Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Dean Foster
I didn’t ease onto the ice. I drove straight into motion.
Cold shot up through the blade and into my legs, clean enough to clear the stale feeling left behind by ten hours on planes and buses. My body woke up fast once I started moving. I’d never understood the skaters who needed twenty minutes of careful stretching before they trusted themselves to jump.
I trusted my body.
Usually it returned the favor.
“Show-off,” Ethan Miller called from the gate.
I pushed deeper into the edge without slowing. “You say that like it’s criticism.”
“That’s because it is.” He stepped onto the ice beside me. “Objectively, I hate everything about you.”
“That’s not what you said yesterday.”
“That was before coffee. And before international travel destroyed my will to live.”
I laughed and accelerated into another pass while the rink slowly filled around us. More skaters drifted onto the ice carrying coffee cups and half-zipped jackets, voices echoing beneath the hum of the arena lights overhead.
“Careful, Foster,” Ava Morales called from across the rink. “You’re going to peak two weeks early.”
“Relax. I’m multidimensional.”
Harper Knox glided past me with her habitual precision. “That sounded made-up even to you.”
I grinned. “Confidence intimidates people.”
“Overconfidence embarrasses them.”
Harper kept skating before I could answer, which usually meant she considered the conversation finished.
Ethan snorted loud enough for half the rink to hear. “God, she destroys you every time.”
“She wishes.”
Ethan coughed. “Focus, Foster, focus. Because you actually want the podium this time, Mr. Second Olympics.”
I grimaced. “Wow. Straight for the throat.”
“Always.”
I reset near center ice and rolled my shoulders once before pushing into a jump sequence. The takeoff felt clean, the landing too.
“Do you have to be perfect every damn time?” Ethan called.
My edge slipped on the exit, and I had to throw in an ugly correction to save it.
I laughed. “You missed the part where I nearly sat down on the ice.”
“Didn’t count. You stayed upright. And by the way, I hate you deeply for that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Maybe by Thursday.”
Ava called me a show-off. Harper questioned my intelligence. Ethan constantly declared he hated me.
It felt so good to be home.
I pushed into another run before Ethan could keep talking, letting movement settle the restless energy still bouncing through my system. Timing locked into place quickly after that. My body responded the way I expected it to when I stopped overthinking and trusted it to work.
Halfway through a turn, I became aware of someone watching from the boards, and I glanced.
Blond. Tall. European team jacket. No idea who he was.
I smiled anyway before pushing into the next sequence.
A moment later I found him again. He was skating with a partner. I watched them circle through synchronized footwork near the boards.
The woman wore her dark hair pulled tight, quick energy radiating from every movement. Even standing still, she looked ready to launch herself into motion.
Her partner was the exact opposite.
Nothing about him looked wasted. Every edge landed precisely where it needed to. Every movement seemed deliberate, as though he’d decided exactly how much energy to spend and refused to use a fraction more.
God, that looked exhausting.
I should have been paying attention to my own practice. Instead, I watched another lap.
Then recognition clicked into place.
Worlds. I’d seen him skate last season.
“Focus, Dean.”
Mark Winton’s voice cut straight through the distraction.
I looked away from the pairs team and pushed into another pass, forcing my attention back toward the sequence in front of me.
“Your landing timing’s off,” Mark called from the boards.
I circled back toward him. “It wasn’t that bad.”
He arched his eyebrows. “It was noticeable.”
I stopped near the barrier with a sigh. “You always this encouraging before sunrise?”
“Only when you’re pretending not to feel your own mistakes. Don’t chase distractions.”
Okay. Direct hit.
I rested my forearms against the top of the boards. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m allowed. I’m the coach, remember? And I repeat, you’re distracted.”
“I’m fine.”
Mark studied me for a second with the kind of patience that made lying feel increasingly pointless.
“That’s why I’m mentioning it now. You usually recover faster.”
I held his gaze a second longer before looking away toward the ice again.
The pair had separated temporarily during drills. Then I recalled the blond guy’s name. Luka Davorin. He stood near center ice while his partner spoke to him. Even from this distance, there was something unyielding about the way he moved, as though he never quite relaxed into anything.
Like someone had wound him too tight.
“Again,” Mark said.
I pushed away from the boards. This run felt cleaner, sharper, my body settling back into rhythm now that I’d recognized the distraction instead of pretending it wasn’t there.
Apparently my brain had other ideas.
As I landed the final jump, my attention slid back to Luka.
Which was irritating. I didn’t even know the guy.
The locker room felt overheated after the rink, but the showers alone justified staying at the arena instead of dragging ourselves back to the Village.
I dropped onto the bench and started unlacing my skates while Ethan collapsed beside me dramatically enough to suggest grave injury.
“So.”
I sighed. “You always sound like you’re about to ruin my day.”
“I’m observing.” Ethan leaned back against the lockers. “You nearly doubled a turn sequence because Blond Tragic Figure skated past you.”
I stared at him. “Blond tragic figure?”
“The Velkaryan.”
“That’s not a nickname.”
“It’s absolutely a nickname. And you know I’m right.”
“It was nothing.” I yanked one skate off and set it down against the floor with a dull thud.
Ethan grinned. “Wow. Aggressive skate removal.”
“It’s a new team,” I muttered. “Different dynamic.”
“One guy, you mean.”
My hands stopped moving.
Damn it.
Ethan jabbed a finger in my direction. “There it is.”
I leaned back against the lockers and dragged a hand through my hair. “They’re good skaters.”
Ethan folded his arms. “You weren’t watching the skating.”
I frowned at him. “What exactly do you think I noticed?”
He shrugged. “You tell me.” Then he nudged my shoulder. “Relax. I’m not interrogating you.”
“Feels suspiciously close.”
“That’s because you’ve spent the last twenty minutes pretending you weren’t distracted.”
“I wasn’t distracted.”
The pause before I answered was probably a mistake.
Ethan went quiet.
That was worse. Usually he would’ve kept talking until I threatened violence.
When I glanced back over, Ethan was studying me now. That teasing look had vanished.
“You know what the weird part is?” he asked.
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
Ethan tilted his head. “You weren’t looking at him because he’s good.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means you look at good skaters all the time.” His expression stayed maddeningly thoughtful. “That wasn’t what you were doing.” He held my gaze for another second, then shrugged. “Okay.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s it?”
He simply smiled.
Then it hit me.
That wasn’t surrender. It was reconnaissance.
Ethan only said “okay” when he planned to come back with reinforcements.
I watched him for a second before looking away. The conversation should have been over.
For some reason, it didn’t feel over at all.
Luka
Steam swallowed the showers almost immediately, thick enough to blur bodies into movement and noise.
Voices bounced hard off tile and metal while water hammered down from every direction.
Somebody near the far wall was laughing loud enough to dominate the room, another conversation dissolving into arguments about snowboarders and hookups and whether the Village had improved its condom supply this year.
I walked in anyway before hesitation could take hold.
Routine. Shower. Leave.
That should have been manageable.
Then I saw Dean Foster standing three showerheads away from me, dragging both hands through damp hair, water running down the broad line of his back, tracking slowly to—
My gaze snapped away instantly.
Too late.
The image stayed in my head anyway.
I moved farther into the steam and fixed my attention downward while skaters talked around me as though none of this required thought. Their conversations seemed easy and effortless. Nobody guarded their movements. No one measured where they looked or how long they looked for.
I had never felt so… different.
The water struck hard against my shoulders when I stepped beneath the spray, cold at first before heat followed. I braced both palms against the tile and concentrated on breathing while noise blurred together around me.
In. Out.
Simple.
Even without looking at him, I knew exactly where he was.
I forced my shoulders to loosen again.
Normal. Act normal.
Water streamed down my face while I kept my eyes shut for several seconds longer than necessary. The heat helped. By the time I finally looked up again, Dean had turned sideways talking to another skater, relaxed beneath the spray, no caginess anywhere in him.
That struck me harder than his body did.
He stood there laughing while water traced down his chest and stomach in slow lines. Confidence looked effortless on him.
That was the part I couldn’t stop staring at.
I watched the easy set of his shoulders, the complete absence of self-consciousness in the way he occupied the space, feet apart, water running down his shaft in a single stream, catching on the tight black curls there, his cock soft.
Then he turned toward me.
My lungs forgot their job.
I looked away so fast my neck tightened painfully with it, pulse kicking hard while heat climbed straight through my body before I could suppress the reaction.
Kvrat.
He’d caught me looking.
I focused on breathing.
In. Out.
Control returned slowly.
The problem had started before the showers or the locker room, before I watched water run down Dean Foster’s body while my own self-control threatened mutiny.