Chapter 27
CECILIA
Showing up at someone’s house unannounced is the kind of impulsive decision that usually ends with me regretting it. The kind that later turns into ghosting the person entirely, just to avoid the awkward conversation about why I appeared in the first place.
I lift my hand to knock anyway.
Isabella’s house sits a little above the road, tucked between tall aspens that shimmer silver when the warm breeze moves through them. I considered turning around the whole walk here. The excuse was already forming in my head before I reached the walkway.
But then I hear the hose.
I round the side of the house and stop.
Isabella is standing barefoot in the grass, watering a row of potted plants along the deck railing.
She’s wearing a black sports bra and a pair of biker shorts that look like they were designed by someone hell bent on keeping me distracted. Her brown hair is twisted into a loose knot, strands already escaping and sticking to the back of her neck in the heat.
The hose arcs lazily from her hand, droplets catching the late afternoon sun.
For a moment, I just watch.
The woman who left a man speechless with three sentences in front of half the rink last week is now carefully adjusting the stream of water over a basil plant like it’s a delicate engineering project.
There’s something about her that doesn’t loosen its hold once it has you.
Quiet, almost imperceptible—but constant.
Like if I stand here long enough, I’ll stop trying to leave at all.
Her back shifts as she reaches for the next pot.
My brain briefly forgets how language works.
Then she turns slightly and notices me.
“Jesus—” Water splashes across the deck and soaks her toes. Isabella blinks against the sun, using her hand to shield her eyes as she studies me standing in front of her, frozen. “Ceci?”
I clear my throat. “Hi.”
She stares at me for a moment, recalibrating, then shuts off the hose and drops it on the grass.
“You know, most people text first,” she says, the corner of her mouth quirking up just a little bit.
“Yes, I considered it.”
“And?”
“I thought this would be more interesting.”
She wipes her hands on the sides of her shorts, and my eyes betray me immediately, drifting down to the line of her stomach before I can stop them. The problem with Isabella Pierce outside the rink is that there’s nothing between her and the world. No blazer, no posture, no careful composure.
Just muscle and sunlight and the quiet confidence of someone completely comfortable in her own space.
“Were you planning to stare all afternoon,” Isabella asks lightly, “or did you actually come here to hang out?”
Heat creeps up my neck. The annoying part is that she isn’t even teasing in a cruel way. She’s teasing because she already knows the answer.
Isabella notices immediately. Of course she does. Her smile widens just enough to make it clear she’s enjoying this. Being in control.
Not the heavy kind she performs in public—the one that comes with cameras and committees and federation politics. This is different. Lighter. Almost playful.
“You’re so bad at lying.”
“I didn’t lie,” I say defensively. “I just—”
“You just what?” she murmurs, stepping closer with a slow kind of confidence that makes my brain stall out completely.
I open my mouth, but not a single sound comes out, and this only makes her smile wider.
She closes the last bit of distance between us like it was inevitable all along. Not rushed. A quiet kind of gravity pulling her forward until my back brushes the warm siding of her house.
The deck creaks softly under her weight as she plants one hand beside my shoulder.
Up close, she smells like sunshine and grass and the faint citrus of whatever shampoo she uses.
My pulse trips over itself.
“You came all the way up here,” she says, voice softer now, almost amused. “Unannounced.” Her gaze drops briefly to my mouth. Then back up. “Just to… what?”
The question is teasing, but something about the way she’s looking at me makes it feel like a challenge.
I swallow. “To talk.”
Her laugh is quiet.
“Terrible answer.”
And then she leans in.
Slow enough that I feel it coming, slow enough that I could step away if I wanted to.
Her mouth brushes mine first, light and exploratory, like she’s checking whether I’ll bolt. When I don’t, the kiss deepens slightly, warmer now, the kind of unhurried confidence that makes my knees feel suspiciously unreliable.
Her hand shifts to my waist, steadying rather than trapping.
The control is still there. But it’s gentler than I expected.
When she pulls back, it’s only far enough that her forehead almost touches mine.
“Hi,” she says softly, like we just started this conversation.
My brain is completely useless. Isabella continues down my throat, peppering small, tender kisses on the soft skin there. She kisses my shoulder, then my collarbone.
“You’re impossible,” I manage.
Her grin returns immediately.
“You showed up at my house,” Isabella says, brushing another slow kiss against the corner of my mouth. “What did you expect was going to happen?”
My shoulders loosen. Which is new.
Two months ago, the idea of confiding anything to Isabella Pierce would have felt ridiculous. She represents the system I hate so much. The legacy. Everything about this sport that never quite made room for people like me.
Now she’s barefoot in her backyard, kissing me like this is the most natural thing in the world.
Life is strange.
Her mouth finds mine again—short, warm—like she has nowhere else to be. My hand ends up on her waist without me remembering the moment it got there.
Behind her, the aspens rustle softly. It’s the only sound in the yard.
“Princess…”
She answers by pressing another kiss to my jaw, slower this time, like she’s deliberately interrupting the thought before it can form.
Then she pulls back just enough to study my face.
She doesn’t rush me, doesn’t fill the silence. She simply waits, patient and still, like she’s resetting her skate before the music starts.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” she says eventually.
I let out a small breath.
“That obvious?”
“Painfully so.”
Her thumb is still resting lightly at my waist, like she forgot to move it after the kiss. The contact is gentle, grounding. She fits against me too easily.
I look past her for a second, towards the trees.
“I didn’t come here to make out with you in the backyard,” I say.
Isabella hums thoughtfully.
“That’s disappointing,” she replies.
Before I can say anything else, she grabs me by the wrist. My eyebrows jump in surprise as she tugs me towards the sliding door.
“Isa—”
The house is cooler, the shift from sun to shade immediate. I let myself be dragged without much resistance, laughing softly under my breath. She steers me to the couch at the front of the house.
“Sit.”
She drops onto the cushions with exaggerated ease, still smiling.
Natalie Portman, who is sprawled luxuriously across the middle of the sofa like he owns the place, opens one eye in mild offense.
“Sorry,” Isabella tells the cat, nudging him gently aside. “You’re going to have to move.”
The cat flicks his tail with the weary dignity of someone used to human incompetence and hops down onto the rug.
Isabella doesn’t hesitate. She pats the seat with her hand, then as soon as I’m next to her, she shifts closer, curling into my side like she’s been doing it for years.
One leg tucks under her, her shoulder settling comfortably against my chest.
The familiarity of it catches me off guard.
“How was your week?” I ask.
It comes out softer than I expect, like everything with this woman. Simple, casual. Like we’ve done this before.
Isabella huffs out a quiet breath that feels suspiciously close to a laugh.
“You were there,” she says, and I feel her smile against my shoulder.
“Not like this,” I reply, glancing down at her.
That earns me a small shift—her head tilting just enough that she can look at me properly now.
“Busy.” She scrunches her nose. “Long.”
“That bad?”
Her mouth curves faintly.
“Not bad.” She pauses. “Crowded.”
“They didn’t help,” I say, lightly.
There’s a beat, long enough that it makes me think she’s going to deflect. Instead, her hand moves and her fingers search for mine, lacing them and placing them on my thigh.
“No,” she replies. “They rarely do.”
“Do you always avoid them like that?”
Isabella’s mouth twitches, something almost amused but not quite.
“That obvious?”
“Princess,” I say, and I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. “You literally dragged me down a corridor and up an emergency staircase just because they were walking down the hallway.”
She sighs.
“It’s a very efficient system,” she says. But the look on her face tells me she’s not sure of how this sounds when uttered out loud.
“For cardio?” I ask.
Her mouth curves, just barely.
“For survival.”
I tilt my head, watching her. “That dramatic?”
She shifts slightly where she’s curled into me, not pulling away but settling deeper.
“They don’t mean to be difficult,” she adds.
“At least, I don’t think they do. It’s just—” She pauses, searching for her words.
“Everything has a purpose with them, especially my mother. Conversations, appearances, relationships. If it doesn’t serve something, they don’t really know what to do with it. ”
“Is that why they’re so averse to what you’re doing with the program?”
She huffs at my comment. Of course she knows I was eavesdropping in the hallway and that I heard everything her parents said to her.
“I think they think I’m just rebelling. Like twenty years too late, because I never did anything out of line in my teens.
And now that I have so much time and I’m basically free, they really can’t control me. ”
Her voice is even, but there’s something steadier under it now. Not defiant.
I glance down at her. “That sounds like a problem for them.”
“Oh, it is,” she replies.
There’s a small pause. Her fingers tighten around mine, like she’s deciding whether to keep going or leave it there.
“They don’t understand this part,” she adds after a moment. She gestures in the air with her free hand, in a loose, circular way. “What I’m doing here.”
“The program?”
She nods.
“To them, it’s… inefficient, I guess,” she says. “Too broad and unfocused, and dependent on too many variables they can’t predict or manage.”
Her mouth curves faintly.
“They would rather I attach my name to something more… controlled?” It comes out like a question rather than a firm statement. “Something that could be attributed directly back to me, to them. To the last name.”
“Instead, you are doing the opposite.”
“Yes.”
She says it simply.
I study her face. “Why?”
“Ceci, there’s so much talent out there, and I’m tired of watching the same people win over and over again.”
“May I remind you, Princess, you have five Olympic golds.”
“Yes, well,” she huffs. Then she shifts, pushing up onto her knees, the movement fluid and unhurried, like the conversation was always going to end here. Her hand slides to my jaw, tilting my face towards her.
“It’s boring,” she murmurs, right before her mouth finds me.