Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Luka
Sleep never really arrived.
By the time dawn crept through the blinds, I had given up pretending otherwise.
The Village was quiet when I left. So was the metro. The city still felt half-asleep, suspended in that brief stretch before morning properly began.
I welcomed it.
The arena was quieter still. No crowds, no media, just cold air, distant music, and the familiar sound of blades cutting fresh ice.
I stepped onto the rink and skated.
For a while, it worked.
Movement narrowed everything down to simple things: edges, timing, balance. The ice demanded attention, and usually that was enough.
This morning it almost was.
Then Dean Foster walked into the rink.
The effect was immediate.
My concentration fractured, not completely, but enough that I felt it.
I watched him glance toward the far end, toward the other skaters, and then back to me. A few seconds later he did it again.
My stomach tightened. I pushed harder through a sequence.
It didn’t help.
The irritating part was that I had known it wouldn’t.
Some reckless part of me had noticed him the moment he walked through the doors.
And had been waiting for him to look my way.
I finished the sequence I was working on and headed for the boards.
When I stopped, Dean was already watching me.
I stopped close enough to him that the distance between us felt intentional.
Dean looked exhausted.
“You’re here early,” he said.
“So are you.”
A smile touched his mouth. “Couldn’t sleep.”
The rink was nearly empty. A few skaters worked through warmups at the far end, their blades whispering across the ice beneath distant music. Everything else felt unnervingly still.
“About yesterday,” Dean said.
My grip tightened on the barrier. “What about it?”
His gaze dropped to my hand before returning to my face. “You know.”
“No.” I spoke too quickly.
Whatever patience he had brought onto the ice with him seemed to thin.
“Luka.”
Something in the way he said my name made me wish he hadn’t.
“We’ve both been doing this long enough to know when something’s off.”
“I am skating perfectly well.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Heat crawled my neck. I looked out across the rink rather than at him.
A pairs team passed through the opposite corner. Someone’s music cut off abruptly. The familiar sounds should have grounded me.
When Dean spoke again, his voice had lost most of its usual lightness.
“I keep thinking about what you said.”
My stomach tightened. I knew exactly which words he meant.
I do not know what I would be allowed to like.
I looked back at him, and the question escaped before I could reconsider it.
“Why?”
Dean looked almost as surprised by it as I was.
“I don’t know.” His gaze drifted across the ice before returning to me. “Maybe because nobody should sound that resigned at twenty-four.” He leaned against the boards and looked out across the ice. “I tried to let it go.” The words sounded more like an observation than a confession. “I didn’t.”
My pulse kicked hard.
“You are assigning too much importance to it.”
“Maybe.” His expression remained infuriatingly calm. “Or maybe you’re acting like it’s normal when it isn’t.”
A skater crossed between us and the far end of the rink before disappearing again.
Neither of us moved.
Finally Dean glanced toward me.
“If you want me to leave it alone, say so.”
My breath caught. The words sat there waiting.
Leave it alone.
Walk away.
Stop.
Any one of them would have been enough.
I stood there saying nothing.
Dean watched me for another second. Then—
“Luka.”
Mila’s voice cut sharply across the rink.
The moment shattered.
She stood a few feet away, posture exact, gaze fixed.
She saw it.
I stepped back immediately, then skated over to her without hesitation. By the time I reached the boards, my breathing was steady again.
Or close enough.
Mila stood near the entrance with her bag slung over one shoulder, watching me approach.
I knew that look. I had known it for years.
“What just happened between you and Dean Foster?”
I hated how quickly I reacted to hearing his name.
I glanced back. Dean remained where I had left him.
“Nothing.”
I turned back to her. Her expression didn’t change.
“Luka.”
I exhaled. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“The truth would be a good start.”
I laughed under my breath, a short, humorless sound. “That would require me understanding it first.”
“Is he worth this much confusion?”
The question caught me completely off guard because I already knew the answer.
She held my gaze for a moment, then sighed.
“Come with me. We cannot discuss this here.”
The quiet certainty in her voice unsettled me.
She turned and headed toward the corridor, and I followed.
Refusing would only have made things worse.
Dean
I saw the change the instant Mila called his name.
Whatever had been happening between us vanished behind the composure he wore everywhere else. By the time he reached the boards, there was no trace of it left for anyone who hadn’t been standing right in front of him.
Mila said something as he approached. He listened without interrupting, his attention fixed entirely on her now. Then she turned and headed toward the exit. Luka followed.
I stayed where I was, watching until they disappeared through the doors.
After a moment I pushed out a breath and scrubbed a hand across the back of my neck.
Trying to move on would have been smart.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop thinking about the version of Luka that only seemed to exist when nobody else was looking. “Foster!”
The voice cut across the rink, bright, familiar, and completely wrong for the moment.
I blinked, the shift immediate.
“I thought that was you.” Tomasz Zieliński skated toward me with long, confident strides. “Trying to get ahead of the rest of us? I didn’t expect anyone else here this early trying to claim the good ice.”
I managed a laugh that sounded almost convincing. “You’re here too.”
“Yeah, well, I like having at least one hour a day before this place turns into a circus.” He grinned. “Plus I need every advantage possible if I’m supposed to survive competing against you this week.”
“You’ll cope.”
“That confident, huh?”
“Terrified, actually.”
“Better.” Tomasz leaned his forearms against the barrier. “Arrogance is annoying before eight in the morning.”
That earned a real smile from me at least.
“I didn’t realize you knew Davorin.”
My stomach chose that moment to clench. “We’ve crossed paths.”
Except that didn’t even come close.
Tomasz’s gaze drifted toward the exit Luka had disappeared through before returning to me. “Mm.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “You know how it is. Athletes talk.”
I waited.
“Velkarya gets talked about more than most.”
The cold in the rink suddenly felt sharper. “Why?”
Tomasz shrugged. “Same reason people talk about half the federations nobody wants to criticize too loudly.” He glanced toward the doors. “Some places give you more room than others.”
“Room for what?”
Tomasz was quiet for a second. “To be a person.”
I thought about Montreal. About being allowed to like things.
About the way Luka kept looking over his shoulder before saying anything real.
Tomasz looked away first.
“Anyway.” He pushed off the barrier. “Not really my business.”
It didn’t sound like he believed that.
“Hey.”
I looked up.
“Just...” He hesitated. “Try not to assume everybody’s playing by the same rules.”
Then the easy grin returned. “Now I’m going to do what I came here for and figure out how to beat you this week.”
“You won’t.”
“See?” Tomasz pointed at me. “That’s the arrogance I was talking about.”
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are. Which is why I’m warning you before I destroy your medal chances.”
He pushed away laughing before I could answer.
The conversation should have ended there.
It didn’t leave me so easily.
I braced both hands against the barrier and lowered my head for a second.
Jesus.
I’d spent days trying to understand why Luka kept stepping forward only to retreat again.
Now I had an answer.
If Tomasz was right, I had been treating this like a puzzle.
Luka hadn’t.
I pushed away from the boards and drove hard into the ice, forcing speed into my edges because standing still had become impossible. Cold air tore past my face while I built momentum fast enough to drown out my own thoughts.
It didn’t work. Luka stayed there anyway, threaded through every turn, every push, every breath.
And underneath all of it sat one brutal truth I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried.
I hadn’t dragged him into that moment alone.
He’d stayed too.