Whatever was happening over there had absolutely nothing to do with me.
My attention drifted toward the far entrance anyway when movement caught at the edge of my vision.
Davorin stepped back onto the ice.
And just like that, every other thought in my head lost the fight for space.
Chapter Four
Luka
Standing still was a mistake.
The moment practice ended, my thoughts circled straight back to Dean Foster: the locker room, the showers, the brief brush of his shoulder against mine… Each memory arrived sharper than the last, carrying a physical charge I wanted nothing to do with.
Motion had always been the fastest way to restore order. For a few minutes it worked. I traced clean lines across the rink, settled into familiar edges, and focused on the certainty of repetition.
Then Dean laughed at something on the far side of the rink, and my concentration shattered.
I didn’t even realize I’d been listening for him.
The realization hit hard enough that I nearly missed an edge.
No.
I drove into the next turn harder than necessary.
Focus.
Another lap. Another sequence.
I knew where Dean was without looking.
That was the problem. Every attempt to focus elsewhere merely confirmed it.
And if distance had genuinely been my objective, I wouldn’t have returned to the rink while he was still on it.
The thought irritated me enough that my next turn carved deeper into the ice.
Focus.
Another lap. Another sequence.
I lasted perhaps thirty seconds before abandoning that strategy.
Dean stood near the boards talking to Ethan Miller.
My next edge flattened. I corrected automatically.
I knew who Ethan was. Everybody did.
There were only a handful of openly queer athletes at these Games. No official list existed, but names travelled through competition circles all the same. Ethan Miller. Mateo Álvarez. Luca Benedetti. Ingrid Solheim. Keisha Thompson.
Athletes whose careers had continued. Whoseliveshad continued.
Dean laughed at something Ethan said, and I felt a sudden, unexpected pang. The interaction was so ordinary They moved through the conversation without caution or calculation, as though being seen carried no cost at all.
The comparison was pointless. My federation was not theirs. My country was not theirs.
