breath caught.
"That was almost poetic," she whispered. "Who knew you had it in you?"
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation."
"Your secret's safe with me." She took a step closer, close enough to touch if she wanted to. She wanted to. God, she wanted to. "For what it's worth, you make me notice things too."
His hand rose, hovered near her face for a heartbeat, then dropped back to his side. "You should go inside. It's getting cold."
"Right." She stepped back, the moment breaking like a soap bubble. "Cold. Yes."
"I'll wait until you're in."
"You always do."
She walked to her camper on legs that felt unsteady, unlocked the door, and turned to look at him one last time. He stood where she'd left him, a massive silhouette in the darkness, watching her with an intensity she could feel even from thirty feet away.
She raised her hand in a small wave. He nodded once.
Then she went inside and leaned against the closed door, heart hammering, knowing with absolute certainty that she was in way over her head.
CHAPTER SIX
The weather report had been wrong. Not slightly wrong. Not "chance of flurries might be chance of snow" wrong. Catastrophically, life-threateningly, someone-should-be-fired wrong. The forecast had called for three to five inches overnight, tapering off by morning. Instead, Greenwood Hollow was buried under eighteen inches and counting, with winds gusting hard enough to rattle the arena's industrial doors and send visibility plummeting to near zero.
Tarmek stood at the window of his office watching the parking lot disappear under a blanket of white. Practice had been cancelled hours ago. Most of the team had gone home before the worst of it hit, warned off by Coach Morrison's increasingly frantic weather app notifications.
But not everyone had left.
His phone buzzed.
Fen: Made it home. Roads are brutal. Stay safe, captain.
He typed back a brief acknowledgment, then checked the time. 8:43 PM. The storm showed no signs of letting up. Thearena's emergency systems had kicked in an hour ago, backup generators humming to life when the first power surge had flickered the lights.
He should leave. His condo was only ten minutes away under normal conditions, but it might take thirty in this mess, even with four-wheel drive and careful navigation. He had supplies. A fireplace that actually worked. Everything he needed to ride out the storm in reasonable comfort.
Instead, he found himself walking towards the back exit. The one that faced the parking structure. The one that gave him a clear view of Edie's camper.
It was still there. A small, colorful box of painted flowers and cheerful stripes, now barely visible under the accumulating snow. The windows glowed faintly but something about the light looked wrong. Unsteady.
He pushed through the door and immediately regretted not grabbing his coat. The wind slammed into him, driving ice particles into his face and finding every gap in his practice clothes. He squinted against the white-out conditions, focusing on the camper, and forced himself forward.
The walk that normally took thirty seconds stretched into two minutes of battling drifts that reached his knees. By the time he reached the camper, his fingers were numb and his lungs burned from breathing frozen air.
