Chapter 17 #2
“We’ll go in a second,” I say, though I don’t know who I’m reassuring—him, the camera, my future self sitting in a seven a.m. room with a recorder on the table. “I just—” Words bottleneck. I squeeze his hand once, hard. “I needed to know this doesn’t erase me.”
He squeezes back. “It doesn’t,” he says. “It doesn’t even smudge you.”
The red LED keeps time. The auto-dimmed lights cast long, soft shadows that make us look taller, truer.
I can hear the building breathing—the low mechanical exhale of fans, the intermittent ping of contracting steel, the far-off tick of a clock I can’t see.
I file it all away because this is a page in a life I refuse to forget.
“Okay,” I say finally, drawing a steadier breath. “Now we go.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t let go yet. He waits for me to start the glide, and then he moves with me, our hands still laced, two clean lines tracking side by side toward the gate while the little red eye blinks, unimpressed and unthreatening, like it’s counting us home.
We reach the gate and stop at the lip where rubber meets ice. The world is small here—boards close, glass towering, our reflections doubled and ghosted. Our hands are still laced, my fingers pink with cold and something warmer threading through.
He turns first, just enough that we face each other in the hush. No step into me, no caging arms—just the offer sitting between us like a held breath. “Tell me no,” he says softly, and even now he gives me exits like gifts.
“I’m done telling myself no,” I answer, and the admission tastes like a lock clicking open.
We move at the same time. His mouth finds mine slow, careful, like he’s learning a language we used to be fluent in.
The first brush is barely contact; the second is warmth blooming under my skin.
My knees go uncertain in my skates and I lean in, fingertips tightening around his as if steadiness could travel through our grip.
Relief rushes me so fast I could drown in it.
Not fireworks—tide. It lifts everything heavy and sets it down somewhere I can reach.
I taste mint and winter and a little adrenaline that probably never leaves his bloodstream.
His other hand comes up, hovering at my jaw like he’s asking again, and I tip into it because every part of me is saying yes at the same volume for once.
We kiss like we’re allowed to be quiet. No witness but the red LED and the hum of lights. His thumb strokes my jaw, a shiver running down to my ankles; he feels it and makes a low sound I file under mine.
When we break, it’s by a breath. My laugh spills out on it—too bright, too close to a sob—and I press the back of my glove to my mouth like I can decide which it wants to be.
“God,” I say, watery and ridiculous, and then I’m laughing again because wanting him and wanting myself are finally standing shoulder to shoulder instead of fighting for space.
His forehead rests against mine. “There it is,” he murmurs, like he’s been waiting to hear me laugh here since forever. “Keep that.”
“I’m trying.” I sniff, which is profoundly unsexy, and he smiles like it’s the best sound he’s heard all week. “I don’t want to disappear to keep you. I won’t.”
“You won’t,” he says, and I believe him because I believe me. He kisses the corner of my mouth. “We write it down tomorrow. Then we keep it.”
I nod, greedy for one more slow slide of mouths, one more second of the steadiness that rains down my nerves when he kisses me like I’m not an accident he’s bracing for, but a choice he’s making with his eyes open.
Somewhere high above, the lights hum louder and the ice answers with a soft ping. We breathe together, noses cold, cheeks stung pink, lips warmed by what feels less like heat and more like permission.
When we separate, it’s not to step away.
It’s to look. To memorize. To watch each other believing.
I swipe my thumb across his cheekbone like I’m smoothing air, like I’m telling the camera and the league and all the rooms that would eat us that I know the shape of this man and the shape of myself, and they are not mutually exclusive.
“Okay,” I say again, steadier. “Now we really go.”
He nods, but his hand doesn’t let go of mine until I pull gently, and even then our gloves brush like a secret handshake as we step off the ice together.
The rubber mat sighs under our guards as we step off, breath still shared, a little dazed, a lot steadier. I’m halfway to unthreading our fingers when the quiet breaks.
A door thuds open somewhere behind the bench with the hollow boom of a drum in an empty church. The sound ricochets under the roof and finds my ribs.
We freeze. Two beats. Three. Then the unmistakable clack of skate guards on concrete—slow, unhurried, like whoever it is belongs here and expects everyone else to explain themselves.
Jason shifts just enough to put his body between me and the tunnel without making it look like he’s doing that. We decided on air and light. I straighten my shoulders and let our hands fall apart because optics are ravenous even in the dark.
A shadow slices across the boards—long, distorted by rim lights, then resolving into a human shape moving along the bench row. The red LED above the camera blinks its indifferent metronome.
“Hello?” a voice calls, bright and carrying. Not security—curious, caffeinated. “Anyone on the ice?”
My throat goes dry in a compliance-approved way. “Yes,” I answer, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere in the vicinity. “Trainers. Final surface check.” I hold up my clipboard like a passport, which would be more convincing if my mouth weren’t kiss-warm.
Jason’s weight is a line at my side—present, not touching. I can feel the coiled readiness under his hoodie, the way his body wants to step in front and the way his brain just promised not to.
The shadow pauses near the gate, just out of the worst of the light. A plastic bag rustles. Something—tall, maybe carrying a stick. A cap brim tilts.
“Lights auto-dimmed,” the voice says conversationally, closer now. “Sensor tripped about five minutes ago.” A beat, like a smile. “Thought I heard… people.”
I paste on the professional grin I’ve used to talk rookies through panic and sponsors through science. “Sound travels weird in here after hours,” I say, which is true and not nearly enough.
Another step forward and the rim light sketches a profile—jaw, cheek, nose, familiar enough to ring a bell I can’t place. The stick knocks the rubber once, lightly, like punctuation.
“Gate should be locked at night,” the voice adds, almost teasing. “Unless someone has a key.”
Jason’s laugh is a single exhale. “You need something?” he asks, neutral.
“Just looking for a left-behind item,” the voice says.
The shadow turns slightly, as if checking the benches for a phantom.
Then: “Don’t let me interrupt… the final surface check.
” The tiniest emphasis on the words—nothing you could take to court, everything you could hear if you were already listening for it.
My heart climbs into my mouth and sits there, quiet and loud. My badge feels heavy; the red stripe might as well be a flare.
Behind the shadow, the open door spills a wedge of harsher light across the tunnel. Footsteps echo farther back—another set coming, or maybe a radio, maybe nothing.
Jason shifts his weight, casual. “We’re done,” he says. “Heading out.” He angles a question at me without looking: you ready?
I nod, even though my knees think otherwise. “Gate’s all yours,” I tell the shadow, voice steady on the second try.
He doesn’t move aside. The red LED blinks. Somewhere in the building a compressor kicks on and the ice pings once, high and thin.
“Great,” the voice says, amiable as you please. “Before you go—mind if I ask you a couple of quick questions?” A phone lifts, small and dark in his hand, camera eye glinting.
My stomach drops through the rubber to the concrete below.