Chapter Fifteen
Monroe
Ten o’clock comes too fast.
I still didn’t make any progress on my lesson plan, and the day won’t stop replaying in my head.
Rhodes is…intoxicating. Unfortunately. He’s just… He didn’t have to help me. There’s nothing in this for him except my bad attitude.
The way he grins at me like I don’t bite or that he wouldn’t mind if I did. The way he takes my irritability in stride, like it doesn’t even faze him.
Rhodes is waltzing in midway through my grueling climb out of rock bottom, acting like it’s no sweat at all to help me up out of this pit. He took one look and walked toward me, instead of away from me.
The more time I spend alone with him, the blurrier the line I’ve drawn between us becomes. I like spending time with him and that feels scary to me.
Regardless, I’m shoving my sneakers on and grabbing my keys. I startle when my phone vibrates on the hard floor next to me.
Rhodes (9:42pm): Need a ride?
In an attempt to redraw the aforementioned line, I put a hard stop at riding together to the rink.
Monroe (9:43pm): I have a car, Rhodes.
Rhodes (9:44pm): Mine’s already warmed up, though.
Monroe (9:45pm): I have remote start.
Rhodes (9:46pm): Let me pick you up.
Monroe (9:47pm): I’ll meet you at the rink.
I climb into my very much not preheated car, shivering as I turn the ignition.
My music from earlier blasts so violently loud through the speakers that I jump, scream, and slam the volume down like my life depends on it.
Monroe from this morning is not the same girl as right now.
The drive to the rink is short, but the wind is brutal when I park in my usual spot in the back and step out, tugging my jacket tighter around me.
Rhodes is already here. I pass his obnoxiously warm-looking Land Rover on the way in.
He’s leaning against the concession stand window when I push through the doors, arms crossed, smirking.
“You’re late.”
I flick my gaze to the clock. Two minutes past ten.
“I am not late.”
“You wouldn’t have been if I’d picked you up.”
I roll my eyes and push past him. “You’re not my boyfriend, McKnight. We don’t need to carpool.” His jaw clenches in annoyance at the barb. We’re both dancing around what definition of friends we’re going with.
Well, I’m dancing. He seems to have a better idea than I do on what he wants.
“Friends can pick each other up, Monroe. I drove you this morning.”
“That’s different. I didn’t know what we were doing.”
“Oh, so it’s better to be taken to an unknown second location? Monroe, have you ever listened to a true-crime podcast in your life?”
I don’t look back. I don’t need to. I can feel his eyes burning into my back as I sling my skate bag over my shoulder and head for the rink doors.
“You gonna jump tonight, or are we chickening out again?” I hear his footsteps fall in line next to mine. He seems to have let go of my bitchy comment. I should apologize, but I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I’m not in a mental place right now to want anything other than friendship.
I stop and look through the viewing window toward the rink. I had been unsuccessful in jumping since I fell on the ice again. Every time I get to the point where I’m supposed to actually lift off the ice…
Nothing. It’s like my body has simply forgotten almost twenty years of skating.
I huff at him, dropping onto one of the benches to pull on my skates.
“I guess we’re going to see, aren’t we,” I mumble at my feet.
“I feel like tonight’s the night, Abrams,” he says next to me, pulling on his own skates.
We lock eyes before I stand to go out onto the glassy rink surface. Elsie’s Zamboni guy must really hate us messing up the ice at night. Rhodes follows me out.
“Tell me something, Monroe,” he says, flipping around to skate backward in front of me. He shoots me a grin.
“What do you want to know?”
“Favorite color?”
For some reason, the silly, mundane question takes me by surprise. I think on it, a tiny smile creeping up despite my quickness to press my lips together.
“Come on, Abrams. It’s not that hard! What’s your favorite color?”
“Green,” I say. He raises his eyebrows at me. “Not like…lime green or something stupid like that,” I say defensively. “Like a dark, olive kind of green.”
Rhodes nods, like that answer is acceptable. “Mine is royal blue,” he offers.
“I didn’t ask,” I say, skating past him.
He just chuckles. “Favorite kind of music?”
“Ragey, feminist pop,” I call back. “Or early 2000s boy bands.” He barks a laugh. His energy is contagious and I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling back.
“Same,” he shouts across the rink.
“You also like feminist pop?” I tease back, despite myself.
“I was referring to the Backstreet Boys,” he says, and now it’s my turn to laugh. “But I can get on board with ragey, feminist pop, too, if that’s what you like.” He comes to an abrupt stop in front of me. I skate backwards, away from the closeness of his body.
“You can run, Abrams. But you’ve gotta try a jump.”
My breath stutters, harshly brought out of the little bubble we were in and back to reality. “I can’t.”
“That’s quitter talk,” he chides. “And you are not a quitter.”
I bark out a humorless laugh. “I think an entire Olympic committee would disagree with you there, Rhodes.”
He skates up to me, close—too close—until my back presses against the rink boards. His arms cage me in, palms braced on the boards beside my head, his breath warm despite the cold.
I suck in a sharp breath. I trace his jawline with my eyes, moving up his face at the way his hair drops over his forehead.
“Monroe.” His voice drops lower, rougher. My core clenches at the sound of my name in his mouth. “You’ve gotta stop being so fucking hard on yourself.”
“I don’t know how,” I whisper, vulnerability escaping my carefully crafted exoskeleton. “I failed. I lost everything. What else is there to be but hard on myself?”
I flick my eyes away, but he’s not letting me go that easily. His hand drops and grabs my chin, lifting my face back up to his and forcing eye contact. God, he really is pretty.
“You had a serious injury. Your entire life changed. But that is not your fault. It’s something that happened to you, not because of you.”
I feel the words like a blade, cold and true.
I try to turn away again but his fingers skim my chin, tilting my face back up. I hate how easily I let him do it.
“You are back on the ice.” His voice is firm, leaving no room for argument. “You didn’t let it kill you. No matter how you come back, no matter what level you skate at now—you are still on the fucking ice, Monroe. And that is not quitting.”
I swallow hard, my throat tight.
His gaze doesn’t waver. “Do you understand me?”
I nod. Once. Twice. My pulse hammers in my ears as navy-blue eyes will the truth of what he is saying into my very soul.
“Good.” He finally steps back, clearing the space between us, but his eyes stay locked on mine. “Now go do the jump.”
My jaw locks. My breath shudders. Then I push off the wall and skate toward the middle of the ice. Rhodes’ words struck a chord in my chest.
Jump, Monroe.
I glide backward, knees bent, focus locked ahead.
My right blade digs into the ice, tracing the outside edge like muscle memory, the movement so ingrained in my body that it should feel effortless.
It doesn’t. This is requiring every single bit of focus and concentration when it used to require almost none. My pulse pounds in my ears.
I shift my weight, extending my left leg behind me. My skate hovers just above the surface. This is as far as I’ve been able to get. It’s the part that comes after that I struggle with.
I exhale sharply, squeeze my eyes shut, and kick off.
My toe pick carves into the ice with a sharp crunch, the familiar resistance giving way as I push up, launching into the air. For a split second, I am weightless—suspended between fear and instinct. My eyes fly open and I instinctively look for a spot on the wall to help my balance.
Then—I rotate. Just once, in the air.
The world blurs, the cold air rushing past my skin, my body snapping tight on autopilot, arms held in front of me. One full turn.
The landing rushes toward me faster than I expect. My right blade connects with the ice, a clean, smooth kiss against the surface. My knee bends instinctively, bending just slightly to absorb the impact, my free leg extending behind me to catch my balance.
Judges would have eaten this jump alive, I’m sure of it. A junior athlete could do better than this.
But I’m still standing. And I didn’t fall.
My breath comes in short, uneven bursts as I skate to a stop, the spray of ice flying around my ankles. The panic I expected to crush me hovers beneath my breastbone, but it’s manageable and I shove it away.
Inhale. Exhale.
I look up, and Rhodes is watching me like I just performed something spectacular, and not a trick I’ve been doing since I was nine.
“Holy shit,” he says on an exhale.
I skate backward, blinking hard, trying to process what just happened, then I slow to a stop in front of him.
My lips part, my voice barely above a whisper. “Holy shit.” My hands are shaking. I curl them into fists to still them.
Rhodes closes the little distance there is between us. “You did it,” he says, voice rough, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his hand pausing on the back of my neck.
I freeze.
“That’s enough for tonight, I think,” I whisper, looking up at him, not wanting to push my luck.
His jaw clenches, his eyes flicking down to my mouth. His thumb drags up and down my skin and I briefly, insanely, wonder what it would be like to kiss him.
“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs. Our breath is visible in the cold, mingling together between our faces.