11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONNOR
Isink deeper into the seat, notebook balanced across my lap while the team pours out onto the ice below.
The rink comes alive around me, blades cutting into fresh ice, voices carrying up into the stands, the sharp crack of sticks and pucks echoing off the walls.
I should be able to work through it. Usually, once I decide I’m going to focus on something, I can force everything else far enough into the background to get on with it.
Today, apparently, the exception is skating around directly in front of me.
My eyes find Theo again.
He moves differently out there.
I noticed it the first time I saw him skate, but sitting here with nothing else demanding my attention makes it impossible to ignore. There’s no hesitation in him, no wasted movement, every stride clean and controlled enough that the rest of the team looks slightly slower beside him.
Even Marcus.
Marcus is steady. Reliable. He reads the ice well, knows exactly where everyone should be and somehow manages to hold the whole thing together without making it obvious he’s doing it.
Theo doesn’t play that way.
He looks like he’s already seen what everyone else is about to do.
A pass starts to develop, and he’s moving before it’s made. Someone closes in on him, and he changes direction before the contact comes, shifting the play around himself without ever seeming rushed by it. He doesn’t rely on anyone else to create space for him. He just takes it.
It takes the silence of my pen against the page to make me look down. I haven’t written anything in long enough for the ink at the end of the last word to have dried.
If it wasn’t for his temper, Theo and Marcus wouldn’t simply be playing at the same level. They’d be competing for captain, and the certainty of it sits strangely beneath my ribs when I realise I’ve spent the last several minutes studying Theo instead of anything I’m supposed to be here for.
I lower my pen to the notebook and force myself back to the page.
I came here to study.
The page in front of me hasn’t changed in the last several minutes, although apparently I’ve been staring at it long enough that the words have started blurring together. I blink, force myself back to the beginning of the paragraph and try again.
Nothing sticks. I make it halfway through the same sentence again before the scrape of a blade cuts across the ice below, sharper through the turn before settling into a long, clean glide.
Theo.
I know it before I look up.
My pen hovers uselessly over the page while I try to drag my focus back to the assignment, but there’s a constant awareness sitting at the edge of everything, tracking where he is on the ice even when I refuse to lift my head.
It’s ridiculous.
I blow out a breath and snap the notebook shut, giving up on the same sentence I’ve been pretending to read for the last several minutes. When I look up, Theo is already watching me from across the rink, green eyes holding mine while the rest of the team moves around him.
His mouth curves slowly, the kind of smug smile that tells me he knows exactly where my attention has been, and then the bastard winks.
Heat pulls low in my stomach, my fingers closing around the edge of the notebook. I should look away, but that smirk makes it impossible to give him the satisfaction, so I hold his stare instead and watch the amusement deepen across his face.
Lucas slams into him from the side.
The impact cracks across the rink, knocking Theo sideways and tearing his eyes from mine. My body pitches forward with his, feet already shifting beneath the seat.
My heart kicks against my ribs.
Theo hits the boards, my muscles tensing in response, but he never fully loses his balance. His skates carve sideways across the ice, absorbing the force, body shifting with it instead of fighting it.
Lucas leans in and says something against Theo’s ear, earning an eye roll and a shove that sends him stumbling back a step.
Theo’s eyes come straight back to me, one brow lifting.
Heat creeps up my neck as I settle back into my seat, far too aware of how close I came to standing up over absolutely nothing.
Theo holds my gaze before turning away and pushing back into the play, and the change in him is immediate. The smirk disappears, his attention narrowing to the ice ahead while his body settles into that same effortless certainty I’ve been trying not to watch all morning.
It’s strange seeing him this way when off the ice he seems physically incapable of taking anything seriously for longer than thirty seconds. There’s always a joke waiting, some irritating comment designed to get under someone’s skin.
None of it follows him onto the ice.
Theo changes direction cleanly around another player, taking the puck with him.
A throat clears beside me, and I jerk my attention away from the ice to find Marcus leaning against the boards, one arm hooked over the top, watching me with his brow raised.
“You got a sudden interest in hockey I don’t know about, Con?”
Heat starts creeping up the back of my neck.
“No.”
Marcus’s brow goes higher.
I scoff and shake my head, forcing my grip on the notebook to loosen. “As if. What’s so entertaining about men chasing a puck around with sticks?”
Marcus laughs under his breath and reaches over to ruffle my hair.
I swat his hand away, running my fingers through it to fix whatever mess he’s just made. “Fuck off.”
His grin widens.
“You’re so grumpy today.”
“I’m always grumpy when you’re around.”
Marcus laughs quietly, but thankfully leaves it there, his attention returning to the ice for a moment before he looks back at me.
“So what are you actually doing here?”
I sink lower into the seat and fold my arms across my chest, fixing my eyes firmly on the rink rather than the curious look on my brother’s face, only to land straight back on Theo as he cuts across the ice with the puck tucked close to his stick.
His helmet is gone now, abandoned somewhere near the bench, dark hair damp and falling untidily across his forehead. He tips his head back when he laughs at something Lucas says, and the sound reaches faintly into the stands.
Theo tips his head back, exposing the long line of his throat, and when he swallows, muscle shifting beneath the skin, I watch.
“Needed somewhere to study.”
Marcus takes his time looking around the rink, eyebrows lifting as his attention comes back to me.
“Right,” he drawls. “Because when I think hockey rink, I think studying.”
I press my lips together.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Alright.” Marcus lifts both hands, backing off even though the slight pinch between his brows tells me he doesn’t believe a word of it. “None of my business, message received.”
I expect another joke. Instead, his expression eases.
“You good though?”
My fingers still against the edge of the notebook.
“Yeah.”
My eyes go back to the rink instead, landing on Theo with such fucking predictability that irritation crawls beneath my skin.
He’s already looking at me.
Again.
“I’m alright.”
Marcus doesn’t answer, his silence worse.
Marcus stays quiet beside me, but I know that silence too well. Give him another few seconds and whatever he’s turning over in his head is going to become my problem.
I shove lightly at his shoulder before he gets the chance.
“Stop nagging. Go be captain instead of bugging me.”
Marcus huffs out a laugh as he pushes away from the boards, lifting both hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’m going.”
He skates back into the drill, slotting himself into the movement of the team with the ease of someone who’s spent most of his life on the ice, and I follow him for all of three seconds before Theo cuts into view.
Looking straight at me.
His head tips slightly, green eyes holding mine with that infuriating little glint that usually appears right before he says something I want to punch him for.
Except he’s too far away to say anything now.
He just looks.
I narrow my eyes at him and drop back to my notebook, flipping it open until the page I abandoned earlier stares back at me.
Words. Actual words. An assignment I need to finish and a sentence that still ends halfway across the page because apparently Theo Knox skating in circles is enough to destroy my ability to read.
I put the pen to paper and pick up where I left off, keeping my eyes there even when the awareness between my shoulder blades refuses to disappear.