Sharp Edges (Between the Lines #1)

Chapter 1

NOVEMBER

I slid into the triple axel entry for the twenty-seventh time.

Every time I'd run it for the past three weeks, my hip had landed tight.

It was the kind of thing the judges wouldn't see, but that didn't matter.

I knew it, and I couldn't rest until I'd corrected every flaw or until I broke.

So far, I was closer to perfection than breaking.

I took off from the ice and hit the rotation perfectly, but the landing was still stiff. Dammit, Joel. Do it again. And do it fucking right this time.

I skated back to the other side and ran it again.

Still not right. My ankle throbbed. I ignored it. Pain was just information. I'd stopped letting it make decisions for me a long time ago.

I turned into my backward crossovers, building speed for the full sequence, and a redheaded man stepped onto the ice directly in my path.

I carved a hard stop. Ice sprayed across the rink, and the cold rushed in along with the silence.

He raised his hands, but I wasn't looking at them.

I yanked out my earbud. "Do you have a fucking death wish?"

He blinked. "What?"

"You're on my ice in sneakers."

He looked down at his worn Nikes like he'd forgotten what he was wearing and then shrugged. "Didn't realize it was your ice."

This fucking asshole. Just who did he think he was? I took in the rust-red hair, the cocky stance, the red and white RISTRAS jersey. Hockey player. Of fucking course he was. "It is from five to seven."

He pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and held it up. "They double-booked us," he said.

"That's not possible." I snatched the paper out of his fingers and scanned it. Fuck, he was right. Someone, somewhere, was going to get a very angry call from my manager. Natalia was better at handling people than I was.

I stared at him. He stared back, completely unbothered, like he had all day to stand here in his sneakers on my ice.

"Look," he said, "the manager's not here until seven, so we can sort it out then. For now, we can stand here arguing about it, or you can go back to doing your..." He waved a hand at the ice behind me. "Spinny thing."

" Axels," I corrected.

"Sure, man. Look, I just need the far end. You won't even know I'm here."

I should have told him to get the fuck off my ice. I should have skated to the office and waited for someone to fix this. Instead, I turned and pushed off toward center ice without a word.

He could take that however he wanted.

I wasn't going to look at him. I was going to run my sequence and ignore him completely and pretend he didn't exist.

That lasted all of thirty seconds.

He'd made his way to the far boards in those stupid sneakers and was lacing up a pair of hockey skates. When he stood and stepped onto the ice, his whole body changed. The cockiness smoothed into an easy, loose posture.

He skated like all hockey players—low center of gravity, all power and no finesse—but there was something about the way he moved that made it hard to look away. He wasn't fighting the ice. He was just... on it. Like it belonged to him.

I'd spent twenty years earning every edge. He just existed out there like the ice had always been his.

I forced myself back into the entry sequence and missed the first turn completely.

Fuck.

I ran the sequence again and missed the second turn too, because I was watching him instead of my feet.

He'd picked up speed on the curve, letting his stride lengthen. When he carved a hard stop at the boards, ice sprayed up and caught the overhead lights, and I was just standing there in the middle of the rink like an idiot.

Get it together, Joel.

I pushed into my triple axel entry at full speed. The takeoff was clean, rotation tight, and I landed with my free leg extended in a line my father would have approved of. I held the landing an extra beat and let the edge carry me in a slow arc, arms open, chin lifted.

When I came out of it, he was standing at the far boards with his mouth slightly open.

Then he blinked, shook his head, and turned back to his edges.

But I'd seen his face. He'd looked at me like I'd shown him something real. Not the appreciation I got from sponsors, or the careful assessments from judges, or my father's endless notes. Just honest, unguarded awe.

My stomach fluttered.

No. I was not doing this.

I ran the entry twice more and missed the edge both times.

My phone buzzed at seven. I skated to the boards and started unlacing while he was still running edges on the far end. I didn't say goodbye. I didn't owe him a goodbye.

He called out anyway. "Same time tomorrow?"

My jaw tightened. "I'll be here at five."

"See you then." A pause. Then: "That was a sick spin... axel, I mean. You're really good."

It was too simple. Too genuine. Nobody talked to me like that. Nobody just said things like they were true without wanting something back.

I shoved my skates into my bag and left without answering.

The parking lot was empty except for my car and a beaten-up truck that had to be his. I didn't let myself limp until I was sure he couldn't see me through the glass doors. Then I let my weight shift off my ankle, just for a second, and the relief was sharp enough to make my eyes sting.

My car was where I'd left it, black and polished and exactly parallel to the lines. I'd detailed it myself last Sunday because the service I used had left a smudge on the passenger window. Inside, the leather was cool, and the air smelled like nothing at all.

I sat behind the wheel and didn't start the engine.

My phone showed three notifications: one from Natalia confirming breakfast, one from the meal prep company confirming tomorrow's delivery, and one from my father. His text had come in at 5:47 this morning, which meant he'd been watching the practice footage Natalia posted last week.

I didn't open it. I could write his critiques myself at this point.

He'd find fault with my arm position on the landing, or he'd ask why I was wasting time on triples when we both knew the program needed quads.

The specific words didn't matter. Whatever he'd written would sit in my chest like a stone for the rest of the day.

I'd answer him later, once I'd had time to compose something that sounded like compliance without actually conceding anything.

His truck had a Ristras sticker on the back window, peeling at one corner. The whole vehicle looked like it was held together by rust and stubbornness.

You're really good.

I turned the key and pulled out of the lot.

The drive to the café took twelve minutes.

I knew because I'd timed it once, early on, when I was still building the schedule that ran my life.

Twelve minutes from rink to café, eight from café to apartment, three from apartment to the trail where I ran.

I had the whole city mapped in intervals, every transition accounted for, no gaps where something unexpected could slip through.

My ankle throbbed in time with my pulse. I adjusted my grip on the wheel and watched the mountains turn pink in my rearview mirror.

The hockey player's face kept surfacing. His stupid grin lingered, and so did the way his whole body had loosened when he stepped onto the ice. He'd watched me land that axel like I'd shown him something impossible.

I turned the radio on, then off again. The silence was better. At least it was something I could control.

Natalia was already at the café when I arrived, her dark hair pulled back, her posture perfect even in a vinyl booth.

She'd been pairs champion twice before her shoulder ended her competitive career.

Now she carried mine instead, managing sponsorships and social media and the interview requests I kept turning down.

She'd followed me to New Mexico when I left Minnesota. I'd told her not to. She'd come anyway.

"You're late," she said. She studied me over her coffee. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Joel."

I slid into the booth across from her. A child two tables over was shrieking about something, the high-pitched wail drilling into my temples.

The mother looked exhausted, her hair escaping from a ponytail, her coffee untouched and going cold.

She kept making apologetic eye contact with the other customers.

I looked away before she could try it on me.

The waitress came, young and cheerful in a way that seemed practiced.

She had a small tattoo behind her ear, a crescent moon, and she smiled too much.

I ordered dry toast and an egg white omelet with spinach.

When she asked me about coffee, I hesitated, glanced at Natalia, and ordered a vanilla latte with whole milk instead of my usual black coffee.

Natalia raised an eyebrow. "Feeling rebellious today?"

"I'll burn it all off in a run later," I told her.

She shrugged and pushed her eggs around the plate.

Near the counter, a man in a wrinkled suit was arguing with the manager about his order, his voice getting louder with each exchange.

The wrong kind of milk, apparently, as if anything about a cup of coffee could matter enough to make a scene over.

I watched him gesture at the cup, watched the manager's face go flat and professional, and wondered what it was like to care that much about something so small.

"So what happened at the rink this morning?" Natalia asked.

"Some hockey player showed up during my session," I said. "Double booking."

"Oh." She dragged the syllable out until it could carry furniture. "You want me to call the manager and fix it?"

I started to answer and then stopped. "It's not a big deal." He probably won't show up tomorrow anyway.

"Is he hot?"

"He's not—" I stopped. Hot wasn't the right word.

He had freckles and a crooked smile and a scar on his chin, and hair that went in six directions at once.

He looked like someone who'd help you move apartments and refuse gas money.

"He's just some hockey player. You know how they all are. Arrogant. Stupid."

"Toothless," she added.

"He wasn't toothless," I blurted before I could stop myself. "Look, it's not a big deal."

"Uh huh."

The waitress came back, dropped off my coffee and the eggs at the same time.

Her smile was still fixed in place, but her eyes looked tired underneath it.

I wondered how many hours she'd been on her feet.

I wondered if she had another job after this one, or a class to get to, or just an empty apartment where she could finally stop performing.

I frowned at the toast. It was slathered in butter. I plucked it from the plate and set it aside because I was not going to fuck up my macros that badly. The latte was enough of an indulgence.

"Your mom called the business line," Natalia said.

My fork stopped.

How much? That was always the question. How much money, how many hours, how far would I have to drive this time? What mess had she made that she needed me to clean up?

"What did she want?"

"Wouldn't say. She said she'd call back." Natalia watched me. "I can deal with her. Tell her you're slammed."

"No." If I let Natalia handle it, my mother would escalate. She always escalated when she couldn't reach me directly. Better to control the damage myself. "I've got it."

"You sure?"

"I said I've got it."

She held up her hands.

I didn't pay her enough to deal with my mother. I didn't pay her enough to deal with me. That she stayed anyway was something I tried not to think about too hard.

The child was still crying. The man at the counter had given up, stalking out with his wrong-milk coffee and a slam of the door.

The waitress passed by again, still smiling that empty smile, and I thought about how exhausting it must be to perform pleasantness for strangers all day.

At least when I performed, I got scores for it. At least there was a point.

Outside, the morning had turned bright, the sun catching the dust in the air and turning it gold. Somewhere out there, a hockey player with red hair was probably climbing into his rusted truck, probably not thinking about me at all.

I picked up my fork and ate my eggs without tasting them.