Fractured Desire

Chapter 10

The Zamboni hummed to life, a mechanical groan that shattered the cathedral silence. I stood at centre ice for a beat too long, the ghost of Hunter's fingers still warm against my temple, before my muscles remembered how to move.

I skated to the boards, bending to retrieve my skate guards with hands that were not quite steady. The familiar ritual, slide on the left, snap the buckle, slide on the right, usually grounded me. Today, it felt like putting on armour after someone had already found the c***k.

"You're still here."

I didn't look up. "Occupying space doesn't require your permission, Hunter."

His shadow fell across my hands. He'd looped back, stick tucked under his arm, that infuriatingly casual posture returned. But I'd seen what was underneath now. The shark didn't disappear; it just learned to float.

"Team's warming up in five. Coach'll lose his mind if he finds a figure skater contaminating his ice."

I stood, finally meeting his eyes. "Contaminating." I let the word hang. "Big word for a guy who thinks 'art' has four letters."

Something flickered, amusement or annoyance, hard to tell with him. "I know how many letters art has. I also know it doesn't pay the bills unless you're winning." His gaze dropped to my chest, where the silver chain from last season's regional medal was tucked under my jacket. "Still wearing it? That's either dedication or masochism."

My fingers brushed the metal beneath the fabric before I could stop them. "It's a reminder."

"Of what? That second place is just first loser?"

The cut was precise, surgical. I smiled, and I made sure it was sharp. "That judges have bad days, same as anyone. Yours must have had a real disaster to give you that misconduct in the semi-finals last spring. Five games, wasn't it? Must have been proud."

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Good. I'd done my homework too.

"You've been watching me," he said slowly, like he was tasting the words.

"Hard not to when your face was on every penalty reel for a week. The commentators loved you. 'Old-school aggression.' 'A throwback.' That's a lot of euphemisms for 'can't control his temper.'"

He stepped closer. I didn't step back. The boards were at my back now, the cold seeping through my jacket, and he was close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to maintain eye contact.

"You want to talk about control?" His voice was low, almost conversational. "You just poured your entire emotional landscape onto the ice for me. Every lonely night in this rink. Every practice where you stayed late because no one was waiting for you. Every time you told yourself being alone was a choice and not just the only option you had left."

The breath left my lungs like I'd been hit.

"I saw it," he continued, his eyes never leaving mine. "Every spin, every jump. You weren't showing me art, Swan. You were showing me exactly how much it hurts to be you."

"f**k you." The words came out before I could catch them, raw and unpolished.

His smile was slow, wolfish. "There she is. The fire." He leaned one forearm against the boards beside my head, caging me in without touching. "You want to know what I see when I watch you skate? Not pretty. Not art. A girl who's been told her whole career that she's too this, not enough that. Too emotional. Not aggressive enough. Too soft. Not marketable. Am I getting warm?"

I said nothing. My hands had curled into fists at my sides.

"You do those perfect, lonely practices because it's the only place you don't have to perform for anyone. And then you get on the ice in front of judges and something breaks, because you're so busy trying to be what they want that you forget how to be what you are." He tilted his head, studying me. "Sound about right?"

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you're twenty-three years old, which in your sport is practically geriatric. I know you've been skating since you were four, and you've got nothing to show for it but regional silvers and a collection of participation trophies they don't even give out anymore. I know you train alone because your last coach dropped you after you choked at nationals three years ago, and you haven't found anyone willing to take you on since. I know your parents stopped coming to competitions after you bombed your short program two seasons back because they got tired of explaining why their daughter wasn't good enough."

The ice beneath my blades felt suddenly, terrifyingly unsteady.

"How"

"I asked around." He said it simply, without apology. "You wanted to know what I want. I want to understand what makes someone who's been told she's finished get up at four in the morning to practice on a rink that doesn't even want her there."

The rage that flooded through me was clean and clarifying. I shoved his arm aside and stepped forward, forcing him back a step.

"You want to understand?" My voice shook, but I didn't care. "I get up at four in the morning because I have something to prove. Not to judges. Not to coaches. Not to parents who can't be bothered." I jabbed a finger into his chest, felt the solid wall of muscle beneath his jacket. "To me. I get up because every time someone like you, someone big and loud and so convinced of their own importance, tells me I'm done, I want to make sure they choke on the words."

He caught my wrist. Not hard. Just enough to still the motion.

"And how's that working out for you?"

The question was quiet. Almost gentle. And that was worse than any insult he could have thrown.

I yanked my hand back. "You want to know what I see when I look at you?" I didn't wait for permission. "I see a guy who peaked in juniors and has been trying to fight his way back to relevance ever since. I see someone who takes stupid penalties because it's the only way he knows how to feel anything. I see a player who's one concussion away from being told his style doesn't belong in the modern game. I see someone so afraid of being forgotten that he'll do anything, anything, to leave a mark."

He'd gone very still.

"And here's the part you really won't like," I continued, my voice dropping. "I think you know that. I think you watch guys half your age with twice your skill, and you wonder when they're going to figure out you're just a relic. I think you get on the ice with me because I'm the only person in this building who doesn't care what you used to be. And that scares the hell out of you."

The silence stretched between us, taut as a wire.

Then Hunter laughed.

It wasn't mocking. It was something else entirely, a release, a crack in the armour. He ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment, he looked less like the predator and more like someone who hadn't slept well in a very long time.

"You're not wrong," he said finally. "About most of it."

I blinked. That was not the response I'd prepared for.

"The penalties, the fighting, the" He waved a hand vaguely. "All of it. You're right. It's loud. It's stupid. And it's the only thing I've ever been good at."

"Then why?"

"Because when I stop moving, when I stop hitting, when I stop being the guy everyone's afraid to line up against" He met my eyes. "I don't know who I am. You have your ice, your perfect edges, your triple lutzes that you've been doing since you were twelve. I have a fist and a reputation and a shelf life that's measured in seasons, not years."

The honesty was disarming. I didn't trust it.

"So what?" I crossed my arms. "This is some kind of mutual therapy session? We share our feelings, and then you go back to being the guy who calls my sport 'spinny, sparkly'?"

"No." He stepped closer again, and this time I let him. "This is me telling you that I watched you skate just now, and it was the most real thing I've seen in years. And I'm telling you that I want to know what happens when you stop skating for the judges who don't care, the parents who left, and the coaches who gave up. I want to know what happens when you skate like that, 's all there is, not for an audience, not to prove anything. Just because."

"And what do you get out of it?"

His smile turned wry. "Maybe I want to see if the fire burns hot enough to melt something in me, too."

The Zamboni door creaked open. Voices echoed from the tunnel, the first wave of his teammates, early for warm-ups, laughing about something.

Hunter looked toward the sound, then back at me. Something shifted in his expression. The vulnerability, if that's what it was, shuttered closed.

"Your slot's definitely up," he said. "Better clear out before they turn you into a cautionary tale."

He started to turn away, and something, pride, maybe, or that same stubborn fire he claimed to see, made me reach out and grab his arm.

"I don't need you to save me," I said quietly. "I'm not a project. I'm not some broken thing you get to fix so you can feel better about yourself."

His eyes dropped to my hand on his arm, then back to my face. "I know."

"I'm not going to be your redemption arc."

"I know."

"And I'm not sleeping with you," I said it flatly, because I'd seen the way he looked at me and I wasn't naive enough to pretend there wasn't heat under all that hostility.

His laugh was soft, surprised. "Didn't ask."

"You were thinking it."

"I think a lot of things." He covered my hand with his, his glove rough against my bare skin. "But right now I'm thinking that you're the most interesting person I've met in years, and I don't want to ruin it by being the guy you expect me to be."

The voices grew louder. Someone called Hunter's name, a deep voice, impatient.

"That's my cue." He squeezed my fingers once, then let go. "Same time tomorrow? You can tell me more about how I'm a relic and you're going to outskate me into irrelevance."

I should have said no. I should have walked away, preserved the clean lines of my solitude, kept him in the neat box marked obstacle.

Instead: "Don't be late. I won't wait."

His grin returned, but it was different now. Fewer weapons, more promise.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Swan."

He skated backwards for a few strides, still watching me, before turning to join his team. The door opened, the noise of them flooding in, and for a moment, he was just another player in a dark jersey, indistinguishable from the rest.

Then he looked over his shoulder, caught my eye, and something passed between us, hot and cold all at once, recognition and warning and want all tangled together.

I gathered my things and walked out through the opposite tunnel, his teammates' curious glances sliding off me like water. The hallway was empty, my footsteps echoing on concrete, and I let myself breathe again once the door closed behind me.

My phone buzzed. A number I didn't recognise.

You didn't wait. Tomorrow. 5 AM. Don't wear that silver medal. It's bad luck.

I stared at the screen for a long moment.

Then I typed back: I'll wear what I want.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.

That's what I'm counting on.

I shoved the phone in my bag and walked out into the grey morning, the ghost of his hand on mine, the echo of his words in my chest, and the terrifying certainty that I had just agreed to something I couldn't control.

The fire, he'd called it.

He had no idea what he was asking to burn.