Page 38 of Born of Ice

“Practicing, little star. Remember, I need to keep my hockey god form.” That’s only part of the truth here, but if I tell her I’d do just about anything to bring her back from the darkness in which she slipped earlier, she wouldn’t take that well.

I’m no shrink but I felt it. I felt the icy chill coming from her closed door and knew I needed to do something and sincehockey is all I know and it’s my own cure for all the fucked-up issues I have, I was willing to share it with her.

“How could I forg—” Her word gets cut off midway because I’m off again and she’s screaming, “You are a lunatic!”

“So I’ve been told,” I shoot back through the resounding slashing of the ice underneath my skates. “Now, close your eyes.”

“Close my eyes? Why would I close my eyes?” she demands when we stop again, and I exhale loudly.

“Just for once do as you’re told and close your fucking eyes, Electra Monroe.”

She huffs, but surprisingly does as I tell her.

“Is this all part ofyoupracticing for your hockey?”

“Mm-hmm. Now, also shut up.”

She huffs again but I can almost see the tiniest curve to her lips.

I can deny the mess in my head until I’m blue in the face—amongst other places—but I’ve never seen someone as beautiful as she is.

Her beauty is not one of those in-your-face kind. It’s well-hidden and subtle but sucker punches you right in the gut.

I lean in, my nose just a touch from her cheek and before I know what I’m doing, my lungs are greedily inhaling her. I know she feels me close to her but doesn't move an inch. That hospital scent gone in the fresh, crisp air and all that’s left is her. So undeniably her. Light, fresh, clean but also sad.

She smells like dawn and dusk at the same time. Like the promise of the new day and all the hopes that come with it, but also the inevitable ending of it too.

I stay just like that, next to her porcelain cheek with a rosy, frost-bitten hue and fight the sudden urge to drag my nose against her skin. To nip on the tip off her pointy nose. To feel those cold, strawberry lips on mine.

“Don’t open your eyes, okay? Just feel,” I whisper instead, and a shudder goes through her as my warm breath skitters along her cheek.

“F-feel what?”

“Freedom.” I grab onto the handles again and peel away from this side of the lake with the fastest standing takeoff I’ve ever had. The speed and ferocity of my blades tearing through ice and sending it in all directions.

I hear her gasp, the distinct sound of her sucking in a sharp breath and I see how she’s holding onto the armrests for her dear life, bracing for impact. Surely, she expects it to be over any second now, like the drills I ran just before this, but that’s not my plan. Those drills were never my plan.

It was about this.

About her.

This should be nothing more than my ticket back to the ice and it shouldn’t matter to me what she’s feeling but somewhere with my time spent with her, she’s become more.

So, instead of that abrupt stop, I loop around the lake, keeping the speed and gaining it even more on the straight lines. Once again, I can’t see her face and desperately wish I could but her hold on the armrests loosens and loop after loop her body grows more and more slack until it starts shaking.

For a second, I panic. I start to slow down, to see what happened but when Electra feels me doing so, she calls out, “No. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” And I realize her voice is full of tears, but I keep going.

My feet are crying in pain. My muscles are cramping from the strain I’m putting them through, but I don’t stop or slow down. I keep going. Loop after loop after loop, until I see it.

Electra lets go off the rails, spreading her arms out and laughs. I’m so caught off guard by that sound, I nearly miss the turn and one of my legs slips as I try to gain the control back, but it’sa touch too late and we are tripping over, falling into the flurry heap of the snow on the edge of the lake. Electra falls out of her chair but I maneuver us enough that she lands on me and I’m about to apologize, check for injuries and full-on freak out when she starts laughing even harder.

Her whole body shaking with it, half on top of mine. And it’s not manic or the crazy kind. It’s sincere.

Jesus Christ, that laugh…it hits me right in the chest like a ball of light. So free, so easy, so full. And while she’s laughing, I feel like something is tearing through my own heart. A sharp sensation I’ve never felt before but one I’m afraid of letting go as if it’s what I’ve been looking for my whole life.

That calm within my storm or a string that hooks around my heart and teeters me toher.

Forever.

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