Page 8 of Goalies Don't Date Ice Princesses

“Or,” I insisted, “you go with the second, better option. A forbidden romance. Imagine it. Having to sneak around, make sure you don’t get caught, maybe even use code words or special locations to meet up. Doesn’t it sound wonderful?”

“I guess,” Adelynn said hesitantly. “But do you really think that’s the kind of romance a teacher would want?”

I shrugged. “Teachers are people too, aren’t they?” I rested a hand on her knee, looking at her with big, pleading eyes. “Please let me ask him.”

She sighed. “Wait until next week. If I see him at Sinclair again… then you can ask him. But you have to be subtle.”

I squealed and clapped my hands together. “This is going to be fun!”

seven

I hadto run to get to practice on time the next Thursday afternoon. As I ran down the hall to the change room, I could hear the rink already buzzing with the sound of yelling, laugh, and skates slicing across the surface, even though we still had a few minutes until practice officially started.

I burst through the doors of the change room, the distinct scent of girl’s perfume and ice hitting my nostrils as I hurriedly threw my bag onto the bench. The room was a whirlwind of activity, with my teammates lacing up their skates, others stretching in the corners, and the familiar chatter filling the air.

“I was starting to think you were bailing on practice,” Blair said as I came to a stop in front of my locker. She was already fully dressed and ready to get on the ice, just pulling on her gloves.

“Got held up,” I panted. Actually, I’d fallen asleep after my first club and only woke up with five minutes to spare as I got there. I quickly stripped off my uniform and slid into my leggings and long-sleeve shirt, the fabric hugging my body like a second skin.

Blair smirked and leaned against the locker to wait for me. I grabbed my skates and sat down to put them on, but froze as I heard her next words: “The boy is here again.”

I tried to casually keep pulling on my skates, acting as if the news hadn’t fazed me at all, but I knew it was a lost cause. There was no way she hadn’t noticed.

“I wonder why he keeps skipping his club,” I said as casually as possible.

She nudged me with her skate, which luckily had a plastic guard on it. I didn’t want to be stabbed with a toe pick right now.

“Why don’t you ask him?” She asked. Her suggestive voice made it very clear exactly what she thought should happen when I did that.

I shot Blair a look, my cheeks warming with embarrassment.

“And why would I do that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level. She raised an eyebrow.

“Because he’s obviously in love with you.”

“You’re out of your mind,” I said. I leaned over to tighten my laces, casually hiding my face from Blair’s view. Archer definitely wasn’t in love with me—that much was obvious to anyone with eyes—but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel like something had changed between us.

Over the days since we had our first actual conversation, our encounters became more frequent. I didn’t go to the rink every night, but every time I did, he was already there. We would exchange small nods of acknowledgment, occasionally offering words of encouragement or a quick “how was your day?”. The conversations never lasted more than two minutes, but after years of silence between us, even those two-minute conversations seemed long.

Still, he didn’t acknowledge my presence outside of the safety of the rink at night. Every time I looked at him in class, he would stare right past me, like I was completely invisible. It was like during the day, he was the version of himself I’d always known: cold, quiet, uncaring of what anyone thought of him and his avoidance of social interaction. But at night, he was different. Still shy, but at least he would look at me. Talk to me. Compliment me.

Coach Irina appeared in the doorway of the change room and clapped her hands together.

“Girls, let’s get moving!” She called.

The sound of Coach Irina’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts, reminding me that practice was about to begin. I quickly finished lacing up my skates and scrambled to my feet, along with everyone else. As we made our way to the door, Blair grinned mischievously and nudged me with her elbow.

“Looks like it’s showtime,” she whispered. I rolled my eyes playfully at her antics, but deep down, a flicker of nervousness ignited within me. I was used to Archer ignoring me at school. It was our normal, expected. But over the past few nights, I’d gotten used to our conversations at the rink. And even though this wasn’t our usual meeting, I hated the idea of skating in front of him and being ignored again.

I glanced at the bleachers as I pushed off on the ice. Sure enough, Archer was slouched in one of the seats, a little further up this time than he was before. I wondered whether one of the coaches told him he couldn’t sit on the bench and watch us. To my surprise, Adelynn was also in the bleachers, a multiple aisles over. She liked to come watch my practices when she was bored from her clubs or she got out early, but I never thought I’d see them here at the same time. Especially not sitting so far apart as if they didn’t know each other.

Opting to deal with Archer later, if at all, I skated a couple laps to warm up before stopping in front of Adelynn to say hello to her. Unsurprisingly, she was reading a book, but she must have had one eye on the ice because she put it down the second I stopped.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. We’d just seen each at baking club less than an hour ago, though while I went back to our room to lie down afterward, she’d gone to the library, probably to find the book she was reading now.

“Environment club got out early again,” she said. She had come by my practices a couple of times already in the last couple of weeks for the same reason. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not,” I said. I flashed her a smile, genuinely happy to have her there. Adelynn had always been my biggest cheerleader, even if she didn’t fully understand the world of figure skating. But she knew how much it meant to me, and that was enough.

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