Chapter 13 #2
The rink was beautiful in that way all rinks were beautiful to me, even after all these years.
Clean white ice, bright overhead lights, the smell of cold air and rubber and that specific metallic tang that came from skate blades cutting fresh sheets.
I found a seat near the back and settled in, watching the teams warm up on the ice below.
Rook was easy to spot even from this distance.
I'd forgotten how good he was. Or maybe I hadn't forgotten, exactly, but seeing it again after so long hit differently than I'd expected.
He read plays before they developed, positioned himself where he needed to be before anyone else figured it out, and when he had the puck there was a certainty to his movements that made it look effortless even though I knew better.
This was what he'd become. Captain of a professional team, headed to the playoffs, living the exact life we'd both thought he'd have when we were kids who didn't know any fucking better.
The game started, and I watched him lead his team through sixty minutes of hockey that was technically just exhibition but felt competitive as hell anyway.
The Wolves played tight, disciplined hockey, and Rook was at the center of all of it.
Calling plays, directing traffic, making the kind of decisions that only came from years of reading the game at this level.
I'd been good at hockey once. Not as good as Rook, maybe, but good enough that it had felt real.
Then everything had fallen apart, and hockey had become one more thing I'd had to let go of when the custody battle started and my life narrowed down to survival and keeping my siblings safe.
I'd told myself it was fine. That music had filled the hole hockey left behind. That I didn't miss it anymore.
But sitting here watching Rook play, I couldn't pretend that was true.
I missed it. Missed the feel of the ice under my skates, the weight of the stick in my hands, the way my body had known exactly what to do before my brain caught up.
Missed the violence and the grace and the pure physical joy of moving that fast with that much purpose.
Missed playing with Rook, if I was being honest with myself. Missed the way we'd moved together on the ice like we were reading each other's minds, the shorthand that had made us devastating as a pairing, the trust that had come from years of knowing exactly where the other one would be.
The game ended with the Wolves winning by two goals, and I watched the handshake line and the post-game rituals with a familiarity that made the ache in my chest spread wider.
The crowd started filtering out, and I stayed in my seat because leaving meant making a decision about whether to try and find Rook or just disappear back to my life.
The arena emptied slowly, and I sat there in the quiet watching the ice get cleaned, the zamboni making its methodical loops while I tried to figure out what the hell I was doing here.
Eventually, I made my way down to the lower sections, closer to the ice, and settled into a seat a few rows back from the boards.
The locker room door opened about twenty minutes later, and Rook walked out alone, gym bag slung over his shoulder and hair still damp from the shower.
He was halfway across the arena floor when he spotted me, and I watched his stride falter for just a second before he changed direction and headed my way.
My heart was hammering hard enough that I could feel it in my throat, and I tried to school my expression into casual when I felt anything but.
“Hey,” he said when he got close enough, dropping his bag on the floor and sitting down in the seat next to mine. “Didn't know you were here.”
“Didn't want to make it weird by announcing myself.” I kept my eyes on the ice because looking at him felt too hard right now. “Good game. You guys looked good out there.”
“Thanks.” He was quiet for a second, and I could feel him watching me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I just—” I stopped, took a breath, and made myself say it before I lost my nerve. “I wanted to apologize. For the club. For being drunk and making it weird and putting you in that position. I shouldn't have kissed you like that.”
“Soren—”
“I know you were just trying to make sure I didn't do anything stupid, and I went and made it awkward anyway.” The words were coming out faster now, tripping over each other in my hurry to get them all out. “So I'm sorry. For all of it. The drinking, the mess, the—everything.”
Rook was quiet for long enough that I risked a glance at him, and the expression on his face was complicated in ways I couldn't read.
“I'm not mad about the kiss,” he said finally, and his voice was careful in ways that made my chest tighten. “But the drinking, Soren—that scared me. Seeing you that drunk, that out of it. I need you to know that's not okay.”
The shame came back in full force, hot and heavy and fucking awful. “I know. I'm working on it.”
“Are you?” There was no judgment in his voice, just concern that somehow made it worse. “Because Talia said this has been a pattern for a while, and I'm worried about you.”
“Talia talks too much.” I said it without heat because I knew she'd only told him because she cared, but it still stung that my coping mechanisms were now apparently public knowledge.
“She cares about you. So do I.” He shifted in his seat, and I felt his shoulder brush against mine. “I'm not trying to lecture you or make you feel like shit. I just need you to know that I'm here if you need help getting a handle on it.”
“I'll be more careful.” It wasn't a promise to stop, exactly, but it was the best I could offer right now. “I don't want you to have to worry about me like that.”
“Too late. I'm already worrying.” He said it simply, like it was just a fact, and I had to look away again before the warmth in my chest could turn into anything messier.
We sat there in silence for a while, and I let myself just exist next to him without needing to fill the quiet. The ice stretched out in front of us, clean and bright and empty, and I found myself staring at it with a longing I'd been trying to ignore for years.
“I miss it,” I said quietly. “Hockey. Being out there. I didn't realize how much until I watched you play today.”
“Yeah?” His voice had gone softer, and when I glanced at him his expression was gentle enough to make my throat tight.
“Yeah. Music's great, and I love it, but it's not the same. Hockey had a—I don't know, a violence to it that drumming doesn't. A physicality that made everything else disappear.” I laughed, but the sound came out hollow. “Probably sounds stupid.”
“It doesn't sound stupid at all.” He was quiet for a second, and then he said, “You know, we're sitting in an ice rink. We could skate. Right now, if you wanted.”
I turned to look at him fully, trying to figure out if he was serious. “What?”
“The rink's empty, nobody's using it, and I've got connections.” He grinned, and the expression was so open and genuine that I felt it like a punch to the chest. “When's the last time you were on the ice?”
“Years. I don't even know if I remember how.”
“Muscle memory's a hell of a thing.” He stood up and grabbed his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “Come on. Let's see if you're as rusty as you think you are.”
He started walking toward the benches, and I followed him because apparently I'd lost the ability to say no to him about anything. He dropped his bag on one of the benches and started digging through it, pulling out gear and setting it aside until he found what he was looking for.
A jersey. Number eleven. The same one he'd been wearing during the game.
“Here,” he said, holding it out to me. “Put this on.”
I took it from him with hands that weren't quite steady, and the fabric was soft and warm from being packed in his bag. It smelled like detergent and rink and something I couldn't name but recognized as distinctly Rook, and I had to resist the urge to press my face into it like a fucking creep.
I pulled it over my head, and it fit. A little loose in the shoulders, but close enough that it didn't feel ridiculous. I looked down at the number on my chest and felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes for reasons I didn't want to examine too closely.
“Looks good on you,” Rook said, and there was warmth in his voice that made the tightness in my chest spread wider. “Always did.”
We found spare skates and sticks in the equipment room, and I laced mine up with fingers that remembered the motion even though my brain was still catching up to the fact that this was happening. Rook finished first and stood up, testing his balance, and then he held out a hand to help me up.
I took it, and the contact sent a jolt through me that had nothing to do with static electricity.
We stepped onto the ice together, and the cold air hit my face in a rush of sense memory so strong it nearly knocked me sideways.
My first few strides were shaky, uncertain, my body trying to remember movements it hadn't made in years.
But Rook stayed close, matching my pace, and gradually the old instincts started waking up.
By the time we'd made a full lap around the rink, I was starting to feel it come back. The balance, the rhythm, the way my weight needed to shift to make the turns work. It wasn't smooth, wasn't pretty, but it was there under all the rust.
“Not bad,” Rook said, skating backward in front of me with an ease that made me want to trip him on principle. “Thought you said you forgot how to do this.”
“I said I was rusty. There's a difference.” I pushed off harder, picking up speed, and felt the muscle memory click into place in ways that made my whole body sing. “Watch and learn, Kincaid.”
“Oh, we're doing this now?” He was grinning, that competitive edge lighting up his eyes in ways I remembered from a hundred games we'd played together. “Alright, Vale. Let's see what you've got.”
He grabbed a puck from the bench and dropped it between us, and then we were moving. One-on-one, no rules, just two guys who used to know each other's playing style by heart trying to remember if any of that still held true.
Rook was better than me. That was obvious within the first thirty seconds.
He was faster, stronger, more controlled, every movement honed by years of professional training.
But I'd always been trickier, more willing to take risks, and after a few minutes of feeling him out I remembered how to use that.
I faked left and went right, slipping past him while he was still adjusting, and took a shot that bounced off the post with a satisfying clang.
“Fuck,” I said, grinning despite myself. “Almost had it.”
“You're still too aggressive on your approach,” Rook said, circling back around. “Telegraphing where you're going.”
“I'm out of practice. Give me a break.”
“No breaks. You wanted to play, we're playing.” He stole the puck back and took off down the ice, and I chased him purely on instinct.
We went back and forth like that for a while, trading possession and chirping each other like we were eighteen again. Rook called me rusty, I called him slow, and the banter felt so natural I almost forgot about the club and the kiss and all the complicated shit sitting between us.
I managed to steal the puck from him during one exchange, deking around him in a move that was more luck than skill, and his frustrated “How the fuck did you do that?” made me laugh so hard I nearly fell over.
“Still got it,” I said, way too proud of myself.
“You got lucky.”
“Luck is a skill.”
“That's not how skills work.” He skated up behind me, and I felt his presence at my back before I heard his voice. “Here, let me show you where you're losing balance on the turns.”
His arms came around me from behind, hands settling on my hips to adjust my stance, and my brain went completely offline.
He was close enough that I could feel his breath against the back of my neck, could smell the faint scent of his soap mixing with sweat and ice, could feel the solid warmth of his chest pressed against my shoulders through all the gear.
“You're leaning too far forward,” he said, and his voice was right by my ear, low and focused. “Shift your weight back, like this.”
He guided my hips backward, and I felt every inch of him pressed against me in ways that made coherent thought absolutely impossible. And then I felt it—the unmistakable hardness pressing against my lower back through his gear, the evidence that Rook was just as affected by this as I was.
My own body responded immediately, blood rushing south so fast it made me dizzy. I could feel myself getting hard, could feel the awareness between us shift into territory that was dangerous and charged and absolutely not casual instruction anymore.
“Rook—” My voice came out rough, and I didn't know what I was trying to say. A warning, maybe. Or permission. Or just his name because I needed to say it.
His hands tightened on my hips for just a second, and I felt his breath hitch against my neck. Then he pulled back, putting distance between us so fast I nearly stumbled.
“Sorry,” he said, and his voice was strained in ways I'd never heard before. “I didn't mean to—that wasn't—”
“It's fine.” It wasn't fine. It was the opposite of fine, because now I knew for certain that Rook got hard when he touched me, and I had no idea what the fuck to do with that information. “Just caught me off guard.”
We stood there on the ice staring at each other, both of us breathing harder than the skating warranted, and I could see the awareness in his eyes that matched what I was feeling.
He knew I'd felt him. Knew I'd responded to it.
Knew we'd just crossed some invisible line neither of us had acknowledged was there.
“We should probably call it,” he said finally, and I heard the reluctance in his voice. “It's getting late.”
“Yeah. Probably.” I didn't move, couldn't make myself skate away when every part of me wanted to close the distance between us instead.
Rook broke first, turning and heading for the bench, and I followed him on legs that felt unsteady for reasons that had nothing to do with being out of practice.
We took off our skates in silence, the easy banter from earlier completely gone, replaced by tension so thick I could practically taste it.
I pulled off the jersey and held it out to him. He looked at it for a second, then back at me, and made no move to take it.
“Keep it,” he said.
“Rook—”
“Keep it, Soren.”
I looked down at the jersey in my hands and didn't argue. Our fingers had brushed in the exchange, just barely, and the contact had sent a jolt through me that I was still trying to outrun. From the set of his jaw, he'd felt it too.
“Thanks,” I said. “For letting me skate. For the jersey. For all of it.”
“Anytime.”