THE BOY ON THE ICE
1422 Words
The closer we got to the rink the worse it became.
My nerves were in a complete disarray by the time the entrance came into view and at some point I genuinely considered turning around and pretending I'd forgotten I'd ever agreed to this. I could have told Sean I had things to do. I could have said no. I should have said no.
But I hadn't and I knew why I hadn't and the reason was doing frantic laps around my chest right now.
I rubbed my palm against my sternum like that would somehow settle it. I had taken that shirt from Sean with the full knowledge that Klaus would see it and I had wanted to see his face when he did. That was the truth. The whole embarrassing petty truth of it. And somewhere underneath all the wanting to provoke him was the knowledge that Julia was probably going to be there too, and that thought alone made my eyes sting.
I exhaled hard and twisted the fabric of my skirt around my fingers.
Not like he'd even care, Ana.
The tears that pricked the back of my eyes at that thought were humiliating. I blinked them away before anyone could see them and kept walking.
"Ana." Leticia appeared at my side and took my hand in both of hers, her thumb moving in slow circles over my knuckles. "You look pale. Are you okay?"
Molly appeared on my other side immediately, and I felt that familiar rush of gratitude for the two of them.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to calm the mess twisting inside me. It was just practice. He wasn't the only person on that ice and I was here for Sean right? And I absolutely could not let Molly get any more suspicious than she already was.
"I'm fine," I said, managing a smile. "Just nervous. You know it's my first time here."
"Yeah. And that makes three of us," Leticia said, though she looked like she was reconsidering her life choices in real time. "I nearly had a full panic attack thinking something was wrong with you because you looked like a ghost."
"Your face right now is not exactly radiating confidence, Ticia."
She swatted my shoulder and Molly and I both laughed.
"Can we just go in already?"
"It's going to be freezing in there," Molly complained, her mouth forming a pout and I winced.
"I cannot believe I'm doing this," she added, looking at me.
"I had no idea it would be like this," I said, giving her my most apologetic look.
"We could go back," I offered, and I meant it more than I was letting on because the closer we got to those doors the more certain I was that walking through them was going to unravel something in me.
"Yeah—" Molly started but her phone pinged.
We all watched her fish it out of her bag, read whatever was on the screen, and watched her face change.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
She looked up with an expression I recognised, the one she wore when she was trying to look unbothered and wasn't quite pulling it off. "Dad's here. He came to watch Klaus practice." She dropped the phone back in her bag. "Coach Leo must have called him again."
"Does he do that often?" Leticia asked. "Come watch and not — I don't know — say hi to you first?"
I already knew the answer. I'd watched this dynamic for years.
Molly shrugged but it was the kind of shrug that had something heavier buried deep in it. "Dad's always been about Klaus and his hockey. Getting him into the best university, making sure he's the best player, making sure everything is perfect." She paused. "I've spent a long time watching my dad look straight through me to get to Klaus."
The corridor went quiet around us.
"Mol—" I started.
"It's fine, Ana," she said, and she meant it like she'd made peace with everything even when the peace cost something. "I stopped needing his approval a long time ago. I actually prefer him staying out of my life. He controls everything he touches." A distant look flashed through her eyes. "He was the same with Klaus until something happened and Klaus had to go to therapy. That rattled him enough to back off a little. Their relationship hasn't been the same since."
Third time I'd heard about the therapy and watched someone's face go somewhere far away when it came up.
"What happened?" I asked carefully.
Molly grinned. "A conversation for another day." She looked at the rink doors. "Right now we're going in."
I nodded, pushing the feeling away and pulled Sean's jersey out of my bag and tugged it over my head before I could change my mind while Molly and Leticia both made sounds and gestures that I chose to ignore entirely.
If only they knew what was actually churning in my stomach.
We pushed through the doors.
The cold hit first, so chilly and intense that I pulled the jersey tighter around myself. The rink opened up before us, large and bright, the ice gleaming under the overhead lights. Transparent boards ran around the full length of the rink, padded and scuffed, and above them boxes sat enclosed in glass on either side. Players moved across the ice with such smooth speed and grace that I smiled watching it all.
Their hockey sticks cut clean lines into the ice, the scraping sounds filling the whole space — that distinctive rhythm below the low cheers of students already gathered in the stands filled with bleachers.
The stands curved around the rink in tiered rows packed with students — loud, restless, some holding signs while others were already on their feet. The energy in the room had its own pulse.
I stood in the entrance and took it all in.
For a moment, the noise, lights, and movement on the ice made me forget everything I'd been feeling outside.
We found seats and I sat down and my eyes found him on the ice.
Klaus.
He was in full gear — jersey, shoulder pads, helmet pushed back slightly on his head — moving across the ice with such focus that everything else in the rink felt like blurred before my eyes. There was something different about him here, something I hadn't seen before, his usual carefree expression stripped away and replaced with something fixated and unwavering. His movements were spot on and steady. Every turn, every stop, every time he received a pass and redirected it — it all looked natural in the way that only comes from something being deeply practised.
I watched his gloves flex around the stick. I watched the way his shoulders dropped into each movement as he cut across the ice and pulled up short in a spray of white and my mouth went dry before I'd even registered it happening.
I bit my lip.
I really needed to get a grip.
"ADRIANA!"
I pulled my eyes away from Klaus and looked toward the sound and Sean was at the board, waving at me.
I smiled back and raised my hand.
Then I looked back at the ice and my breath stopped.
Klaus was looking straight at me.
Not a glance. Not a passing look. He was looking at me the way he'd looked at me during the dare, dark and hooded and unflinching, and the intensity of it made me flinch, a small unconscious movement, before Molly grabbed my arm and pulled me sideways onto the bench beside her and started saying something about the plays that I heard none of because Klaus was still looking and I was still feeling it and I could not make either of those things stop.
I kept my eyes on the ice and made myself breathe.
And then from the corner of my eye I caught movement in the row above us and looked up.
Julia.
She was sitting three rows back with her eyes already on me and when our gazes connected she smiled wide enough to send a chill skittering down my spine before I quickly looked away from her.
I looked back at the ice and met his stare again only that this time it wasn't on my face but on my chest and on Sean's jersey.
I swallowed hard as his gaze stayed fixed on the number stretched across my chest.
- Writer
