Chapter 4
A Developing Problem
I get to the rink first again.
The quiet hits. Usually I like that. Today it feels wrong. Too still. Too empty. The overhead lights reflect across untouched ice in a way that used to feel peaceful and now just feels unfinished.
My bag drops onto the bench with a familiar thud.
No music yet. No pucks hitting boards. No aggressive hockey stops tearing up the ice. Just silence. I lace my skates tighter than necessary and tell myself the strange restless energy under my skin is because Nationals and Worlds are getting closer.
Not because somebody is missing.
That would be ridiculous.
I push onto the ice and start warming up. Edges. Turns. Stretch sequences. The choreography my body knows well enough to run without me. But every few minutes my attention catches on the entrance anyway.
The sound of pipes shifting somewhere in the building makes me look up.
Not him.
A door closing somewhere down the corridor. Still not him. My jaw tightens.
This is ridiculous.
The man has been annoying me before sunrise for barely a week and somehow my brain has already decided he belongs here.
I transition into a spin too sharply and nearly lose the centre. I reset immediately and push harder into the next sequence, but the rink still feels off. Like something is missing.
Which is an absolutely insane thought. I check the clock without meaning to. Then get annoyed with myself for doing it. What exactly am I expecting? A scheduled appearance from the resident hockey menace?
Embarrassing.
I push faster across the ice, irritation humming beneath my skin. At myself this time.
The back entrance finally slams open and my head snaps toward it instantly. Calder steps inside carrying his hockey bag over one shoulder, hair still damp like he rushed out of the shower. Late. Something inside me unclenches so suddenly it catches me off guard.
My stomach tightens.
Oh, absolutely not.
Calder looks up the second he steps inside. His eyes find me immediately.
I hate that I notice.
He barely pauses after dropping his bag. Laces his skates without double-checking them. Steps onto the ice like he already knows exactly where I will be.
And, annoyingly, I know exactly where he's going too.
No awkward adjustment period anymore. No territorial standoff. Just movement.
I transition through centre ice while Calder circles wider near the boards running drills, and both of us shift automatically before our paths can intersect. No hesitation. No second guessing. Like our bodies figured out the pattern before either of us did.
My next transition comes in too sharp.
I push into a jump sequence while Calder accelerates behind me.
Normally the speed difference between hockey and figure skating should make sharing ice complicated.
Instead I widen my exit instinctively because I know Calder cuts left after building speed.
At the exact same moment he adjusts his line slightly farther out.
Neither of us looks at the other. Neither of us acknowledges it.
Which somehow makes it worse.
It feels practiced.
The puck that slams against the boards while I move through footwork near centre ice no longer breaks my concentration. My body absorbs the sound automatically now, folds it into the rhythm of the morning like it belongs there.
I nearly miss the next turn thinking about it.
Immediately after deciding not to think about it.
I skate backward through a transition and Calder cuts past me close enough that cold air brushes briefly across my arm.
Neither of us reacts. No irritation. No sharp look across the rink.
Just a slight adjustment in our paths and then we're moving again.
Easy. Automatic. Like this is simply how mornings work now.
Calder pushes into another drill while I reset for a spin sequence.
Without looking at each other directly, we shift at the exact same moment and avoid collision by inches.
No hesitation. No correction. Just certainty.
My stomach tightens unexpectedly. We've spent more than a week teaching our bodies where the other one will be.
The realization lands a second too late. Dangerously smooth.
The conversation starts the same way it always does. With criticism.
"Your music somehow sounds sadder today," Calder says as he skates past during a drill.
I transition backward through centre ice without looking at him. "That's because your hockey energy lowered the vibe."
"Hockey energy?"
"You stomp around the rink like an emotionally repressed rhinoceros."
Calder snorts softly. "Figure skaters really think they're poets, huh?"
"At least my sport has emotional depth."
"At least my sport wears proper jackets."
I look over at him finally. "You wear shoulder pads and fight people recreationally."
"It builds character."
"It builds concussions."
Calder laughs quietly under his breath as he circles away again. The sound is brief. Gone almost immediately. Still, I find myself tracking it across the rink long after it should matter.
I hate that I notice the difference.
I push into another jump while Calder resets near the boards. "You always train this early?" he asks.
"Comps are in a few weeks," I say, landing cleanly before transitioning backward. "Ice time gets competitive closer to competition season."
Calder nods once like that makes complete sense. "The season ramps up for us next month."
The word lands strangely. Us. The team. I push the thought away before it can settle anywhere useful.
"You actually enjoy morning training?" I ask.
"No." Calder corrals another puck smoothly against his stick. "But I enjoy being yelled at less than I enjoy sleeping."
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. "Fair."
Calder shoots another puck before glancing toward me again. "You always rehearse full routines this many times?"
"You always destroy ice surfaces this aggressively?"
"That's not an answer."
"It's called deflection. Very advanced communication strategy."
"Terrifying social skills."
"Thank you."
Calder shakes his head once, still looking amused.
And that is the strange part, how easily the conversation keeps continuing.
No sharp edges. No deliberate provoking.
Just talking threaded naturally through movement, fitting itself around the training the same way our lines across the ice have started fitting around each other.
I learn Calder tapes his stick differently depending on whether he is in a scoring slump.
He learns I always skate one clean run-through before attempting jumps because Coach thinks panic ruins edge control.
The details slip out between drills before either of us seems to notice we're giving them away.
Somewhere along the way we stop arguing and start talking. The change is subtle enough that I don't notice it until we're already discussing sleep schedules, training loads, and the universal experience of being yelled at by people paid to improve us.
That feels significantly more dangerous than the fighting.
My legs are heavier than usual during the next run-through, exhaustion settling low through my muscles in a way I normally ignore easily. Too many training sessions. Too little sleep. Too much pressure sitting permanently at the base of my skull. Normal. I push into the jump sequence anyway.
The first landing comes down slightly rough. Not bad enough for most people to notice. Bad enough that irritation flashes through me. I reset and try again. This time I over-rotate slightly coming out of the transition. My balance catches half a beat late.
"Your timing's off."
Calder's voice cuts casually across the rink. He is skating slow circles near the boards, stick resting loosely in one hand. No smug expression. No challenge. Just observation.
"My timing is fine."
"You're compensating before the landing again."
I open my mouth. Then close it. Because he is right. Again.
The irritation that follows lands almost entirely at myself, which is somehow worse than when it was at him.
I push harder into the next sequence like that somehow fixes anything. My landing jars slightly rough beneath my blade. Not painful. Just tired.
"You're exhausted," Calder says. Not teasing. Not mocking. Certain. Like he is reading something off the ice rather than off my face.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck.
"I'm fine."
"Sure."
I wait for the irritation. It never arrives. I skate another lap mostly so I do not have to look at him.
I finally give up pretending my legs are not burning halfway through the next run-through.
Mostly because Calder is apparently capable of spotting exhaustion from across an entire rink like some kind of emotionally inconvenient bloodhound.
I skate toward the boards and sit carefully on the edge, pulling guards onto my blades before reaching for my water bottle.
A few seconds later Calder skates over. Not making a big deal out of it. Not asking permission. He just settles onto the boards a few feet away like this is normal now. Which, disturbingly, maybe it is.
For a while neither of us says anything.
The rink hums quietly around us. The distant buzz of overhead lights, the soft crackle of ice shifting beneath the temperature changes, the sound of Calder retaping his stick with quick automatic movements.
It should feel awkward. Instead it feels easy.
Comfortable in a way that has no business existing between two people who spent the first few days of knowing each other in open territorial warfare.
Calder finishes the tape and leans back slightly against the boards, close enough that I can feel the residual cold radiating off his gear. Neither of us moves away. Neither of us fills the quiet unnecessarily. We just sit there together breathing cold air into the same empty rink.
The realization arrives slowly. At some point I stopped waiting for him to leave. That feels like information I should probably be more concerned about.
Calder checks the clock mounted above the rink a few minutes later and exhales quietly. "Coach is going to murder me if I'm late again."
Something in my chest drops slightly at the words, which I am going to ignore entirely.
He stands and adjusts his bag over one shoulder before stepping back onto the ice to collect the loose pucks, movements practiced and unhurried. The whole thing looks routine. Familiar. I hate that I notice.
"You're late a lot?" I ask.
Calder glances over while corralling another puck. "Only when I'm here."
The answer lands strangely.
Annoying.
He skates back to the boards, hooks his stick against the bench, and looks at me. Not lingering. Not heavy. Just steady and direct in the way he does everything.
"Don't overtrain today," he says. Casual. Like the words leave him before he thinks too hard about them.
The quiet concern threaded underneath catches me completely off guard. Before I can answer he pushes away from the boards and heads for the exit. No dramatic goodbye. Just movement.
The back door swings shut behind him.
The rink goes silent.
The silence feels louder after he leaves. I stare toward the closed door a second longer than necessary, then force myself back onto the ice. Reset the music. Push into position. Start the routine again from the top.
But something is wrong. The rhythm is off in a way I cannot correct with technique.
No puck impacts against the boards. No hockey stops cutting across the surface.
No low commentary drifting across the rink while I skate.
The empty space near the boards keeps catching my attention.
Every time I pass it, something feels slightly out of place.
I miss a transition. Not badly. Enough.
I stop near centre ice, irritation flaring. At myself. Because the problem is not the routine. The problem is that somewhere along the way I got used to sharing the ice with him.
I stand there breathing hard while cold air curls around me.
I stare at the empty space near the boards much longer than necessary. Enough that I have completely stopped pretending otherwise.
That last part is probably the most alarming thing that has happened this week.
And this week included a near-collision and the realization that Calder Hayes notices when my landings are tired.
So.