Ice Cold Alibi

Chapter 2

Monday morning at 06:50 is a special kind of purgatory.

'This was happening to me again,’ I muttered, yanking the steering wheel of my dented hatchback into a parking space reserved for senior executives of the Ironheads organization.

Beside me on the passenger seat sat a travel mug of burnt coffee and a professional binder holding my credentials, my license, and three years of accumulated clinical dread. My sneakers clicked against freshly paved asphalt as I stepped out into the freezing pre-dawn air. The practice facility loomed over me like a concrete monolith, all smoked glass and aggressive blue architectural lighting that screamed corporate wealth and bruised ribs.

Inside, the lobby smelled faintly of floor wax, chlorine, and high-end aftershave.

"Sienna Carter?"

A sharp-featured woman with a clipboard and hair pulled into an impossibly tight bun didn't even look up as I approached the front desk.

"Right here," I said, offering a tight smile.

"Badge is active. Third floor, rehabilitation wing, room 312. Don't touch the espresso machine in the staff lounge; it belongs exclusively to the goaltenders, and they will file a formal grievance." She handed me a laminated security pass with a photo taken during my third year of undergrad when I still had bangs and a soul. "Dr. Vance is expecting you. Try not to look as terrified as you did when you walked through those sliding doors."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I muttered under my breath, turning toward the elevators.

The rehabilitation wing was cavernous. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the primary practice rink, where twenty-odd oversized men in full gear were currently skating drills that sounded like small-scale vehicular accidents against the boards. Pucks slammed into plexiglass. Coaches shouted throat-shredding directives through megaphones.

I found room 312 tucked at the end of a sterile, brightly lit hallway.

The door was propped open with a heavy rubber wedge. Inside, the space was state-of-the-art—hydraulic treatment tables, laser therapy units, and a row of stationary bikes facing a wall of monitors.

"You're late," a deep, gravel-laced voice muttered from behind a rolling privacy screen.

"I'm actually seven minutes early," I corrected, stepping into the room and dropping my bag onto a chrome stool. "Unless your watch is set to a different time zone, in which case we might have an administrative issue."

The screen rolled aside.

The man standing there was not Dr. Vance.

He was tall—easily six-foot-four—with broad shoulders that strained the seams of a dark grey henley and dark hair falling carelessly across a forehead marked by a faint, jagged scar near his left eyebrow. His eyes were the color of stagnant river water under an iron sky: sharp, assessing, and entirely devoid of warmth.

The Ice King.

Even from the minor league circuit, I knew the name Roman Vance. The Ironheads' alternate captain, defensive anchor, and a man who treated media day like a medieval interrogation. Rumor had it he hadn't smiled since the league lockout of twenty-twenty-two.

I stared up at him, my mouth opening slightly before I caught myself. "You're not Dr. Vance."

"Observation skills are off to a stellar start, Carter," Roman said, his voice dropping into a flat, unimpressed register as he tossed a sweat towel onto the nearest table. "Vance is in surgery with a torn meniscus until noon. I drew the short straw to break in the new hire."

His gaze dropped slowly from my face down to my laminated ID badge and back up again, lingering with an irritating degree of scrutiny.

"I'm a physical therapist, Mr. Vance, not a rookie forward you can haze because you're bored," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "If you're here for your post-skate evaluation, sit down on the table. If you're here to critique my punctuality, you can walk right back out the door you came through."

A muscle ticked along his strong jaw. He didn't move an inch. Instead, he stepped closer, invading my personal space with the casual arrogance of a man who owned the building and everyone inside it.

"Dr. Vance said we were getting someone with major league experience," Roman murmured, his voice lowering until it scraped against my nerves like sandpaper. "Instead, they sent me a girl who looks like she still borrows her mother's car."

Heat flared instantly up my neck, turning my cheeks hot. Three years of grinding through sixteen-hour shifts at a community clinic, memorizing anatomical charts until my eyes bled, and surviving on instant ramen just to be dismissed by a walking wall of muscle with an attitude problem.

"And they assigned me an athlete who apparently skipped basic manners during training camp," I shot back, stepping right back into his line of sight without flinching. "I didn't spend four years in graduate school to listen to a skater whine about my age. Now. Are we doing this evaluation, or are you going to stand there trying to intimidate me until lunch?"

Roman went entirely still.

The heavy silence stretched between us, thick with friction. For a second, his dark eyes flashed with something unreadable—not anger, exactly, but a sharp, sudden jolt of surprise. Nobody talked to Roman Vance like that. In this facility, coaches tiptoed around him, PR interns practically hyperventilated when he walked past, and reporters spoke to him in careful, deferential whispers.

"Sit," he finally said, pointing a large finger toward the hydraulic table.

"I prefer to stand," I replied sweetly.

"Sit, Carter."

"No."

We stared at each other—a stubborn, childish standoff over a vinyl-covered examination table. My pulse hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs as I realized just how close he was standing. I could smell cedar, ozone, and the sharp bite of post-practice sweat radiating off his skin. It was entirely too distracting for a Monday morning.

"Your left knee has been favoring the lateral pivot since the third period on Saturday," I blurted out, changing tactics before I lost my mind entirely. I pointed my pen at his leg. "You think you're hiding it because your stride is too long for the press box cameras to catch, but the micro-adjustment in your gait is textbook compensatory mechanics."

Roman stopped dead. The arrogant smirk he'd been wearing vanished, replaced by an expression of cold, dangerous focus.

"Who told you that?" he asked quietly.

"Nobody," I said, tapping my temple with the end of the pen. "I watched the game feed from my kitchen table while I was packing my life into cardboard boxes. Now, are you going to roll up your pant leg, or do I need to file my first official report with the head coach that our star defenseman is actively trying to destroy his own career out of sheer stubbornness?"

A slow, terrifyingly arrogant smile touched the corner of his mouth.

"Careful, Carter," he drawled, finally turning and sitting on the edge of the table. "Keep talking to me like that, and people might start to think you actually care."

‘Nope,’ I thought, turning sharply toward my supply cart to hide the sudden, traitorous flush creeping up my neck. ‘Absolutely not.’