Chapter 10
Too Quickly
The walks start happening without discussion after that.
Not every morning. Just enough that I start looking for Calder when I leave the rink.
Some days we barely talk. Exhaustion hangs heavily over both of us while the city stays dark and quiet around the sidewalks.
Other mornings he starts arguing before we reach the first corner.
Usually about my coffee habits. Or my apparently reckless decision to treat sleep like an optional extracurricular activity.
At some point I stop wondering why he's there.
Calder never asks if he's walking me home.
The rink doors swing open. I step outside.
A few seconds later he's beside me. Every time.
Like we've repeated it often enough that neither of us thinks about it anymore.
The routine settles around us before I notice it happening.
Cold air. Aching legs. Calder's rough voice cutting through the dark before sunrise.
His laugh echoing down empty streets. The occasional brush of his shoulder when the sidewalk narrows.
Conversations that should end and somehow don't. None of it dramatic. Nothing either of us acknowledges. I should say goodbye. That would be the normal thing to do. We're already outside my building. The walk is over. The conversation should be over too.
Instead Calder stays where he is. Not close enough to touch. Close enough that I'm aware of exactly where he is anyway. Streetlight catches along the edge of his jaw. His bag shifts higher on one shoulder. The movement pulls briefly at the sleeve of his hoodie.
I know that shoulder. The one he separated. I know which games left him limping afterward. I know which laugh is genuine and which one only sounds like it. The realization arrives quietly enough that I almost miss it. I know things about him now.
"You should probably rest before Nationals destroy you," he says.
I snort softly. "You say that like hockey isn't actively shortening your lifespan."
Calder laughs. Warm. Rough. Easy. The sound settles somewhere beneath my ribs. Silence follows. Not awkward. The kind that lingers. The kind that keeps finding reasons not to end.
"Do you want coffee?" I hear myself ask. The words leave my mouth. A second later my brain catches up.
Oh.
Silence. Calder blinks once. My pulse immediately loses all structural integrity.
Coffee. Coffee is normal. People drink coffee.
People invite other people for coffee every day.
Except suddenly none of those facts feel helpful.
The rink is one thing. The rink belongs to both of us now.
Shared space. Shared routine. Shared mornings.
My apartment isn't. My apartment is mine.
No expectations. No drills. No performances.
Just quiet. The place I disappear to when I get tired of being watched.
The place where I stop performing. And apparently I have just invited Calder into it.
Without thinking. Without planning. Without a single risk assessment.
A spectacular failure of judgment. I understand this immediately.
"I mean, you don't have to."
The backtrack arrives before I've fully committed to it. Abort mission immediately.
Calder watches me for a fraction too long. Then something shifts. Not amusement. Recognition.
"You offering caffeine before sunrise?" he asks softly. His voice drops lower in the cold air.
I shove my hands deeper into my pockets.
"You already judged my coffee habits. You might as well experience them properly."
Calder huffs out a quiet laugh. This stopped being about coffee the second the words left my mouth. Coffee is a disastrously misleading label for whatever this is. Not romantic. Somehow worse. Personal.
Calder looks at me. Then toward the apartment entrance.
Then back again. The movement is subtle.
The pause isn't. For a second he goes completely still.
I try not to read anything into it. An effort that lasts approximately half a second.
My fingers curl tighter inside my pockets.
I could still take it back. Probably. Maybe.
Calder shifts his weight. One hand tightens around the strap of his hockey bag. The silence stretches. Not long. Long enough. The kind of pause that only exists when the answer matters.
"You don't have to," I say again. Weakly.
Calder huffs out another laugh.
"You keep offering and immediately trying to escape the offer."
"I'm workshopping."
The corner of Calder's mouth lifts. Warm enough to make my pulse forget its responsibilities.
He exhales slowly through his nose. Looks toward the apartment entrance again.
Another hesitation. Small. Brief. The kind people make when they're standing at the edge of something and deciding whether to take one more step.
He fails.
"Yeah," Calder says roughly. "Okay."
The answer arrives so quickly it catches me off guard. For a second I just stand there. Because Calder saying yes suddenly feels far more significant than it has any right to. Not dramatic. Not life-changing.
Just real.
Calder adjusts his bag higher on one shoulder and steps toward the entrance beside me.
No hesitation now. Whatever decision needed making has apparently been made.
I pull my key from my pocket. Look at the door.
I could still fix this. Laugh it off. Call it a sleep-deprived mistake.
Blame caffeine withdrawal. Tell him never mind.
The rink is easier. The rink has rules. The rink makes sense.
I unlock the door anyway.
Not because I forgot to stop myself. Because I decided not to.
The lock clicks. I push the door open before I can reconsider.
Calder steps inside. The apartment immediately feels different.
Smaller somehow. He pauses just inside the doorway while I kick off my shoes automatically.
His gaze moves around the room. Quiet. Unhurried.
The stack of skating notebooks beside the couch. The half-dead plant by the window. The coffee table I keep meaning to replace. The faint scent of coffee and discount-store reed diffusers. My awareness sharpens with every place his attention lands.
Then Calder pulls off his jacket. His hockey bag settles beside the kitchen counter. His shoes end up beside mine near the entrance. His jacket lands across the back of one of the dining chairs. I watch it happen. One thing. Then another. Then another.
Small.
Ordinary.
The kind of ordinary that catches me completely unprepared.
Because this is how people look when they belong somewhere.
Not permanently. Not officially. Just comfortably.
Like they expect to stay for a while. And suddenly his jacket is hanging over my chair.
His shoes are beside mine. His bag is in my kitchen.
And Calder is standing in my apartment.
Calder feels absurdly large inside the apartment.
Not intimidating. Just impossible to ignore.
The apartment was built around one person.
One skater. One set of routines. Calder arrives with broad shoulders and long legs and somehow manages to occupy twice as much space as physics should reasonably allow.
I look away before that observation develops any further.
"You actually own furniture," Calder says.
I narrow my eyes while dropping my bag beside the couch.
"What exactly did you think figure skaters did outside the rink?"
"Lived entirely on protein bars and emotional repression?"
"That's hockey."
Calder laughs softly. The sound lands differently here.
No concrete walls. No empty rink. No cavernous ceiling throwing it back at us.
Just the apartment. Just us. The laugh settles into the quiet and stays there.
I head toward the kitchen automatically.
Calder follows. No hesitation. No asking.
Somewhere along the way following each other around stopped requiring permission.
"You own actual coffee beans," Calder says, leaning against the counter.
"You sounded judgmental about instant coffee earlier."
"I was judgmental."
I reach into the cabinet above the sink.
Before I can grab the mugs, Calder reaches past me and hands one down.
Automatically. Like we've done this before.
We haven't. The mug settles into my hand.
A second later awareness catches up. His arm is still beside mine.
Close. Too close. Heat presses briefly through the sleeve of his shirt.
Nothing happens. Nobody moves. The space between us suddenly feels very small. Far smaller than the apartment.
My pulse shifts once.
"Thanks," I mutter.
"Your neighbours hate you yet?" he asks.
"Only the one downstairs."
"What'd you do?"
"Dropped a skate blade at two in the morning once." Calder laughs. A real laugh. The kind that settles warm through the apartment.
"You're actually a menace."
"You hit frozen projectiles at people for a living."
"Professionally."
I laugh into the coffee cups. Calder pushes away from the counter. The movement brings him beside me automatically. No awkward shuffle. No hesitation. No moment where either of us figures out where to stand. He ends up there. I end up here. The same way it always works.
At the rink, we've spent weeks learning each other's space. Which direction he'll move when someone blocks a doorway. How far back I step when I turn. Who shifts first when we're about to collide. Apparently none of that stayed at the rink.
Calder opens the fridge without asking. "Your eating habits are horrific."
"You cannot survive on protein bars and then judge me."
"There's half a yoghurt in here and nothing else."
"There are blueberries."
"Three."
I point a spoon at him. "They still count."
Calder grins. Then he reaches into the cabinet beside me and immediately finds the sugar.
I blink. "How did you know where that was?"
Calder shrugs. "Lucky guess."
I look at him for a second longer than necessary. The answer feels suspicious. Or maybe it's the fact that it doesn't feel strange watching him move around my kitchen. Either way, neither possibility is particularly reassuring.
The coffee machine hums between us. Calder leans against the counter while it runs.
His attention drifts around the room. Not nosy.
Just observant. The stack of music sheets beside the speaker.
The colour-coded tabs sticking out of my training binder.
The notes tucked between pages. The carefully ordered routines.
His gaze moves over them the same way he watches a new skating program. Taking everything in. Saying nothing.
His mouth shifts slightly. "You color-code your training notes?"
"That's what you want to discuss?"
"You alphabetize your spice rack."
My gaze snaps toward it. Damn it. "That feels invasive."
Calder laughs softly. "I'm just saying your apartment looks exactly how I expected it to."
"Oh, you've been imagining my apartment?"
His mouth twitches. "Not the point."
"Interesting that you have expectations."
"I've met you."
"That's still creepy."
"You like that I notice things."
The words land cleanly enough that I miss my next response entirely. "That might be the rudest thing you've ever said to me."
"You haven't denied it."
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Which is irritating. Because the silence is starting to look suspiciously like agreement. Calder's grin widens slightly. Traitorous man.
The problem is none of the observations feel judgmental. That's what should make this easier. Instead it makes everything worse. Calder doesn't look at the apartment the way most people do. Not evaluating. Not comparing.
Reading.
The same way he studies game footage. The same way he watches the ice before practice.
One detail. Then another. Then another. Building something larger out of all of them.
The colour-coded tabs. The notebooks. The music sheets.
The alphabetized spices, apparently. Things I stopped noticing because they're just mine.
His attention catches on them anyway. Nobody has ever paid this much attention to the things I leave lying around. The thought arrives. A second one follows immediately behind it. I take a very deliberate sip of coffee before either of them can develop any further. The machine finishes.
I hand Calder a mug automatically. He takes it without interrupting the conversation. Easy. Practiced. Like we've been passing things back and forth for years instead of weeks.
His attention drifts around the apartment again.
The books stacked unevenly beside the couch. The blanket twisted into the corner cushion. Competition notes spread across the dining table. Highlighted timings. Corrections. Entire sections rewritten in the margins.
His gaze drops.
Straight to my ankle. The athletic tape peeking out beneath my leggings. I tuck my foot back automatically. Too late. Calder's eyes lift. Of course he noticed.
"Taped from yesterday?" his voice stays casual.
"Old strain."
He nods once. That's it. No concern. No lecture. No sympathy. Just recognition. The kind that passes silently between athletes. An acknowledgement. I know. Mine hurts too. Something about that lands harder than concern would have.
He looks at me then. Long enough that warmth starts creeping beneath my skin.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I noticed."
The silence that follows settles easily between us. Not awkward. Not uncertain. Just there. The way the best moments on the ice sometimes are.
"It's quiet here," Calder says eventually.
"I like quiet."
He nods once. Like that answer makes perfect sense. Which, annoyingly, means he has been paying attention. Again.
His gaze stays on me for another second. Long enough that I have to look down at my coffee. A tactical retreat. The alternative feels increasingly unwise.
At the rink, Calder always seems sharp around the edges. Focused. Controlled. Built out of routines and discipline and whatever stubbornness keeps hockey players voluntarily skating into each other.
Here, some of that has fallen away. No teammates. No coaches. No game waiting for him. Just Calder. Standing in my kitchen at an hour when reasonable people are asleep. His jacket draped over my chair. His coffee in his hand. Looking entirely too comfortable.
The realization lands quietly. Not all at once. Piece by piece. The shoes by the door. The bag beside the counter. The easy way he moves through the apartment. Calder looks at home here. And the really concerning part is that I stopped finding that strange several minutes ago.