Sins on the Rink

“Chapter 6: Stolen Ice, Stolen Time,”

“Chapter 6: Stolen Ice, Stolen Time,”

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The alarm screamed through the apartment for exactly four minutes before security confirmed it was nothing. A delivery driver had badged into the wrong elevator bank, an easy mistake given the building's newly reconfigured access after the ownership change. No threat. No breach. Just a mistake and a very expensive security system that didn't know the difference yet.

"That's it," I said, lowering my phone once the all clear came through. "Wrong elevator. Nothing else."

Viana's hand was still pressed flat against her chest, breathing hard from the scare. "You're sure."

"I'm sure." I crossed the hallway, close enough now that the moment from before the alarm, her name still hanging unfinished in my mouth, sat heavy and unresolved between us. "Viana."

"Don't." She stepped back, not far, just enough to put air between us. "I need a minute. Wolves, mates, hunters, and now alarms going off at five in the afternoon. That's a lot for one day, Cross."

"Take whatever time you need."

She disappeared into her room, and I stood alone in that hallway for a long while, the unfinished sentence still sitting in my chest like something unclaimed.

By the next morning, the tension between us had settled into something quieter, neither of us fully ready to pick the conversation back up, both of us apparently deciding, without discussing it, that ordinary problems were easier to face first.

────── ❅VIANA ❅ ──────

Coach Denning called me into her office before I'd even finished lacing up, and the look on her face told me this wasn't going to be a pep talk.

"You've missed four practice slots this month," she said, not bothering to soften it. "Four, Viana. Nationals qualifiers are in ten weeks and you're skating like someone who doesn't want to make the cut."

"I've been dealing with things." Wolves. Hunters. An almost confession that got interrupted by a false alarm. Things.

"I don't care what you've been dealing with. I care about ice time, and you don't have any, because apparently your new boyfriend bought the building and forgot skaters still need to eat, sleep, and train inside it." She crossed her arms. "Fix it, or I put Ophelia on the qualifying track instead of you."

The threat landed exactly where it was supposed to. Ophelia Kane had been circling my spot on that qualifying roster since we were fourteen, and handing it to her now would be the kind of humiliation I didn't think I could survive twice in one career.

"I'll fix it," I said, already pulling out my phone.

Cross picked up on the second ring. "Miss me already?"

"I need actual ice time. Not whatever's left over after your board meetings and press events. Real hours, scheduled, guaranteed."

"That's what the private facility is for."

"The private facility has one sheet and a hockey team that apparently thinks figure skaters are a novelty act." My voice had gone sharp, three weeks of frustration finally boiling over. "I need real training conditions, Cross, or my coach benches me for qualifiers."

Silence on the line, and then, infuriatingly calm, "I'll handle it."

"Don't handle it. Fix it. There's a difference."

"Careful," he said, and I could hear the smirk even through the phone. "You almost sound like you need me."

"I need ice, not you specifically. Don't get confused."

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I showed up at her facility an hour later, and the second she saw me stride onto the rink in my suit like I owned the place, which, technically, I did, her whole posture went rigid with the specific fury she reserved only for me.

"You didn't have to come here yourself," she said.

"I like seeing my investments in person."

"I'm not an investment."

"You're the most expensive line item on my company's PR budget this quarter. That makes you an investment." I watched her jaw tighten, watched the fire spark in her eyes exactly the way it did every single time I pushed too far on purpose. "I fixed your schedule. Full ice access, mornings and evenings, no hockey team encroachment."

"That's it? Just like that?"

"I own the building, Viana. It's not complicated."

"It's incredibly complicated, actually, because you keep swooping in like some kind of billionaire fairy godmother and I hate how much I need it." She skated a lap, sharp and furious, blades cutting the ice like she was trying to punish it for existing. "You know what my coach said? That if I don't fix my ice time she's putting Ophelia on the qualifying track."

"Ophelia Kane. The one who's been talking to reporters about how your career's apparently propped up by a sugar daddy arrangement."

My blood went hot at that, faster and sharper than the information warranted. "She said that?"

"She said that to three different outlets this week." Something dark and possessive coiled tight in my chest, entirely uninvited. "I had Elias make sure none of it was published."

"You didn't have to do that either."

"I know I didn't have to." My jaw had tightened without my permission. "I wanted to."

She skated closer, stopping just short of the boards where I stood, breathing hard, eyes bright with a mixture of fury and something else neither of us had a name for yet.

"You can't just fix every problem I have," she said. "It makes it impossible to stay mad at you."

"Good. I don't actually want you mad at me."

"You bought the rink out from under me three weeks ago. You evicted me at five in the morning. Being mad at you is basically my full time job at this point."

"Then quit," I said, something dangerously close to a smile pulling at my mouth. "I'll hire you for something better. Fake girlfriend, apparently, comes with excellent benefits."

────── ❅VIANA ❅ ──────

"The benefits include getting stalked by tabloids and having my rival tell reporters I'm your charity case," I shot back, though the anger had softened into something closer to banter now, easier, familiar in a way that scared me a little given everything unfinished still sitting between us since yesterday.

"Ophelia Kane sounds exhausting."

"She's been my rival since we were fourteen. Exhausting doesn't cover it." I skated a slow circle around him, close enough that he had to turn to keep me in view. "She landed a triple axel combination at Junior Nationals that I fell on. Ten years later and she still brings it up like it's fresh news."

"You'll beat her in the qualifiers."

"You don't know that."

"I've watched you train exactly twice, and both times you made ice look like something you own rather than something you're borrowing." His voice had gone lower, more serious than the banter deserved. "I don't need to know your sport to know talent when I see it."

Something warm settled in my chest at that, unwelcome and immediate, the kind of warmth I usually reserved for hating instead of feeling around him.

"You're doing the thing again," I said.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you say something almost nice and it makes it harder to keep treating you like the villain who ruined my life three weeks ago. Especially with everything else you told me yesterday still sitting unfinished."

Something flickered across his expression at that, the reminder of our interrupted conversation clearly landing as hard for him as it had for me. "I know we still need to finish that."

"We do. Just not today. I need to actually train before my coach benches me on principle."

"Go ahead. I'll watch."

I laughed despite myself, the sound echoing off the empty rink, and skated backward slowly, needing the space to process whatever that flicker of warmth in my chest actually meant on top of everything else.

My phone buzzed against the boards where I'd left it. I skated over, checking it out of habit, and felt my stomach drop the second I read the screen.

A text from Coach Denning, sent only minutes ago.

Ophelia's manager just called. She's requesting a formal skate off between the two of you next week, in front of the qualifying committee, to settle who takes the spot. Says she's tired of watching you get handed opportunities you haven't earned on your own ice.

I stared at the message, ice cold dread pooling low in my stomach, and looked up to find Cross watching me with the same concern that had been building in his expression since I'd gone still.

"What is it," he said.

I didn't answer right away, my whole career suddenly narrowing down to one impossible, public competition I hadn't seen coming and didn't know if I was ready for.

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