We stepped onto the ice together, and the cold air hit my face in a rush of sense memory so strong it nearly knocked me sideways. My first few strides were shaky, uncertain, my body trying to remember movements it hadn't made in years. But Rook stayed close, matching my pace, and gradually the old instincts started waking up.
By the time we'd made a full lap around the rink, I was starting to feel it come back. The balance, the rhythm, the waymy weight needed to shift to make the turns work. It wasn't smooth, wasn't pretty, but it was there under all the rust.
“Not bad,” Rook said, skating backward in front of me with an ease that made me want to trip him on principle. “Thought you said you forgot how to do this.”
“I said I was rusty. There's a difference.” I pushed off harder, picking up speed, and felt the muscle memory click into place in ways that made my whole body sing. “Watch and learn, Kincaid.”
“Oh, we're doing this now?” He was grinning, that competitive edge lighting up his eyes in ways I remembered from a hundred games we'd played together. “Alright, Vale. Let's see what you've got.”
He grabbed a puck from the bench and dropped it between us, and then we were moving. One-on-one, no rules, just two guys who used to know each other's playing style by heart trying to remember if any of that still held true.
Rook was better than me. That was obvious within the first thirty seconds. He was faster, stronger, more controlled, every movement honed by years of professional training. But I'd always been trickier, more willing to take risks, and after a few minutes of feeling him out I remembered how to use that.
I faked left and went right, slipping past him while he was still adjusting, and took a shot that bounced off the post with a satisfying clang.
“Fuck,” I said, grinning despite myself. “Almost had it.”
“You're still too aggressive on your approach,” Rook said, circling back around. “Telegraphing where you're going.”
“I'm out of practice. Give me a break.”
“No breaks. You wanted to play, we're playing.” He stole the puck back and took off down the ice, and I chased him purely on instinct.
We went back and forth like that for a while, trading possession and chirping each other like we were eighteen again. Rook called me rusty, I called him slow, and the banter felt so natural I almost forgot about the club and the kiss and all the complicated shit sitting between us.
I managed to steal the puck from him during one exchange, deking around him in a move that was more luck than skill, and his frustrated “How the fuck did you do that?” made me laugh so hard I nearly fell over.
“Still got it,” I said, way too proud of myself.
“You got lucky.”
“Luck is a skill.”
“That's not how skills work.” He skated up behind me, and I felt his presence at my back before I heard his voice. “Here, let me show you where you're losing balance on the turns.”
His arms came around me from behind, hands settling on my hips to adjust my stance, and my brain went completely offline. He was close enough that I could feel his breath against the back of my neck, could smell the faint scent of his soap mixing with sweat and ice, could feel the solid warmth of his chest pressed against my shoulders through all the gear.
“You're leaning too far forward,” he said, and his voice was right by my ear, low and focused. “Shift your weight back, like this.”
He guided my hips backward, and I felt every inch of him pressed against me in ways that made coherent thought absolutely impossible. And then I felt it—the unmistakable hardness pressing against my lower back through his gear, the evidence that Rook was just as affected by this as I was.
My own body responded immediately, blood rushing south so fast it made me dizzy. I could feel myself getting hard, could feel the awareness between us shift into territory that wasdangerous and charged and absolutely not casual instruction anymore.
“Rook—” My voice came out rough, and I didn't know what I was trying to say. A warning, maybe. Or permission. Or just his name because I needed to say it.
His hands tightened on my hips for just a second, and I felt his breath hitch against my neck. Then he pulled back, putting distance between us so fast I nearly stumbled.
“Sorry,” he said, and his voice was strained in ways I'd never heard before. “I didn't mean to—that wasn't?—”
“It's fine.” It wasn't fine. It was the opposite of fine, because now I knew for certain that Rook got hard when he touched me, and I had no idea what the fuck to do with that information. “Just caught me off guard.”
We stood there on the ice staring at each other, both of us breathing harder than the skating warranted, and I could see the awareness in his eyes that matched what I was feeling. He knew I'd felt him. Knew I'd responded to it. Knew we'd just crossed some invisible line neither of us had acknowledged was there.
“We should probably call it,” he said finally, and I heard the reluctance in his voice. “It's getting late.”
“Yeah. Probably.” I didn't move, couldn't make myself skate away when every part of me wanted to close the distance between us instead.
Rook broke first, turning and heading for the bench, and I followed him on legs that felt unsteady for reasons that had nothing to do with being out of practice. We took off our skates in silence, the easy banter from earlier completely gone, replaced by tension so thick I could practically taste it.
