Chapter 6
I stared at the ceiling and tried not to look at the clock. Outside, the sky was brightening toward dawn, which meant I was running out of time to decide if I was going back today or not.
My hip ached from the race yesterday. My eyes burned from not enough sleep and too much thinking. The sheets were tangled around my legs because I couldn't stop shifting, trying to find a position that didn't make my brain loop back to the same stupid thing.
I kept thinking about the way I'd looked at Joel and how I’d eyed him shoulders to thighs like I had some kind of right.
I rolled onto my side and punched the pillow into a different shape. It didn't help.
Joel Coffey knew people. He had sponsors, a manager, probably connections in the sports world that overlapped with mine in ways I couldn't even trace.
He could mention it to someone who'd mention it to someone else, and eventually it would get back to my team, to Coach, to Santos, who'd probably be cool about it, and Martinez, who definitely wouldn't be.
Or he could just tell his manager, and she could tell someone at the rink, and that person could know someone who knew Sarah, and Sarah would tell Derek, and Derek would give me that look.
The one he got sometimes when he thought I wasn't paying attention.
The one that said he already knew and was just waiting for me to say it.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars.
He wouldn't tell. Probably. He'd asked me not to tell anyone about him being here, and I'd said our secret like we were in some kind of pact. Maybe he'd return the favor.
Or maybe he'd show up this morning and pretend the whole thing never happened. Go cold. Make it clear that whatever I thought was happening, I should stop thinking it.
The rejection part, I could handle. I'd been rejected plenty. The not knowing was what was making me want to put my fist through the drywall.
My phone was on the nightstand. I grabbed it and checked the time. 4:23.
Ice time started at five. The rink was twenty minutes away. I had time to get up, shower, and be there when Joel arrived. Show him I wasn't the flaky mess he thought I was.
I put the phone down and stared at the ceiling some more.
At 4:45, I was still in bed.
At 5:15, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't going. That I was going to lie here like a coward and let Joel think he'd been right about me all along.
At 5:47, I threw the covers off and got up, because apparently I was going after all, and if I was going to show up almost an hour late, I might as well bring a peace offering so he'd have a harder time murdering me.
I stopped by the coffee shop on San Alto and ordered two large black coffees and a vanilla latte with oat milk because the barista recommended it.
Then I paid and tried not to wince at the total, because twelve bucks for three drinks was grocery money.
I was being an idiot because I wanted to impress a figure skater who probably spent twelve bucks on coffee every morning without thinking about it.
When I arrived at the rink, his car was still there, so I grabbed the coffees and headed for the entrance, already rehearsing what I was going to say.
Sorry I'm late, couldn't sleep, brought you something.
Keep it casual, keep it easy, don't mention that I'd spent two hours convinced he was going to ruin my life.
The lobby was empty. The lights were on, but nobody was at the front desk, which meant I didn't have to explain why I was walking in with three cups of coffee at six in the morning.
I pushed through toward the rink, expecting to hear the scrape of blades, maybe Joel's voice calling out something sharp about punctuality.
Instead, I heard music.
Not the tinny speaker system they used for public sessions.
This was louder, coming from somewhere near the ice, and it wasn't the classical stuff I associated with figure skating.
It was darker, orchestral, but with something raw underneath, cellos building toward something that sounded like it hurt.
I stopped at the entrance to the rink.
Joel was on the ice, but he wasn't practicing edges or running drills. He was performing.
He was wearing something black and skin-tight with a neckline that plunged halfway down his chest. The gap was filled with some kind of silver mesh that caught the light every time he moved.
His hair was slicked back from his face, and there was a camera on a tripod at the far end of the rink, red light blinking.
He hadn't seen me. He was facing the other direction, one arm extended toward the empty ice like he was reaching for someone who wasn't there. His fingers curled around nothing, pulling at air, and the music swelled around him.
Joel moved like the music was coming out of him instead of the speakers. His hand traced down his chest, following the line of that silver mesh, and the gesture wasn't showing off. It was more like he was checking to see if something was still there, some wound he kept expecting to find.
Then he launched into a jump, and I stopped thinking about anything else.
I knew enough about figure skating to know what a triple axel looked like.
I'd seen him land one the first day, and it had been impressive as hell.
But this was different. This was the jump in context, part of something bigger, and when he landed, it was like watching a held breath release.
No wobble, no adjustment, just down and forward into the next thing like he'd never doubted it for a second.
This wasn't practice. This was a program, a real one, the kind of thing you'd perform at a competition.
And whoever was supposed to be in it with him wasn't there anymore.
He was skating the whole thing alone, reaching for a partner who didn't exist, and I had to lean against the wall because my legs weren't doing their job.
I should leave. This was private. He was filming it, which meant he didn't want anyone to see it, and I was standing here holding three cups of coffee like an idiot while he poured something painful onto the ice.
But I couldn't make myself move.
The music kept building and Joel kept moving, and I watched him throw himself into another jump, a different one this time, and land it clean and go right into another.
Back to back, the kind of thing that looked impossible, and his arms reached on every landing like he expected someone to catch him.
Nobody caught him. That was the whole point.
I'd spent years watching guys play through injuries, watching them hide the pain and keep going because that's what you did. I thought I knew what it looked like when someone was hurting and wouldn't admit it.
Joel wasn't hiding it. He was skating it. Putting it right out there on the ice where anyone could see it, except he thought no one was watching.
The song built to something that sounded like an ending, and Joel launched into one last jump, higher than the others, hanging in the air for a second that went on too long. He hit his final position as the music cut out, chest heaving, arms extended, head thrown back.
The rink went quiet.
Joel dropped his arms and skated toward the camera, pulling his phone out of somewhere to stop the recording. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling under that silver mesh, and I watched a bead of sweat trace down his throat and disappear under the costume.
Then he looked up and saw me.
For one second his face was completely open, startled and almost soft, like I'd caught him in the middle of something he couldn't take back.
I watched him shut it down. His jaw tightened first, then his shoulders pulled back, and he took a breath that looked like he was counting it. When he looked at me again, whatever I'd been seeing was gone.
He skated toward me, and his eyes never left mine.
By the time he reached the boards, his breathing had steadied. He looked like he'd been expecting me all along, like the last five minutes hadn't happened, like I hadn't just watched him rip himself open on the ice.
"How long have you been standing there?" he demanded.
"Long enough." I held up the cups. "I brought coffee. Didn't know what you liked, so I got options."
Joel didn't take them. He braced his hands on the boards and leaned forward into my space, close enough that I could see the sweat still drying at his temples. Heat came off him in waves even though he'd been on the ice for God knows how long. "You're late," he said.
I took a half-step back before I could stop myself.
His mouth curved, just a little, like he'd won something. "Over an hour late." He tilted his head, studying me the way a goalie studies a shooter.
"I wasn't sure I was coming," I said.
That was maybe the dumbest thing I could have admitted.
"And yet here you are." His gaze traveled down my body the same way I'd looked at him yesterday. "Bearing gifts."
"Caffeine." My voice came out rough. "As an apology."
"Apologies are for people who've done something wrong." He pushed off from the boards and glided backward a few feet, not breaking eye contact. "Did you do something wrong, Red?"
He said my name low and slow, like he was testing it.
"Showed up late," I said. "That's rude."
"It is rude." He stopped, the silver mesh catching the light, all that bare skin underneath and the costume clinging to him like it had been painted on. "What else?"
I didn't answer. We both knew what else.
Joel skated back toward me in one smooth push and stopped at the boards, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him.
"You looked at me yesterday," he said quietly. "Like you wanted something."
"Yeah."
"Do you still want it?"
I'd faced down guys who had a foot on me and a hundred pounds. I'd taken hits meant to put me through the glass and gotten back up smiling. On the ice, I'd never been small.
But standing here, looking up at Joel in his ridiculous costume with his slicked-back hair and that voice, I wasn't thinking about hockey.
"Yeah," I said. "I still want it."
For a second I thought he was going to reach over the boards and take what I was offering, just grab me by the back of the neck and show me exactly what he was capable of.
Instead, he leaned back.
"Good," he said. "What kind of options?"
I held up the cups, and I was proud that my hands were steady.
"Black coffee. Or vanilla oat latte with an extra shot."
Joel reached over the boards and took the latte. His fingers brushed mine, cold from the ice, and stayed there a beat. Then he brought the cup to his lips.
He drank without looking away from me, a long, slow swallow, his throat working while his eyes stayed fixed on mine. And I stood there and watched him because what else was I going to do.
He lowered the cup.
"Good choice," he said. "The latte."
"The barista recommended it."
"I have something for you, too."
I hadn't expected that. "What?"
"In my bag. By the bench." He skated backward, still watching me. "Come on."
I followed him around to the rink entrance and stepped onto the rubber mats while he glided over to the bench. He unzipped a side pocket of his gear bag and pulled out a photograph, maybe five by seven, and held it out to me.
A competition shot of Joel mid-jump, his body a perfect arc against a blue backdrop, the angle making him look like he was flying. In the corner, in silver marker: To Sarah — Joel Coffey.
"You signed it," I said.
"You said she was a fan. And you can't tell her we've met." He was watching me with that unreadable expression again. "This way she gets something, and you don't have to explain how."
I stared at the photo, at his handwriting, at the fact that he'd thought about this and planned it and brought it with him this morning.
He'd been thinking about me. When we weren't in the same room, when I was lying in bed convinced he wanted nothing to do with me, he'd been doing this.
"Our secret," he said.
"Yeah," I said. "Our secret."
The silence stretched between us. Joel sipped his latte. I held the photo like it might disappear if I looked away.
I owed him something back. He'd given me something that mattered, even wrapped up as a gift for someone else.
"I have a game Friday," I said. "Home game, seven o'clock. I can get you seats if you want to see what real skating looks like."
Cocky. But cocky was the only way I knew how to offer something that actually mattered. Hockey was the one thing I had, the one thing I was good at, and I was handing him a ticket like an invitation to judge me.
Joel shifted, and the silver mesh caught the light when he shifted.
"I thought you only wore black," I said, and reached out before I could stop myself.
My fingers touched the mesh where it covered his chest. The fabric was cool and fine, almost like touching water, and underneath it his skin pressed back against my fingertips.
Joel's hand closed around my wrist. His eyes locked onto mine.
This was the moment where I was supposed to look away and back down.
I didn't.
His grip tightened until it hurt, his thumb pressing into the soft inside of my wrist where the blood ran close. The pressure sent a jolt straight down my spine, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep quiet.
I still didn't look away.
Neither of us moved until I pulled my hand back slowly and he let me go.
"Friday," he said. "Seven o'clock." He picked up his gear bag and slung it over his shoulder, the movement smooth and easy like we hadn't just been two seconds away from something neither of us could take back. "I'll think about it."
He walked past me toward the locker room and didn't look back.
I stood there with the signed photo in one hand and my other wrist still warm where he'd held it.
"Jesus Christ," I said to the empty rink. “This is such a bad idea.”