4. Chapter 5
Mara
My father is already in the hallway when I arrive at the rink Thursday morning.
Not waiting near the locker rooms. Not heading to the coaches' office. Standing outside the storage corridor with his arms crossed and his eyes on me the second I push through the door.
That's never good.
"Dad." I adjust my bag strap. "You're here early."
"So are you." He falls into step beside me like we're just two people walking the same direction. We both know we're not. "I want to talk to you about the conditioning program."
"Okay."
"Keep it professional, Mara."
I stop walking. He takes two more steps before he turns.
"That's it?" I ask. "No context?"
"That's it."
He holds my gaze for exactly three seconds, long enough to make his point, short enough to avoid an argument, and walks away.
I stand there with my bag digging into my shoulder and my jaw tight.
Dad doesn't say Dane's name. He doesn't have to.
The unknown text is still sitting in my phone. I tired looking up the number but that was a dead end. Probably a burner phone.
I haven't shown it to anyone.
I probably should have.
I spend twenty minutes before my first skater stretching at center ice and trying to convince myself this is fine. My father has always been protective. The rink is his domain. His rules have always been clear and I've always followed them.
Keep it professional.
I have been professional. I've been nothing but professional.
I think about Dane's hands on the boards last night. Not reaching for me. Just still. And the way he backed up when I asked. Slow and deliberate just looking at me, like it mattered to him that I saw it.
That is not the problem.
The problem is that it shouldn't matter to me whether he listened. And it does. He looks and acts like the man I’ve always imagined I would end up with.
I push up off the ice and go get my skaters.
Tessa arrives at eight sharp, which is normal. Her mother arrives two minutes later, which is not.
Julie Vale doesn't usually come to morning sessions. She usually lets Tessa drive herself and checks my rink portal for notes. But today she's standing by the rink in a belted coat with her phone in one hand and a coffee she isn't drinking in the other.
"Ms. Vale." I keep my voice even. "This is a closed session." I usually don’t like parents hovering over their kids.
"I just want to watch." She smiles. It doesn't reach anywhere near her eyes. "Regionals is in seven weeks."
"I know when Regionals is."
Tessa doesn't look at either of us. She steps onto the ice with her chin down and her shoulders already carrying something too heavy for a sixteen-year-old on a Thursday morning.
I let it go. I start the warmup. We run footwork sequences, edge work, a clean run-through of the short program without music. Tessa is good. She's always good. But today she's careful, and careful is the enemy of electric.
I stop her after the third rotation on her combination jump.
"You're pulling your arms in too early."
"I know." She resets. "I'll fix it."
"You're thinking about it." I skate closer, lower my voice. "Stop counting the rotations. You know how many there are."
She nods. Goes again.
Julie Vale speaks. "She landed that cleaner last week."
I turn. Politely. "Ms. Vale, I'm going to ask you to step back to the bleachers or wait in the lobby."
"I'm her mother."
"You are. And right now your presence is making her skate for you instead of for herself." I hold the smile until it lands. "That's not a criticism. It's physics. Thirty minutes, and I'll have her run the long program for you."
Julie's mouth presses flat. But she goes to the lobby.
Tessa lets out a breath.
"Thank you," she says quietly.
"Don't thank me yet. Run it again."
After Tessa's session, Julie corners me in the lobby.
She wants more ice time. A second private session per week before Regionals.
She wants Tessa working on stamina conditioning because she "read something about elite skaters cross-training with resistance bands," and she wants me to push harder on the triple-triple combination because the girl placing second in the region landed it at her last event.
I listen. I write nothing down.
"Tessa's program is strong," I say when she finishes. "Her technique is clean. What she needs before Regionals isn't more drilling. It's confidence. That comes from rest and trust, not extra hours."
"She can rest after she wins."
"She can't perform if she's burned out."
Julie's chin lifts. "Are you telling me how to parent my daughter?"
"I'm telling you how to win." I hold her gaze. "Those are the same thing right now."
She doesn't like it. But she leaves without another word, and I count that as a draw.
The team's afternoon session bleeds over into my studio time by fifteen minutes because coach scheduled a scrimmage that wasn't on the shared calendar. I'm rearranging equipment in the conditioning room when I hear boots in the hallway and then Evan McLeod appears in the doorway.
He leans against the frame with that easy grin he defaults to whenever he wants something.
"Hey, Coach's daughter."
"Mara," I say. "For the fourth time this season."
"Right." He pushes off the frame, moves into the room like I invited him.
I run my program as normal with little resistance from the players. Just the usual moans and groans as we finish up.
"You heading out soon? I figured I'd walk you to your car." Evan says.
I set down the resistance band I'm holding. "I still have to put the equipment back."
"I can help."
"You don't have to."
He tilts his head. Still smiling. "Maybe I want to."
There's nothing wrong with what he's saying. On the surface, it's always just friendly. But the friendly has an edge to it lately. Something that presses a little too close to the line.
"Evan." I keep my voice flat. "I appreciate it, but no."
He blinks. "No what? I'm just ?"
"Offering to walk me to my car. I know. No."
His smile flickers. Something brief and hard crosses his face, gone before I can name it. He recovers fast. Shrugs, casual, like he was never invested.
"Cool." He glances past me toward the hallway. "Just being friendly."
"I know you are." I turn back to the equipment. "See yah later."
He doesn't move for a second. I can feel him still standing there. Then I hear his boots on the floor and I let out a breath I've been holding since he walked in.
I finish packing up. Shut the lights. Swing my bag over my shoulder and head for the exit.
I'm halfway down the staff hallway when I realize someone is already there.
Dane.
He's standing at the end of the corridor near the exit door, back to the wall, arms crossed. He changed after practice. Dark jacket, jaw set. He looks like he should be on the cover of GQ .
"You heard that," I say.
"Some of it."
I stop in front of him. "I handled it."
"I know you did."
He's not pretending he was passing through. He just looks at me with that deliberate, unhurried gaze, like he decided to be in this exact spot.
And that's the problem with Dane Kincaid.
He doesn't push. He doesn't perform. He just shows up and stands there being the most solid thing in the room, and my mind knows what I’d love to do with that.
"Dane."
The side door swings open.
Evan steps through it, then he sees us both in the corridor. His eyes move from me to Dane and back again. Slow. Calculating.
The smile he puts on doesn't fit his face right.
"Kincaid." He nods at Dane. "Didn't know you were heading out too."
Dane says nothing.
Evan looks at me. "Guess you found your escort."
It's nothing. It's just words. But the way he says it, the weight he puts on “escort”, the little pause before it, sits wrong. Makes my skin go cold.
Dane uncrosses his arms.
He doesn't step forward. He doesn't raise his voice. He just straightens off the wall and looks at Evan with an expression so controlled it's almost worse than anger.
"She said no."
Three words. Quiet as ice.
Evan's smile disappears.