Chapter 17 On Thin Ice
On Thin Ice
brOOKS
The sun dips low on the horizon, painting the frozen lake in the oranges and pinks that remind me of the bruises I collect on the ice.
Sydney’s hand feels small in mine, her fingers cold despite the exertion of skating.
I should probably let go. Friends don’t hold hands this long.
Fake girlfriends don’t either, not without an audience.
But I can’t bring myself to break the connection, not when she’s looking up at me with those clearwater eyes that somehow manage to be both sharp and soft at the same time.
“You’re staring, Kingston,” she says, but it’s not like the old days when she’d catch me looking and assume I was plotting her demise.
“Just making sure you don’t fall and sue me for damages.” The words are a reflexive shield against whatever this feeling is that’s expanding in my chest.
She snorts, a sound that shouldn’t be charming but is. “Please. I’d never sue The King. Your fan club would hunt me down.”
“Bold of you to assume I still have a fan club.” The words come out more bitter than intended.
“Are you kidding? Half the girls in Beaver County still have your poster on their walls. The other half pretend they’re too cool, but they’d still trip over themselves for your autograph.”
I guide us toward the western shore, where the sunset’s reflection stretches across the ice. “Nah—damaged goods.”
Sydney’s fingers tighten around mine. “Your shoulder doesn’t define you, Brooks.”
If that were my only damage.
“What was little Brooks Kingston like?” She gracefully changes the subject. “Before the hockey trophies and the groupies. Before you became the bane of my existence.”
I arch an eyebrow. “The bane of your existence? That’s a lot of power to give someone.”
“Don’t dodge the question. I’m curious. Were you born scowling, or did that develop later?”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes. “Definitely later. I was actually a pretty happy kid. Until about age eight.”
“What happened at eight?”
I hesitate, wondering if I should answer. But something about the fading light, the empty lake, the strange bubble of intimacy we’ve created out here—it loosens my tongue. “My dad decided I had potential. And potential meant expectations.”
We glide in a figure eight, our breaths clouding between us. Sydney waits, not pushing, just listening. It’s disarming.
“He put me in every hockey program he could find. Private coaches. Special camps. Equipment most kids couldn’t dream of.” I pause, memories surfacing like bubbles under ice.
She’s quiet for a moment, thinking. “Is that why you spent so much time at our house? You were there practically every weekend, and most weeknights too. I always assumed it was to hang out with Jonah, but...”
The answer to that question cuts close to the bone.
“It was because of Jonah,” I say, then pause. “At first.”
“And later?”
I take a deep breath. “Later, it was because of your family. The whole vibe. Your house was always so... alive. People talking over each other at dinner. Your dad’s terrible jokes. Your mom trying to feed everyone within a ten-mile radius.”
“You liked our chaos?” Sydney sounds genuinely surprised.
“Compared to my house? Yeah.” I hold my arm, trying to ease the pressure on my shoulder. “Dinner at the Kingston mansion was a military operation. Dad critiquing my form from the last game, Mom pretending not to notice him going for drink number three, the constant pressure to be perfect.”
“I had no idea.” Her voice is tender. “I thought you had this charmed life.”
“From the outside, maybe. Big house, fancy cars, family name on half the buildings in town.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Inside was a different story.”
I realize I’m still holding her hand and finally release it, missing the warmth immediately. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to dump my daddy issues on the ice rink.”
“Don’t apologize.” She echoes my words from earlier. “It helps me understand you better.”
And that’s the problem. She’s beginning to understand me. To see past the walls I’ve spent years building.
We start skating again, and I fill the silence by saying, “I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for helping me with my SATs. Senior year, when I was panicking about not getting a high enough score for U of Boise.”
“God, you were such a mess,” she says, laughter in her voice. “You kept falling asleep on my flash cards.”
“Because you insisted on studying at five in the morning!”
“That’s when the brain is most receptive to new information.”
“According to who?”
“Scientific studies,” she says primly. “And it worked, didn’t it? You got in.”
She’s right. I’d been shocked when the scores came back, high enough to secure my place at U of Boise even without the hockey scholarship. “Yeah, it worked. Thus the thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Though I seem to recall getting paid in pizza and gas money.”
“The pizza was by request. And the gas money was because your car was a piece of shit that guzzled fuel.”
“Don’t talk about Betsy that way! She got me through college.”
“Barely.”
Sydney skates quietly for a moment, finally saying, “It’s weird, isn’t it? How much our lives have been tangled together over the years. Even when we were fighting.”
I’ve never thought about it that way, but she’s right. For all our supposed animosity, she’s been a constant presence in my life. When I try to recall my most significant memories—good and bad—she’s there in the background of most of them. Not always front and center, but there.
“Yeah. Weird.”
We fall silent again, but it’s different now. I find myself wanting to keep talking, to hear more of her memories, to share more of mine. There’s something about the ice, about the intimacy of skating side by side, that makes it easy to open up in ways I normally wouldn’t.
“You know what else is weird?” I say after a moment. “How easy this is. Talking to you.”
She turns her head to look at me, her expression equal parts surprised and pleased. “It is.” She stops skating and stares at me. “And I really can’t believe you were the one to carry me off the field. How you remember so much about me.”
I remember everything about Sydney Holt, even the things I pretended not to notice. Like how she used to smell like strawberries and cream, and now it’s vanilla lavender and something floral. How she hums under her breath when she’s concentrating.
“Sometimes I was paying more attention than I should’ve been.” My admission makes me feel exposed, raw.
The air between us shifts, charged with something unnamed but undeniable. Sydney takes a half step closer, her eyes searching mine with an intensity that makes my pulse jump.
“Brooks...”
I can’t take another second of this, and I’ve been fighting it like hell, but I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my life.
I lean in, and we’re nose to nose, her lips the shade of muted pink in the cold.
God, if our second kiss is anything like our first, I’ll have her beautiful body in bed and writhing under me in record time.
And now we won’t have Jonah to stop us.
And just like that, panic floods my system. Sex with Sydney is so far over the line we won’t be able to see it anymore. And it won’t be like a one-night stand. It will mean something. It will mean everything.
She’s too close. This is too real. I’m telling her things I’ve never told anyone, feeling things I can’t afford to feel. Not with all the things that are hanging over my head. Not with my career in jeopardy. Not with the promise I made to Jonah.
I need to shut this down. Now.
I lean away. “Remember the time Jonah and I crashed your slumber party?” My voice is too loud in the quiet evening air.
Sydney blinks, thrown by the sudden change of topic. “What?”
“Your junior year. I was a senior. You had all those girls over—what were their names? Megan? Morgan?”
“Melissa and Morgan.” Wariness creeps into her expression. “Why are you bringing that up?”
I force a grin, the one I know irritates her. “Just remembering good times. Jonah and I were so wasted. Your dad was furious.”
The warmth in her eyes cools rapidly. “Yeah, I remember. You puked in my mom’s favorite potted plant.”
“Come on, it was kind of funny. The look on your face when we climbed through that window—”
“It wasn’t funny,” she cuts me off. “It was humiliating. My friends never wanted to stay over again because they thought my brother and his drunk buddy might show up anytime.”
I should stop. I know I should stop. But I need this barrier between us, need to kill whatever moment we were having.
“We were just having fun,” I say with a deliberately casual shrug. “Not our fault you and your friends were so uptight.”
Her eyes narrow. “Uptight? My friends trusted me, and you guys destroyed that. I had to earn it back over months.”
“It was high school, Syd. Everyone did stupid shit.”
“That’s your excuse? ‘Everyone did it’?” She pushes away from me, skating backward a few feet. “You know what? This is exactly why we never got along. You don’t take responsibility for how your actions affect other people.”
The accusation stings precisely because there’s truth in it. But I lean into the pain, use it to fuel the fire I’m deliberately starting.
“Oh, and you’re so perfect? Miss Goody Two-Shoes, who never broke a rule?”
“I never said I was perfect.” Her voice echoes across the empty lake. “But at least I apologize when I hurt someone.”
“Fine. I’m sorry your slumber party got ruined. There. Happy now?” My tone makes it clear I’m not sorry at all.
Sydney’s face hardens, a transformation I’ve seen many times over the years. The open, vulnerable woman from moments ago disappears behind a wall of anger and hurt.
“You know what? I actually thought we were having a genuine conversation for once. That you were showing me the real Brooks Kingston.” She shakes her head, disgust evident in her expression. “But this is the real you, isn’t it? The guy who builds connections just to burn them down.”
Her words hit with surgical precision, cutting straight to the heart of what I’m doing right now. For a second, I consider backing down, telling her the truth.
Instead, I double down.
“We’re fake dating, Sydney. Don’t confuse the act with reality.”
She flinches like I’ve slapped her. “Message received. Loud and clear.” Her voice is ice now, brittle and cold. “Don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake again.”
She turns, skating with surprising speed toward the shore where we left our shoes. I watch her go, a hollowness expanding in my chest.
“Sydney, wait—” But I don’t even know what I’d say if she did wait. I don’t know how to fix what I just deliberately broke.
She doesn’t look back, already unlacing her skates with quick, angry movements.
I follow slowly, the distance between us growing in more ways than one. By the time I reach the shore, she’s already pulled on her boots and is marching up the path toward Meema’s house.
“Don’t bother coming after me,” she calls over her shoulder.
“Fine,” I shout back, frustration and self-loathing making my voice harsh. “I wasn’t planning to come back tonight anyway.”
That makes her pause, turning slightly though not fully facing me. “What?”
“I’m going to the cabin,” I say, referring to the old hunting cabin up on the ridge that belonged to my grandfather. “Need some space to think. Tell Meema not to wait up.”
Sydney stands there for a moment, silhouetted against the last light of day. I can’t read her expression from this distance, can’t tell if she’s hurt or relieved or just done with me.
“Fine,” she says finally. “Run away. It’s what you do best.”
Ouch.
Then she’s gone, heading around to the other side of the house and leaving me alone with the cooling air and my churning thoughts.
I take my time changing back into my boots, prolonging the moment before I have to face the consequences of what I’ve just done.
The hike to the cabin is familiar enough that I can do it on autopilot, my mind replaying our conversation in an endless, torturous loop. The genuine connection we shared. The vulnerabilities I revealed. The deliberate way I torpedoed it all when it got too real.
Kings don’t show weakness, son.
But that’s exactly what I just did.
The cabin is cold and dark when I arrive, exactly like the hollow feeling in my chest. I fumble for the generator switch, the ancient machine grumbling to life and casting a harsh light over the dusty interior. I stop, finally allowing myself to feel the full weight of what I’ve done.
I hurt Sydney. Deliberately. To create distance. Because for a few minutes on that ice, with the sunset painting her face in gold and her hand warm in mine, I forgot all the reasons we can’t be real. I forgot how fucked I am. I forgot my promise to Jonah.
I forgot everything except how much I wanted to kiss her.
And that’s exactly why I had to push her away. Because Sydney Holt deserves better than a man whose whole life is set to implode.
She deserves better than me.