Chapter 20
CECILIA
“Otra vez, Rodri,” I say, not loudly, but with enough weight that Rodrigo hears the correction in it. He rolls his eyes at me but goes back to his reset, running the sequence one more time like instructed.
He skids to a stop near the boards, breath fogging faintly in the early chill of the rink, one eyebrow lifting like he’s debating whether I was serious or not.
The overhead lights are still warming up, casting a faint blue sheen across the ice that makes everything look unreal, like we’re rehearsing instead of living.
“Ceci,” he drags my name out with a slight whiny tone. “It was clean the first time.”
“It was rotated,” I reply, stepping closer to the barrier and folding my arms against the cold. “Clean would’ve been quieter on the landing. You know that.”
He rolls his shoulders, glances down at his blades, then looks back at me with the exaggerated patience of a teenager who thinks he’s being generous. “It didn’t scrape, look.”
“It did,” I say. “You just didn’t feel it. Look behind you.”
He exhales through his nose, pushes off without arguing further, and circles back to his mark at center ice for the third time this morning.
The rink is mostly empty at this hour. A pair of junior skaters are working footwork patterns on the far side with another coach, their music leaking faintly through the speakers in distorted bursts.
The smell of coffee and breakfast food drifts from the small kiosk near the entrance, mixing with the metallic scent of resurfaced ice. It’s ordinary and predictable.
I grip the top of the boards and watch him set up for the jump again, forcing my focus into the mechanics of it—knee bend, shoulder alignment, timing on the toe pick—because it’s easier to live inside those details than inside the memory of last night.
He launches. Rotates and lands cleanly, and that smug little smile returns to his face.
“?Mejor!”
Not perfect, but better.
“Okay,” I call out, and this time I let the approval sit in my tone. “Hold that entry edge longer.”
He nods once, already pushing into the next sequence.
I become aware of her in the way I sometimes become aware of a draft in a closed room—subtle at first, then undeniable once your body clocks it fully and the chill is running down your spine with urgency.
Isabella stands near the technical table along the boards, a laptop open in front of her, speaking quietly to one of the staff. She’s dressed simply, dark leggings and a fitted zip-up, hair pulled back in a low bun that exposes the lean line of her neck.
Nothing designed to draw attention, but magnetic nonetheless. And I feel it immediately—the pull of her, not as a presence in the room, but as something my body already knows how to respond to.
She looks up mid-sentence, almost absentmindedly, and our eyes meet.
There is no performance in it. No secrecy, either. Just a small shift in her expression, something softer than what she normally offers the rest of the room. It doesn’t linger long enough to be obvious, but it’s long enough for me to recognize it.
It’s for me. And she doesn’t look away as she should.
My chest tightens, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with what happened last night.
It has to do with the way she said my name when the lights were off. With how easily I let myself stay. With waking before dawn and watching her sleep for longer than I should have, knowing I needed to be here before Rodrigo even stepped into the building.
I left quietly, petting Natalie Portman a few times and silently walking out the door, trying to regain some of the control she seems to strip from me without trying.
And now she’s standing across the ice, looking at me like nothing about last night was a mistake.
That’s the part that unsettles me.
Not the sex, god, no.
The certainty.
I look away first before she catches me smiling.
Rodrigo finishes the combination and glides to the boards, stopping close enough that I can see the flush in his cheeks.
“See?” he says, breath uneven and triumphant. “Quieter.”
I study him, letting a beat stretch out before I nod. “Hmmm, yes. Closer.”
He grins, pleased that I didn’t argue.
Isabella stands from her seat, and Rodrigo follows my line of sight without meaning to. His gaze tracks past me, towards the technical table and the royalty occupying it, then back.
“You’re in a good mood,” he says, casual but not careless.
“I’m always in a good mood, Rodri,” which is such an obvious lie that he actually laughs at me.
“Okay,” he says, shaking his head.
I pretend not to hear the implication.
On the far side of the rink, Isabella shifts positions, moving along the boards with a stack of printed sheets tucked under her arm.
She doesn’t approach the ice, instead staying exactly where she belongs in this context, even though I know she could step into the center of the room and command it if she wanted to.
She stops a few feet from where I’m standing, speaking briefly with one of the junior coaches. When she’s finished, she rests her hand lightly on the top of the boards.
Close enough that I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to.
Instead, I keep my eyes on Rodrigo as he sets up for another run-through, even though I can feel the warmth of her presence at my side.
“Morning,” she says quietly, not looking at me.
“Morning,” I answer, equally neutral.
If anyone were watching, they would see nothing unusual. Two professionals acknowledging each other in a shared workspace.
Her fingers shift slightly against the barrier, brushing the edge of my hand for the briefest second before she pulls back.
It’s so small that I almost feel like I imagined it. My hand doesn’t move, but the rest of me does.
“You left early,” she says, not looking at me.
“I had to be here,” I reply, keeping my eyes on the ice, even though I can feel hers on my profile. “The boss lady is super strict about ice times.”
There’s a quiet beat, and then she turns just enough that I can see the curve of her mouth from the corner of my vision.
“I’m the boss lady?” she asks, amusement threading through her voice.
I risk a glance at her then. She’s smiling—not that stupid public version, but the one that tilts to one side, like she’s enjoying the shared inside joke.
“You are terrifying about scheduling,” I say evenly.
She laughs under her breath, warm and low, and the sound settles somewhere deep in my chest, steadying and unsteadying me at the same time.
“Nina is the real boss, though,” she adds, that smile still playing at the edge of her mouth. Her eyes drift back to Rodrigo on the ice, who is setting up for a triple-triple combination he’s been chasing all week. “I just sign things.”
Rodrigo lands the second jump a little forward on his toe pick and scrapes out of it, arms windmilling before he regains balance.
I exhale slowly.
“I’ll see you later?” she asks, and I notice, for the first time, a slight hint of doubt in her voice. “Maybe come see me once you’re done here? I have the good coffee,” she adds, like that’s the reason.
My pulse reacts as if she had dragged her palm down the length of my spine. She steps away before this can become more noticeable, heading towards the exit doors with unhurried confidence. I force myself to breathe normally.
Rodrigo lands clean this time, holds the edge, and glides towards me with a grin that borders on cocky.
“That was definitely clean,” he insists.
He studies me for a second longer than necessary, then glances at the doors where Isabella disappeared.
“She’s coming this weekend, right?” he asks.
“To the exhibition?” I keep my voice even.
“Yeah.”
“Yes,” I say. “She’s working.”
He nods slowly, absorbing that.
“She looks at you differently,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
I blink at him, and for the first time in my thirty-seven years of life, I’m grateful that the cold air of the rink keeps my cheeks permanently flushed.
He can’t tell the difference between that and embarrassment.
I lower my gaze to my notebook, flipping a page I don’t need to flip, sliding the pen carefully back into the spiral binding just to give my hands something to do.
“Focus on your edges,” I say, which isn’t an answer at all.
He smirks like he’s storing the moment away for future leverage and pushes off towards the locker room, skates scraping lightly across the rubber mat.
“Y dejá de ser tan chusma,” I call after him, not raising my voice enough for it to sound sharp.
He laughs loudly before turning around.
I remain at the boards, staring out at the empty stretch of ice he just left behind, aware that something fragile has begun to exist in the space between Isabella and me.
It feels real.
It also feels visible.
And visibility, in this sport, always costs something.