Chapter 1
JULIETTE
Early-December
I’m sitting in the lobby, in-between classes, scrolling through my phone without really looking at it, when I hear the uneven thump-stomp of someone approaching and my stomach does this stupid little flip because I know that sound, I’ve heard it three times this week already.
Please keep walking. Please keep walking. Please—
“You look as bored as I feel.”
Dammit.
I refuse to look up from my phone. “I’m working.”
“You’re watching eight-year-olds eat it.” Rodriguez sits down next to me. “That’s not working, it’s entertainment.”
I finally glance over at him and he’s staring at me with that cheeky grin that he’s been using on me since September, like his persistence is charming instead of annoying. The knee brace is huge and keeps his leg stuck out at an awkward angle, velcroed over his gray joggers.
It’s not charming. It’s definitely not charming. Okay, it’s possibly a little charming and I hate that my body seems to have its own opinion about this.
“My next class starts in twenty minutes,” I say, looking back at my phone even though the screen has gone dark and I’m just staring at my own reflection now.
“Perfect. Just enough time for terrible concession stand coffee. My treat.”
“No, thank you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shift his weight, stretching his good leg out. I should not be noticing the way his joggers fit or anything about him at all, but apparently my eyes have stopped taking orders from my brain.
“Okay, but real talk.” His voice gets a little more serious and I can feel him looking at me. “I actually need your help with something.”
I glance at him again, skeptical. “With what?”
“My edges have been off since the injury. Jake says it’s mental but I think it’s my form. You’re a coach, right? Professional opinion?”
“You can’t even skate yet.”
“Exactly. Which is why I need to start thinking about it now. Visualization. Sports psychology. Very important stuff.”
My mouth almost twitches and I catch it before it becomes a smile, pressing my lips together. “That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.”
His grin widens and my pulse kicks up. “Yeah, okay, you got me. I just wanted to buy you coffee. Sue me.”
God, he’s beyond persistent and the worst part is that some traitorous part of my brain is wondering what would happen if I said yes, if I let him buy me terrible rink coffee and listened to him talk about hockey and his injury and whatever else he’d want to talk about, if I let myself lean into this pull I feel every time he gets close.
But I can’t because my boyfriend is moving here in three weeks and I’m not the type of person who gets distracted by hockey players with nice arms and crooked grins and shaggy dark hair.
The fluttery feeling in my chest when Rodriguez sits too close is exactly why I need to shut this down, to kill it before it becomes something I can’t ignore.
“I’m not interested,” I say, and I’m proud of how level my voice sounds. How completely unbothered.
“In coffee? Or in me?”
“Both.”
“Ouch.” He puts a hand over his chest like I’ve wounded him, but he’s still smiling, like my rejection is just part of the game. “That’s cold, even for the Ice Queen.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Stop being so icy and I’ll consider it.”
One of the kids from my next class waves at me as she walks in with her mom and I wave back, grateful for the interruption, for an excuse to look anywhere except at Rodriguez’s face and the way his expression shifts when I shut him down.
“Come on, JuJu.” His voice is softer now, almost coaxing, and I hate how much I like the way he says that nickname, the way it sounds intimate even though we barely know each other. “What’s the harm? It’s just coffee. I’m slowly dying of boredom over here.”
“That’s obviously not my problem.”
“Is this about September? Because I deleted that video like you asked. I haven’t filmed you once since then.”
“This isn’t about September.”
“Then what’s it about?”
You, I think, and my hands tighten around my phone.
It’s about you and the way you look at me like you’re actually seeing something, it’s about how Garrett never makes me feel this off-balance and I don’t know what to do with that, and how you’re genuine in a way that scares me because I can’t figure out your angle.
“It’s about you not being able to take no for an answer,” I say instead.
Disappointment flickers across his face and I feel guilty suddenly. Which is ridiculous because I barely know him, he’s just a hockey player who’s been hitting on me for three months, I don’t owe him anything.
“Fair point.” He pushes himself up, testing his weight on the bad leg, and I watch the way he grimaces slightly, trying to hide it. “For the record though, I think you’re way more interesting than you want people to believe.”
Don’t ask what he means. Don’t engage. Just let him leave.
“Well for the record, I don’t care what you think.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear.” His grin is smaller this time, almost sad. “I’ll see you around, Ice Queen.”
He limps away, the uneven gait from the knee brace making him look less like a professional athlete and more like someone who got in a fight he didn’t quite win, and I watch him go longer than I should, I can’t seem to make myself look away until he’s completely out of sight.
My phone buzzes in my hand and I jump.
Garrett
Just finished a massive presentation. Boss loved it.
Right. Garrett. My boyfriend. Who I love. Who’s moving here in three weeks so we can finally have a normal relationship instead of this long distance thing we’ve been doing for years.
That’s amazing! Proud of you. Talk tonight?
Garrett
Definitely
I put my phone in my bag and glance back to where Rodriguez disappeared, guilt washes over me at how much I find him attractive even though I have a boyfriend.
A good boyfriend who’s building a life with me, who’s moving across the country to be with me.
Rodriguez is just a distraction, someone who doesn’t know when to quit.
Parents are starting to arrive with kids for my next class and I stand up, rotating my ankle which is only slightly sore today. Good. I can get through the class, go home, finish meal prep for the week, and talk to Garrett about his presentation and the fact that he’ll be here in three weeks.
Everything exactly the way it’s supposed to be.
I just need to stop thinking about Rodriguez’s smile and the way he sat too close and how I actually wanted to say yes to terrible rink coffee, wanted it so badly my mouth had started to form the word before I caught myself.
I just need to be better at being the ice queen everyone thinks I am.
I’m elbow deep in weekly meal prep when my phone buzzes against the kitchen counter.
I pause mid-scoop and wipe my hands on the hand towel, reaching across the glass containers that I obsessed over labeling perfectly straight, Monday through Friday, filled with chicken, rice, and veggies, the same lunch I’ve been eating for years.
Perfect protein, carbs, portions. The way everything in my life has to be.
I prop my phone against the wall and hit the button to accept the FaceTime call from Garrett.
“Hey, I’m just finishing up dinner prep. Give me like five minutes?”
His face fills the screen, but I can see snippets of his apartment behind him. The Ikea lamp that I picked out last summer when I visited Toronto is glowing behind his shoulder, casting a shadow across his face, which is a weird detail to notice, but it’s been a long weekend.
“Jules, we need to talk.”
“Okay.”
“Can you sit down?”
“No, I’m doing meal prep, I can’t leave the chicken out that long.”
“Just—please.”
I pick up my phone and cross toward my bed, my socks sliding slightly on the hardwood.
My studio apartment in the University District is small, everything is visible from pretty much anywhere and there’s nowhere to hide, but I’ve been here since sophomore year and the rent is reasonable so I put up with the space, with being able to see my entire life from any angle.
I sit down on the edge of the mattress. “Okay, sitting. What’s up?”
He takes this breath and I know, I just know because you don’t date someone for three years without learning their tells, the way he won’t quite meet my eyes through the screen, the set of his jaw, that specific breath he takes before saying something he doesn’t want to say.
“I can’t move to Seattle.”
I stare at my phone for a beat, jaw slack, and the screen glows blue-white in my dim apartment. “What do you mean you can’t move? You got the job transfer. Everything’s set up. You were supposed to be here in three weeks.”
“I know. But I—” He pauses and then sighs, the sound crackling through the speaker. “It’s not actually about the job. There’s someone else, Juliette.”
A neighbor slams a door down the hall and the sound reverberates through the walls, breaking through the silence that’s suddenly pressing in on me from all sides.
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen. We work together, and—”
“How long?”
He hesitates and his eyes finally dart away from the camera and honestly that’s answer enough, that’s everything I need to know written across his face.
“Garrett. How long.”
“Since August.”
August. Four months ago. When I started really pushing my training for nationals into high gear, spending six plus hours a day at the rink, pushing through the pain in my ankle that turned out to be stress fractures that derailed everything.
I assumed he was happily finishing up his projects in Toronto, we texted every day and FaceTimed weekly and made plans for our future, for when he finally moved here.
And he was with someone else the entire time.
“You’ve been hiding this and lying to me for four months.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. You were training so hard, and I didn’t want to…”