Chapter Nineteen
LUKE
The wind gusted across the roof, bringing with it a hint of rain. I could feel the leftover adrenaline sitting under my skin, nowhere to go.
“I don’t want to go home yet,” Mila said quietly.
Neither did I. The arena was dark below us. “Do you want to skate?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Come on.” I jerked my head toward the stairwell. “Let’s go inside.”
The rink was empty when I unlocked it. No teammates or coaches—just silence except for the low mechanical hum beneath the ice and the echo of our footsteps in a space that had always made sense to me.
I didn’t want crowded rooms or witnesses. I wanted clean lines. Clear exits. Control. Somewhere I understood.
We put on skates—I kept hers in my locker for nights like this. Then, holding hands, we took the ice and skated in unhurried circles, until she eventually said wanted to sit for a while.
“I’ll stay with you.”
“No.” She leaned into me for a quick hug. “I want to watch you for a little while. I’ll come back on the ice when I’m ready.”
“You sure?” I didn’t like it, but I also had pent up anger I needed to try to burn off.
“Yeah, promise.”
Mila rested on the boards, wrapped in my hoodie, sleeves swallowing her hands. The overhead lights were dimmed to half power, casting long shadows across the ice.
I pushed off into edge work—long arcs carving frost into the surface, tight turns that snapped clean under my blades. Contained speed. Every pass along the boards brought her into view. I needed to see her there every time I came around—that she was still okay.
She watched me without speaking, chin tucked slightly into the collar of my hoodie.
There was a faint bruise blooming near her collarbone where the fabric had torn earlier.
It sat there quietly. Proof that asshole had touched her.
Hurt her. My stomach coiled every time I saw it.
I wanted to erase it. Rewrite the last hour. Break something that wouldn’t heal.
I cut across center ice harder this time, burning through what I hadn’t finished in the hallway.
Logan had been lucky. If the guys hadn’t been there to stop me, I don’t know when I would’ve stopped—or if.
When I circled back, she stood. “Don’t,” I called, slowing. She was shaky from earlier, and I needed to hold on to her for both of us.
She ignored me and stepped onto the ice. Her ankle buckled immediately. I crossed the distance in three strides and caught her before she hit the surface, my hands closing around her waist. She let out a soft breath that might have been a laugh.
“Terrible idea,” I muttered.
She smirked. “I wanted to see if you’d catch me.”
I lifted her easily and set her on the boards in front of me, keeping one hand firm at her waist. I didn’t let go.
She didn’t pull away. “Michigan’s athletic office emailed again,” I told her.
Her eyes lifted to mine. “About what?”
“Scholarship details. Housing. Training schedule.”
The future hung between us.
“You’re going,” she answered.
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in that.
Her fingers tensed in the fabric at my shoulders. “After today…”
I knew where she was going. “Today doesn’t change that.”
“It might,” she countered. “You put your hands on him.”
“He put his hands on you.”
“That isn’t how institutions see it.”
No. It wasn’t. They would frame it as a fight, one that wasn’t on the ice. Coaches paid attention to reputations, especially from the team’s captain. “I don’t regret it,” I replied.
“I know.” Her voice held something thinner than usual. “If this becomes a pattern,” she continued carefully, “If they tag you as volatile, that follows you. Coaches talk. Compliance departments flag names. It doesn’t take much.”
“It won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No, but I do know that I won’t ever let someone touch you and pretend I didn’t see it.”
Silence pressed in again. She studied my face as if searching for fracture. “I’m not stepping back,” she said quietly.
“From what?”
“From you. From us. From being visible next to you if that makes this harder.”
There it was. The gala. Logan’s attack. The way the administration had already tried to soften what happened. “You think I want neat?” I asked.
“I think your father does. So does your family.”
They did. They wanted optics. Containment. Controlled narratives.
“I’m not them,” I answered.
“I know.” She inhaled slowly. “If choosing me complicates Michigan—”
“It doesn’t.”
“And if it does?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Then I’m not choosing something that requires you to take the blame. Or to give up your dreams too.”
Her breath caught slightly at that. The words weren’t dramatic. They were my decision. I stepped closer, skates braced against the ice, hands still steady at her waist. “We are not adjusting our lives so other people stay comfortable,” I continued. “Not my father. Not Dunn. Not the school.”
Her hands trailed up to the back of my neck. “And if it costs you?”
“Then it costs me. You’ll always be worth it.”
Her eyes searched mine once more, searching whether I meant it. I did. I’d spent years adapting to rooms I never wanted to be in. I wasn’t adapting this.
“We are choosing each other,” I told her. “Fully. Not quietly. I’m not choosing a future that costs me you.”
She exhaled in a way that felt older. Then she tugged my collar and kissed me. Slow. Certain.
I pulled her forward, turning once across the ice before setting her back down. A quiet laugh broke through her mouth, lighter than anything I had heard from her since the hallway.
It felt almost simple. When we finally stepped off the ice, I kept her hand in mine as we crossed the rubber matting toward the exit.
The world hadn’t calmed, but we hadn’t cracked.
At the door, I paused. The hallway above the rink was dark. Empty. Still. Something in my chest tightened anyway. It didn’t feel like an enemy circling from the outside anymore. It felt like something shifting inside the perimeter.