Page 19 of Break the Ice
Too late. Tears are rolling down her freckled cheeks like they’re burning down mine as I laugh at her ridiculous endearment for me. She’s used it since we met at college even though she knows I’m not Amish.
“It’s been too fucking long,” she snorts, gripping my hands tighter and pulling me into her again.
Her personality is so big that I’d forgotten how tiny she is until now that her face is buried in my chest while she hugs me.
“Holy shit, I’ve missed you so much, Fin-bug.” When she looks up at me, her grin is still quivering, and her strawberry blonde hair is stuck to her face. “Fuck, he really did get you out of there.Finally,” she growls excitedly, peering up at Elijah.
A pressed smile tugs when I turn to find him watching us.
“Good job, Blondie.”
I throw myself at him, knowing he’ll catch me like always.
His arms go around me, holding me to his chest while Christina strokes my hair.
“I have to go,” he whispers into my ear, hugging me harder before he pulls away. “An Uber will pick you up in ten and take you to the arena. Christina knows where to go and what to do when you arrive. I’ll come and get you after the game.”
As I nod, he wraps a navy and purple scarf around my neck and whispers, “I’ll be watching you.”
“Jesus Christ, stop it…” Christina hedges between us as a cacophony of voices rumbles somewhere behind Elijah. “Go on, Blondie… Shoo, go do your thing.”
When he starts walking backwards, towards the team filing out of the hotel, Christina links her arm with mine.
“I forgive you,” she calls, earning herself an eye roll from Elijah.
“Behave,” is all he mouths as he turns around and joins the group of players watching him. The same faces from the restaurant when we arrived… and Jayden.
He looks as sharp as Elijah, but even from a distance, there’s a joviality that exudes from him as he waves at me. Warmth bubbles in my chest, fizzing in my lungs when his focus moves to Elijah and he greets him with a secret handshake.
Although he can’t travel with the team, Elijah has a car waiting todrive him to the ice plex behind the team bus. I watch them disappear, leaving a relentless pull in my chest in their wake.
Normally,Christina gives me a rundown of the games in real time over text, sometimes calling me if things get exciting—even though she’s never cared about sports a day in her life.
But tonight, she’s on her feet like every other screaming fan in the arena, yelling at the ice as though she’s lived and breathed this game forever. The din of thousands of voices ricochets through the rafters, mixing with the blare of the horn and the relentless pound of the music between plays.
“This is why I can’t watch sports,” she mutters through gritted teeth, not taking her eyes off the rink while Elijah, across the arena in the press box, freezes mid-pace.
His tall frame is glued to the glass like he’s ready to shatter through it and join the chaos on the ice. Even from this distance, I can tell by the tight set of his shoulders that he’s holding his breath, willing the Comets to change the game by sheer force of will.
“Shit. Shit… shit… Come on!” Christina stomps beside me, her sneakers squealing against the concrete as her hands grip the seat in front of us like she’s hanging off a cliff. “Get it in!”
The Fury are up two-to-one, and the whole atmosphere crackles with frayed nerves and bad tempers. Gritty hits slam into the boards hard enough that I feel each one echo through my bones.
“Pass the damn puck!” Christina’s on tiptoes now, hands half-covering her face like she can’t decide whether she wants to see or not.
Her constant commentary has been the only thing keeping me grounded since Elijah left us at the hotel. But as the play surges end to end, my nerves coil tighter and tighter.Every time a player blurs too close to our seating block, I expect it—that hand clamping down on my arm, the sharp jerk back toward Havenview, toward the Elders, toward all the dark places I barely escaped. But no one comes. No one touches me.
My gaze cuts to the press box again.
Elijah hasn’t moved.
Even from here, I can feel his tension winding through the air, matching mine beat for beat.
The jumbotron flashes to a close-up as the Comets make a desperate rush toward the Fury’s net. Number seventy-four cuts across the screen, and my breath catches sharp in my throat.
Jayden.
The crowd surges to its feet, the swell of voices crashing together?—
