8. Jamie #3
We spend the next half hour with a stick and puck.
His hands are rusty, the control inconsistent, the weight transfer still finding its way toward the reliable side of things.
His determination is steady and completely relentless.
Every time the puck gets away from him, he retrieves it without comment and starts again from where things went wrong.
When a drill doesn’t work the way it was meant to, he doesn’t wait for me to notice.
He asks why, immediately, with the direct and unglamorous honesty of someone who cares more about understanding than appearance.
The more time passes, the more I understand why the medical school path was ever on the table for him.
The same qualities are present in both vocations if you know what to look for.
The focus, the willingness to sit inside difficulty without performing impatience, the refusal to move forward until the thing in front of him is genuinely understood.
Those are not acting skills. Those were there before the camera was.
By the time we reach the last drill, there is sweat dampening the collar of his shirt and his breathing has deepened into something more substantial. His cheeks carry the particular color that cold air and sustained physical effort produce together.
“One more,” he says.
I laugh, checking my watch before I can stop myself. “We are already over time.”
He tips his chin down and looks at me through what I can only describe as a frankly unreasonable expression. “I almost had that last one.”
“You absolutely did not.”
“I was close.” He brings a forefinger and thumb together until they are nearly touching, leaving approximately no visible gap between them.
I stare at the space between his fingers. Then at him.
The competitive stubbornness written across his face is so completely at home there that it reminds me of the most difficult professionals I have ever shared a locker room with, the ones who will run the same drill until their legs give out before they will accept that good enough is good enough for today.
“Fine,” I say. “One more.”
His smile arrives instantly.
“Show-off,” I say, meaning considerably more than the word alone.
“I am literally failing.” Cyaire pulls to a stop beside me.
“You are failing enthusiastically,” I say with every ounce of gravity I possess.
“That still counts for something.” He nudges me with the shaft of his stick, light and familiar.
“It does not.” I laugh, and the sound surprises me a little because it is entirely unmanaged, no restraint applied, none attempted.
He pushes off with a grin and lines up for the final attempt, and I watch him set his weight and find his edge and I am, without question, enjoying this more than I was professionally prepared for.
Halfway through the drill his right skate catches a bad edge. Everything happens within the span of about one second. The puck slides free, Cyaire’s weight shifts wrong, and his arms go wide as balance disappears beneath him entirely.
Instinct takes over before thought has any opportunity to consult.
The moment his skate betrays him, I move.
My glove shoots out, fingers splayed, but Cyaire’s already reaching too, his own reflexes sharp, desperate.
We collide hard enough to send my skates sliding backward across the ice.
I catch him around the waist before either of us goes down, planting my blades and absorbing his weight against my chest. His breath is warm and uneven against my neck, his hand fists the front of my jacket as he tries to steady himself.
My arm tightens around his waist, holding him there until I’m sure we’ve both found our balance again.
The arena is too quiet. The kind of silence that swallows sound whole, leaving only the echo of our breathing, the scuff of skates against ice, the distant hum of the rink’s machinery.
Somewhere beyond the boards, Cameron stands like a shadow, watching.
I don’t look. I can’t. Not when Cyaire’s weight is still leaning into mine, not when the scent of him, sweat, cold air and something faintly citrus, fills my lungs.
His eyes lift to mine, Chocolate brown, rich and warm, flecked with gold in the arena lights.
They’re the same eyes that have haunted me for months, the same ones that looked up at me from between my sheets, heavy-lidded and wanting.
The same ones that locked onto mine in a crowded bar, dark with intent.
Just like that, the memories hit me like a body check.
The bar. The elevator ride up to my hotel room, the way his breath hitched when my hand slid up his thigh, the way he bit his lip when I pressed him against the wall.
The hotel room itself, the way the sheets tangled around us, the way his skin burned under my palms, the way he arched into every touch like he was made for it.
The way he smiled against my mouth when we kissed for the first time, slow and deep, like he was savoring the taste of me.
The way his legs wrapped around my waist, effortless, like he trusted me to hold him up.
The sounds he made when I dragged my teeth along his collarbone, when I pushed inside him, when I whispered praises into his ear.
The way his fingers clawed at my back, the way his voice broke when he came, the way his body trembled beneath mine like he was unraveling.