Page 48 of Hearts on Ice
So I made it about motion. Glide, set, push, recover. I focused on breath. The easy in and out that always found me once the ice took over. Tap left post. Tap right. Set again. I was lost in time. I’d just dropped into a butterfly when a door slammed somewhere deep in the hallway. My head snapped up, pulse jumping.
Another sound followed—footsteps, slow, confident.
“Hello?” My voice echoed.
“Miguel?”
I straightened. Coach—Drew’s voice carried through the empty arena. He walked out of the tunnel, not in practice gear but in jeans and a jacket. His hair was mussed like he’d run a hand through it more than once on the drive.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.
He nodded. “Figured I’d check the ice sensors before the tech comes in tomorrow, and saw the lights were on.”
That made sense. Coach stuff. A real reason to be here.
He came to the bench, hands on the rail. “How long have you been here?”
“Hm. Maybe about 45.”
His eyes tracked my gloves, the slow shift of my stance. “How’s the shoulder holding up?”
“Fine.” I hesitated. “It’s my head that won’t shut up.”
He didn’t joke. He didn’t have to. “That about the game or something else?”
“Something else.”
My voice felt too small in the rink. I dropped my gaze.
He didn’t push.
For a long minute, we just existed—me breathing hard from the drills, him leaning on the boards.
When I finally looked up, he was watching me like he was trying to figure something out.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said.
“I know,” he rasped. “But I don’t want to leave.”
Those eight words landed somewhere deep. I don’t think he even realized what he’d said.
I skated closer, slow, until I was right at the boards. He leaned down instinctively, hands gripping the rail. His face was only a few inches above mine now—gray eyes steady, unreadable.
The quiet between us thickened, filled with the hum of the compressors, the faint echo of my own breathing.
He tilted his head, eyes flicking over my chest protector. “Your pad’s folded.”
Before I could respond, he reached over the boards and smoothed the padded edge near my collarbone—just a smallcorrection, practical, automatic. But his fingers brushed bare skin where the padding ended, and that touch hit like a jolt.
His voice dropped lower. “Better.”
“Yeah.” My pulse stuttered. “Better.”
The air felt different—alive, charged.
He didn’t pull his hand away right away; his fingers lingered against the padding at my collarbone.
I kept still, pulse steady only in theory. My stick hand hovered uselessly, glove brushing the spot he’d just adjusted.
