Trapped On The Ice With My Obsessed Captain

CHAPTER 3

Wren

My alarm went off at four-thirty.

I hadn't slept. I'd spent six hours in a bed twelve feet from a man who hated me, staring at the ceiling and listening to every sound through the wall. His footsteps at midnight. Water running at one. Then silence, the kind that felt like someone else was also awake, also listening, also staring at the thin wall between us and thinking about the exact same thing.

I got dressed in the dark. Practice leggings. Compression top. Hair braided tight. When I opened my bedroom door, the kitchen light was already on.

He was at the counter. Dressed. Coffee made. Two mugs out.

I looked at the second mug.

"Don't read into it," he said. "I made too much."

"You measured two cups."

"I miscounted."

"You miscounted to two."

"Are you going to drink it or interrogate it?"

I picked up the mug. Black. No sugar. The same way I drank it, which he shouldn't have known and which neither of us was going to acknowledge.

We walked to the rink in silence. Four-fifty in the morning, the sky was the colour of a bruise and the air bit at every exposed inch of skin. He walked two steps ahead of me. Always two steps. Not beside. Not behind. Ahead, like a man who wanted to make sure I knew who set the pace.

The rink was empty and dark. He hit the lights without looking and they stammered on in sections, illuminating the ice in cold blue strips.

"Defensive positioning," he said, lacing up. "You collapse to the centre too fast. Leaves the wing open."

"I collapse to the centre because Petrov can't cover his own zone."

"Petrov isn't your problem. Your footwork is your problem."

"My footwork put up more assists than half your roster last month."

He looked up from his skates. "Your assists are sloppy."

"They're on the board."

"Being on the board doesn't make them clean."

"Being clean doesn't make them better."

He stood. Full height. On skates, he was six-four and change, and the empty rink made him look like the only structure in a frozen wasteland. He stepped onto the ice and waited.

I followed.

We worked for forty minutes. No talking. Just drills, positioning sequences he called with hand signals, the squeal of blades on fresh ice and the c***k of pucks against boards. He was relentless. Every time I held a position correctly, he moved on without acknowledgment. Every time I drifted a fraction off, he was there.

Behind me. His hand on my hip. Adjusting.

"You're doing that on purpose," I said on the sixth correction.

"Doing what?"

"Touching me."

The rink went quiet. Just the hum of the overhead lights and the distant groan of the Zamboni room compressor.

"I'm correcting your form," he said.

"You correct Petrov by yelling at him from the bench. You correct Holloway by throwing a puck at his feet. You correct me by pressing your body against mine and putting your hands wherever you want."

"You have a different body than Petrov and Holloway."

"That's my point."

"That's not what I meant." His voice dropped. "You're smaller. Your centre of gravity is lower. Physical adjustment is more effective than verbal instruction for your build."

"Did you rehearse that?"

"What?"

"That excuse. Because it sounded rehearsed."

His jaw worked. His hand was still on my hip. My back was still against his chest. We were both breathing harder than the drill justified, and the ice was a mirror beneath us and I could see our reflection in it, his arm around me, my head tilted back, looking exactly like two people who were not doing a defensive positioning drill.

"Calloway," he said.

"What."

"Stop talking."

"Make me."

His hand tightened on my hip. Not a correction. Not a coaching adjustment. A grip. The kind that left marks. The kind that said something his mouth would never admit.

Then he released me. Stepped back. Skated to centre ice without turning around.

"We're done," he said. "Same time tomorrow."

I stayed where he'd left me. The cold burned my lungs. My hip was screaming.

"Kael."

He stopped skating. Didn't turn.

"If you hate me so much," I said, "why does your hand always end up on me?"

He was quiet for a long time. The lights buzzed. The ice settled. My question sat between us like a live grenade.

"Same time tomorrow, Calloway," he said.

And he walked off the ice without answering.