Chapter 15 #2
I grabbed the boxes from the back, stacking them without thinking, the weight settling into my arms in a way that felt familiar. Useful.
She followed without being told, adjusting to the cold faster than I expected, her movements efficient even if her shoulders tightened against the wind.
The doors to the rink opened with a heavy pull, the rush of warmer, damp air hitting us immediately—thick with the smell of ice, rubber, and something faintly metallic underneath.
Sound carried differently inside. Echoed.
Skates carving. Pucks cracking against boards.
Voices layered over each other in uneven bursts.
Life.
Unpolished.
Real.
Bea slowed half a step behind me. Her eyes moved the same way they had in my apartment—quiet, deliberate, taking everything in without making a show of it.
The scuffed floors. The mismatched benches.
The parents clustered along the glass in worn jackets, coffee cups clutched in cold hands.
The kids moving too fast for their own coordination, effort outrunning skill.
I pushed through the inner door without looking back.
The rink opened up in front of us, ice stretching wide under harsh overhead lights, the sound sharper now—cleaner. A whistle cut through the air. A coach barked something that carried just enough authority to be heard and just enough exhaustion to be ignored.
The team was already on.
Small bodies in oversized gear, jerseys hanging loose, movement just a second behind intention. Passes missed by inches. Stops that slid too far. Determination written into every adjustment.
I set the boxes down along the boards, the scrape of cardboard against rubber pulling a few curious glances from the nearest players.
One of them recognized me first.
A stick faltered mid-pass. A head snapped up. Then another. The shift moved through them fast, quiet but undeniable.
Bobby came into view a second later, cutting across the ice too hard, nearly losing an edge before catching himself. His helmet sat slightly crooked, his jersey too big, his movement still carrying that same stubborn determination I remembered from the street.
He saw me. “You—” he started, pushing off the ice in a rush that didn’t quite translate to control. He skidded toward the boards, catching himself hard enough to rattle them. “What are you doing here?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
I reached down, flipped open the top box, and pulled a pair free—clean, new, blades catching the light in a way that didn’t belong in a place like this.
His gaze locked onto them.
“You’re not playing in those.” I nodded down to the kid’s feet. “Yours are shot.”
The rink noise kept moving around us—whistle, chatter, the scrape of skates—but right there, in that small pocket of space, everything narrowed.
Bobby’s jaw shifted. “Why?” he asked, the word falling close to a whisper.
I shrugged once. Minimal. Dismissive if you didn’t know better. “Because you need them.”
Bobby didn’t take them right away.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
The noise of the rink carried on around us—sharp and chaotic and alive—but right there, in front of me, everything slowed.
“You’re not funny,” he chuckled finally, but there was no bite to it. Just disbelief. “You’re messing with me.”
“I don’t have that kind of time,” I returned, rotating the skates once in my hand before holding it out again. “Take them.”
He stared at me for another second. Then his shoulders dropped—just a fraction.
“They’re… new,” he muttered.
“That’s usually how that works.”
His mouth twitched.
“You’re late,” I added, nodding toward the ice.
That snapped him out of it.
“Yeah—shit—” He looked down at his skates, then back at me, something sharper flashing behind the panic now—urgency, embarrassment, the kind that came from not wanting to waste something you’d been given.
He dropped fast, knees hitting the ice without thinking, fumbling for the laces with gloved hands that weren’t built for precision. The old skates looked worse up close—laces frayed, eyelets stretched, the leather broken down in ways that didn’t hold anymore.
“I got it.” I exhaled through my nose, already moving. Laughing despite myself, I hopped over the boards with my sneakers still on, the rubber edge catching for half a second before I planted cleanly onto the ice.
He didn’t argue. Just stilled, hands hovering uselessly as I dropped in front of him and took over.
My fingers moved on instinct—fast, efficient, practiced in a way that had nothing to do with kids’ gear and everything to do with years of repetition. I stripped the old skate loose in one pull, laces sliding free, tugged it off clean, then grabbed the new one without looking.
I set his foot, adjusted the tongue without thinking, pulled the laces tight—firm, even pressure all the way up, locking the ankle the way it should’ve been locked in the first place.
He watched me the whole time.
Second skate—faster.
Cleaner.
My hands worked through it with the same controlled precision I used taping my own before a game, tightening, securing, finishing with a sharp tug that told me it would hold.
Done.
I leaned back slightly, giving it one last check out of habit—pressing at the ankle, testing the flex, making sure it would respond when he pushed.
“Go.” I tapped Bobby once on the pads.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he stammered, like the words got ahead of him, like he hadn’t meant to say them out loud but couldn’t take them back now that they were there.
He pushed off hard, the new blades catching differently—cleaner—his body overcorrecting for half a second before adjusting mid-stride. He nearly clipped another kid, shoulder twisting at the last second to avoid it, then recovered, cutting a tighter line as he dropped back into formation.
I watched him find it. That split-second recalibration. The moment his body realized it didn’t have to fight the equipment anymore.
I lunged back over the boards in one smooth motion, hands bracing, clearing the barrier easily before landing a few feet from Bea. The rubber mat absorbed the impact, dulling the sound.
My attention pulled—hard—toward her. That awareness crept in. That pull I didn’t have a name for.
I ignored it, or at least did my best. Forced my focus back to the ice, to the practice, to the kid that mattered a little more than I knew how to define.
I watched him adjust on instinct, testing the edges without overthinking it this time.
His stride lengthened by half a fraction.
His turns held instead of slipping out from under him.
He pushed into a stop—too hard—snow spraying unevenly before he corrected, resetting his stance faster than he would have before.
He stumbled once—caught himself—kept going.
“Holy—” a voice cut in from behind the boards, low and disbelieving. “You trying to make me look bad, Müller?”
I didn’t turn right away. I knew the voice.
“Thought you retired,” I chuckled dryly, glancing over my shoulder.
Coach Harris leaned against the boards, arms crossed, a knit cap pulled low over his head, whistle hanging loose around his neck.
He looked exactly the same as the day I met him years back, dropping Bobby off—tired in the way that never quite left, but sharp enough to keep a dozen kids moving in the same direction.
“Yeah, well,” he huffed, pushing off the boards and walking toward me.
Bea shifted slightly behind me.
Harris’s gaze flicked past me, clocking her in a single pass, then coming back without comment. He didn’t ask. Didn’t assume. That wasn’t his style.
His eyes dropped to the open boxes.
Then back to me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he breathed. Not performative. Not for anyone else.
“I know.”
He exhaled through his nose, something like a laugh threatening at the edges of it.
“You’re gonna ruin these kids,” he muttered.
He stepped forward, crouching slightly to dig into one of the boxes, pulling out a pair and turning them over with a practiced eye.
Checking the blade. The fit. The reality of it. “These’ll last them a while,” he added.
“That’s the idea.”
Then, quieter— “Seriously,” he sighed, not looking at me this time. “I appreciate it.”
We shook hands. I offered a nod. We turned back to the matter at hand—hockey practice.
A whistle blew sharp across the rink.
“All right, kids!” Harris barked suddenly, voice cutting clean through the noise. He clapped his hands once, already turning away. “Line up!”
I stepped back from the boards, giving them space without making a show of it.
The rink swallowed the moment almost instantly. A whistle cracked sharp across the ice. Skates bit hard into the surface. Someone missed a pass and swore under their breath, the word echoing off the glass. Harris barked a correction that no one fully listened to.
I felt it before I turned—Bea’s attention, steady and quiet, sitting between my shoulder blades like something physical. Not heavy. Not intrusive.
She wasn’t watching the ice.
She was watching me. Not the way she had before—sharp, dissecting, pulling things apart to understand them.
This was different. Still. Focused.
Her head tilted just slightly, like she was lining something up in her mind, testing it against what she’d already decided about me and finding it… off.
Her eyes moved once—quick, precise—over my hands, my stance, the way I’d positioned myself without thinking.
Then back to my face.
The sound of a puck hitting the boards cracked between us, loud enough to break the space if either of us had wanted it to.
I held her gaze for half a second longer than necessary. Long enough to feel it shift. Uncomfortable in a way I didn’t have a clean label for.
My attention dropped without permission. Her mouth. The line of her throat disappearing into the collar of her coat. The way her hair had shifted when she’d stepped closer earlier, one side falling just slightly out of place.
I dragged my focus back up immediately.
“Ready?” I asked, already reaching for the empty box before she could answer, giving myself something to do with my hands that wasn’t… that.
I could hear Bobby’s skates cut hard behind me, sharper now, cleaner. Someone chirped at him. He chirped back. Harris snapped something about edge control.
We moved toward the exit without a word, the sound of the rink following us—loud, alive, completely uninterested in what had just shifted a few feet away from it.
The door slammed shut behind us, and the cold hit immediately. It cut through everything the rink had softened, biting into skin, dragging breath out sharp and visible.
Bea pulled her coat tighter. No complaint. No commentary. That, more than anything else tonight, caught my attention.
She took a few steps ahead of me, boots crunching over packed snow, then stopped. Turned.
“I don’t get you, Alois.” Her breath curled between us, visible in the cold, her voice cutting through the quiet without needing to be raised.
I didn’t answer right away. Didn’t move. Just watched her.
She huffed a short breath, shaking her head once like that might organize whatever she’d just seen. “You’re—” she started, then stopped, visibly recalibrating mid-thought. “You’re a problem. You know that, right?”
That pulled something close to a smile out of me. “Been told.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, tracking it. Not missing the shift. Not missing anything.
“But then you do…” She gestured vaguely back toward the rink, frustration threading through the motion. “That.”
I tilted my head. “Buy skates?”
“Don’t.” She stepped closer, closing the space just enough. “Don’t do that thing where you pretend it’s nothing. It’s not nothing.”
The wind kicked up between us, sharper this time, lifting a piece of her hair and dragging it across her cheek. She didn’t fix it. “You’re out there breaking people’s faces,” she continued, her voice tightening just slightly, “and then you show up here like—like some—”
“Saint?” I offered, because she was clearly searching for it.
Her eyes flashed. “Yes,” she snapped. “Exactly. You’re a monster and a saint. Pick a damn lane, Müller.”
There it was. I exhaled through my nose, something quieter settling under my ribs, something I didn’t bother naming. “I’m good where I am.”
That only made it worse. I saw it land—saw the way it irritated her, the way her brain tried to sort something that didn’t want to be sorted.
“You can’t be both,” she pushed.
“Sure I can.”
“That’s not how people work.”
I stepped closer this time. Just enough that she had to tilt her head back a fraction to keep eye contact. “They do,” I growled. “You just don’t like it.”
Her breath hitched. Small. But I felt it. And that—more than anything else tonight—was dangerous.
My gaze dropped for half a second. Her mouth. Close enough now that I could see the way her lips parted just slightly when she inhaled again, the cold catching in the space between us. I dragged my focus back up before it could go anywhere worse.
“You’re deflecting,” she muttered.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
I nodded once. “Good.”
That earned me a look. Sharp. Frustrated.
I stepped past her before I could do something stupid—like stay there long enough to find out what she’d do next.
“Come on,” I barked, already moving toward the car. “It’s cold.”