Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Luka
Standing still was a mistake.
The moment practice ended, my thoughts circled straight back to Dean Foster: the locker room, the showers, the brief brush of his shoulder against mine… Each memory arrived sharper than the last, carrying a physical charge I wanted nothing to do with.
Motion had always been the fastest way to restore order. For a few minutes it worked. I traced clean lines across the rink, settled into familiar edges, and focused on the certainty of repetition.
Then Dean laughed at something on the far side of the rink, and my concentration shattered.
I didn’t even realize I’d been listening for him.
The realization hit hard enough that I nearly missed an edge.
No.
I drove into the next turn harder than necessary.
Focus.
Another lap. Another sequence.
I knew where Dean was without looking.
That was the problem. Every attempt to focus elsewhere merely confirmed it.
And if distance had genuinely been my objective, I wouldn’t have returned to the rink while he was still on it.
The thought irritated me enough that my next turn carved deeper into the ice.
Focus.
Another lap. Another sequence.
I lasted perhaps thirty seconds before abandoning that strategy.
Dean stood near the boards talking to Ethan Miller.
My next edge flattened. I corrected automatically.
I knew who Ethan was. Everybody did.
There were only a handful of openly queer athletes at these Games. No official list existed, but names travelled through competition circles all the same. Ethan Miller. Mateo álvarez. Luca Benedetti. Ingrid Solheim. Keisha Thompson.
Athletes whose careers had continued. Whose lives had continued.
Dean laughed at something Ethan said, and I felt a sudden, unexpected pang. The interaction was so ordinary They moved through the conversation without caution or calculation, as though being seen carried no cost at all.
The comparison was pointless. My federation was not theirs. My country was not theirs.
Yet the thought refused to disappear.
My jaw tightened.
For the last time, focus.
I pushed into another pass across centre ice and forced my attention back toward the work in front of me.
A skater cut abruptly into my path, and instinct took over.
I twisted hard onto the opposite edge and redirected at the last possible moment. My blade carved sharply across the ice as momentum dragged me sideways.
Too close.
The correction came late enough that I felt it through my entire body. My heart slammed against my ribs as the edge caught, skidded, then threatened to give way beneath me.
A firm hand closed around my arm a heartbeat later.
The fall vanished before it could happen. Momentum bled away beneath my blades while steady pressure remained wrapped around my forearm.
Then my brain caught up.
Dean.
Of course it was Dean.
His grip remained fixed around my sleeve, warm even through the layers of fabric.
I should have stepped back.
I looked up into hazel eyes threaded with green.
“You okay?”
My pulse jumped. Every instinct in my body demanded distance.
I remained exactly where I was.
“Yes,” I managed. “I am fine.”
Fix this.
Dean
That was way too close.
One second Luka had a clean line across the ice, and the next another skater cut directly into his path with barely enough space left to avoid a collision. The adjustment happened fast: a sharp edge, a violent correction, and blades scraping hard enough across the ice that I winced.
I moved before I thought about it.
By the time my brain caught up, I’d already crossed half the rink.
Then my hand closed around Luka’s arm.
“I am fine.”
The words came too quickly, because he was not fine. I could see it in the sudden widening of his eyes, in the way composure snapped back into place a fraction too fast.
And I was still holding onto him.
Let go.
My grip tightened instead, not by much, but enough that I felt it.
Luka looked up at me.
Neither of us moved. The noise of the rink seemed to drift farther away.
Then Luka stepped back.
“I am fine,” he repeated, his voice clipped tighter this time.
My hand fell to my side. “Yeah.”
The word came out rougher than I intended.
Luka pushed off without another glance, putting distance between us in long, controlled strokes.
I watched him disappear into the flow of skaters crossing the rink.
A coach shouted instructions somewhere behind me. Music started up again. Practice carried on.
I didn’t. My attention kept circling back to one stupid detail.
I’d noticed I was still holding him. And then I’d kept doing it.
Every time I tried to dismiss it, my brain brought it straight back.
“Hey, Dean.” Ethan was suddenly at my side. “That was close.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“But that’s not what you’re still standing here for, is it?”
I turned then, finally looking at him.
He held my gaze for a second. For once, he looked completely serious.
“You saved him.”
“Yeah.”
“The rest was extra.”
I looked away first, back to the ice. Then I pushed off before Ethan could say anything else.
For a few minutes I concentrated on skating.
At least, I tried to.
The problem wasn’t the interruption.
The problem was that I’d run out of explanations.
Tomorrow, I was going to have to find a new one.