Chapter 4 Serena
I couldn't stop thinking about those eyes.
Brad Wilder had the kind of blue eyes that belonged in poetry—if I wrote poetry, which I didn't. But standing at the ice center's entrance the next evening, skates in hand, I could understand why people wrote sonnets about that particular shade of blue.
"You're being ridiculous," I muttered to myself, pushing through the doors. "He's a single dad who clearly has enough on his plate without you developing some schoolgirl crush."
The rink was nearly empty, just a few die-hard hockey players practicing at the far end.
Perfect. I needed to work on my skating without an audience—especially without a seven-year-old's encouraging commentary and his father's steadying hands that had left impressions on my waist I could still feel through my jacket.
I laced up my rented skates, wobbled onto the ice, and immediately questioned my life choices. The ice seemed slipperier than yesterday, the boards farther away, my balance more theoretical than actual.
"Arms out, weight forward," I coached myself, channeling Brad's patient instructions. "Don't look down."
I made it halfway around the rink before I heard the doors open. The air changed instantly—that subtle electric shift that made my skin prickle with awareness. I knew who it was without even looking.
Brad stood at the entrance to the ice, wearing dark jeans and a grey Avalanche hoodie that had seen better days.
Without the crowd and chaos of family night, he seemed larger, more present.
His gaze found me immediately, and something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe pleasure, before his usual guarded expression settled into place.
"Practicing without your assistant coach?" he called out, stepping onto the ice with the fluid grace of someone who'd learned to skate before they could properly walk.
"Finn would be horrified by my lack of progress," I admitted, grabbing the boards as he approached. "I've managed three whole laps without falling, though."
"Impressive." He stopped just outside my personal space, close enough that I could see the faint scar through his left eyebrow. "Most people give up after face-planting once."
“Speaking from experience?” I asked.
“Maybe. I’m glad Finn hasn’t told you about my early skating disasters yet.” His smile softened his features, easing the lines of perpetual worry.
“That sounds interesting. Where is Finn, anyway?”
"Theo's watching him. Practically shoved me out the door, actually. Said I needed to, and I quote, 'stop being a hermit and remember what fun looks like.' "
"Looks like Theo's got opinions about everyone." I executed a tentative push away from the boards. "But I think he means well."
Brad skated backward in front of me, hands out like he was spotting a gymnast. "He does. Even when he's being insufferably meddlesome. Weight more forward—there you go."
We fell into an easy rhythm, him guiding me through basic techniques while sharing stories about his early hockey days. He had a dry sense of humor that emerged when he relaxed, usually at his own expense.
"So, you're telling me Brad Wilder, professional hockey player, once got his skate stuck in the zamboni door?"
"I was fourteen," he protested. "And showing off for a girl."
"Did it work?"
"She dated my best friend for three years."
I laughed, the sound echoing in the empty rink. "Smooth."
"Yeah, that's me. Smooth." He shook his head, but he was smiling. "What about you? What brings a teacher from San Antonio to our small mountain town?"
The question I'd been dreading. "Fresh start," I said carefully. "Sometimes you need to change your whole environment to remember who you are."
He studied me for a moment, reading something in my expression. "Bad breakup?"
"Broken engagement, actually." The words came easier than expected. "Turns out I was more of a project than a partner. He had very specific ideas about who I should become."
"His loss," Brad said quietly, and the sincerity in his voice made my chest tight.
"Tell me about hockey," I said, needing to shift focus from the way he was looking at me. "You mentioned you're injured?"
His expression darkened slightly. "Torn MCL. Six weeks ago—a bad hit during a game against Minnesota. Should be back on the ice in another month if rehab goes well."
"That must be frustrating."
"It's..." he paused, searching for words. "Actually, it's been almost a relief. Being home with Finn more, not traveling constantly. Since Sarah—" He stopped abruptly.
"His mom?" I asked gently.
"Yeah. She died three years ago. Car accident on highway during a snow storm." His voice went flat, automatic, like he'd said these words too many times. "Black ice. They said she didn't suffer."
"Brad, I'm so sorry."
"Finn was four. Old enough to remember her but young enough that the memories are fading." He started skating again, and I followed, sensing he needed movement. "Sometimes I catch him looking at her pictures like he's trying to memorize something that's already slipping away."
We skated in silence for a moment, the only sound our blades on ice and the distant thump of pucks from the practicing players.
"You're doing an amazing job with him," I said finally. "He's confident, funny, kind—"
"Anxious, overprotected, isolated," Brad countered.
"Loved," I said firmly. "Deeply, obviously, overwhelmingly loved. Everything else can be worked with."
He stopped so abruptly I nearly crashed into him. His hands caught my waist, steadying me, and suddenly we were close enough that I could see flecks of grey in his blue eyes, smell the faint scent of his soap—something clean and woodsy.
"You don't even know us," he said, but there was wonder in his voice rather than accusation.
"I know enough," I whispered, aware that neither of us had stepped back, that his hands were still on my waist, that the air between us had become something tangible.
The overhead lights suddenly cut out.
Emergency lighting kicked in a second later, bathing the rink in amber shadows that turned the ice into a mirror of gold. The temperature seemed to drop immediately without the full heating system.
"What happened?" I asked, involuntarily stepping closer to Brad's warmth.
"Automatic timer. Facility closes at nine—I lost track of time." He pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen.
A metallic clunk echoed through the space. Brad skated to the doors, pulled them, and turned back with a rueful expression. "Zamboni bay doors just locked. We're stuck until someone overrides the system."
"Stuck?" I tried to keep the panic from my voice. Small spaces didn't bother me, but being trapped was too reminiscent of feeling caged in Marcus's apartment, in his expectations, in the life he'd mapped out for me.
"Hey," Brad was beside me instantly, reading my distress. "It's okay. I've got the emergency maintenance number in my phone. Twenty minutes, tops."
He made the call while I focused on breathing, on the vast space above us, on anything except the locked doors. After a brief conversation, he pocketed his phone.
"Jimmy's on his way. He lives about fifteen minutes out." Brad studied my face in the amber light. "You okay?"
"Fine. I just—I don't like being trapped."
Understanding dawned in his expression. "The ex?"
"He never locked me in anywhere," I said quickly. "It was more... psychological. Every door was open as long as I walked through it his way."
Brad's jaw tightened. Without a word, he took my hand and led me to the players' bench. He shrugged out of his hoodie and draped it over my shoulders—it was still warm from his body and smelled like him.
"Tell me about your most challenging student," he said, settling beside me.
"My most challenging—what?"
"Distraction technique. Finn and I use it during bad attacks. Tell me something that really tested you as a teacher."
So I did. I told him about Tyler, who threw chairs when frustrated but wrote beautiful poetry when calm.
About Maya, whose autism made eye contact painful but who could solve math problems that stumped teachers.
About every child who'd been labeled "difficult" when they just needed someone to see them differently.
Brad listened with the same intensity he probably brought to game footage, asking questions that showed he was truly paying attention. He shared his own stories—teammates' kids who struggled in school, his own challenges with what he now recognized as ADHD before hockey gave him focus.
"I would have been one of your projects," he said with a self-deprecating smile.
"Students, not projects," I corrected. "Every child deserves to be seen as a whole person, not a problem to solve."
"Is that why you do it? Special education?"
"I volunteered at a children's hospital in college," I said, remembering those transformative months.
"There was this boy, Chris, who'd been in an accident.
Everyone focused on his physical therapy, but he was struggling to read.
I started working with him, adapting materials to his abilities.
The day he read an entire book by himself.
.." I smiled at the memory. "His mom cried.
His doctors were amazed. But Chris just looked at me and said, 'I knew I could do it. You just showed me how.'"
"And you were hooked."
"Completely. Marcus never understood. He said I was limiting myself, that I could do 'so much more' than work with 'those kids.'" I felt the familiar anger rise. "As if helping children learn isn't important enough."
"Marcus sounds like an ass."
The blunt assessment startled a laugh out of me. "He was. Is. I just took too long to see it."
Brad shifted closer, his warmth a comfort in the cold rink. "Sometimes we can't see things until we're ready. Took me two years to admit Sarah was gone, really gone. I kept her voicemail active just to hear her say 'Leave a message' every day."
"Do you still—?"
"No. Finn found me listening to it one night, crying in my truck. He climbed into my lap and said, 'Daddy, Mommy's not in the phone.' Kid was five and understood better than I did."
The lights suddenly blazed back to life, making us both blink. A cheerful voice called out, "You folks can head out now! Sorry about the lockdown!"
We stood up, the spell broken by fluorescent reality. But as Brad helped me off the ice, his hand lingered in mine.
"Same time next week?" he asked, then quickly added, "For skating practice. You're getting better."
"I nearly fell twelve times."
"But you didn't. That's progress."
I looked up at him—this careful man who measured breathing rates in precise increments, yet was asking me to take an unmeasured chance.
"Okay," I agreed.
Driving home, still wrapped in the ghost of his warmth, I thought about the moment before the lights came back. The way he'd leaned toward me, how I'd tilted my face up, the space between us shrinking until—
"Stop it," I told myself firmly. "He's grieving. You're rebounding. This is a terrible idea."
But I was already planning what to wear next week, already imagining his hands on my waist again, steady and sure.
Back in my cabin, I pulled out the romance novel I'd been reading, then set it aside. For once, reality was more interesting than fiction. Complicated, messy, probably inadvisable reality—but interesting nonetheless.
I fell asleep wearing his hoodie, which I'd "forgotten" to return, telling myself it was just because it was warm.
But warmth had never made my heart race like this before.