“Should I—” My grip loosens on the pencil, and I swallow, blinking. “Should I not go? Do you think it’s a mistake?”
Tia swings her head to me, curls flying around her face. “What?”
“Do you think it was a mistake?” I repeat, mouth drying out and the onslaught of my brain starting in. “You say he’s ... gross, like your brother. Maybe I shouldn’t go.”
She studies me, cheeks softening, brown eyes blinking at me, like she’s trying to figure something out, before she takes a final sip of her drink, sets it down, and somehow scoots closer to me, so our heads are pressed together. “I think my brother is gross, but I also think he’s one of the best people on the planet. If Talon thinks Bohdan is worth his time, I think he’s worth yours.”
There’s a different question I want to ask, and she knows me enough now to know. I can see it as she tilts her head, temple pressing against mine, eyebrows rising with an encouraging lift.
“Do you think he’ll like me?” My voice cracks, and all those things I think about myself peer through the gaping wound of me, and they dig their claws in and they try to force the crack larger so Tia will see them, too.
I give my head a tiny shake and close my eyes, but I think a tear escapes anyway.
Her thumb finds my cheek, brushing the tear away before she grips my chin. “Hey. Sloan. Look at me.”
I press my eyes closed harder.
“Sloan.” Her voice has an edge this time, and I blink my eyes open. “If he doesn’t like you, sounds like maybe he’s taken one-too-many hits into the boards. Now give me your eyeliner, you smudged it.”
And he does seem to like me.
At least I think he does.
He doesn’t look disappointed or left wanting when I walk down the dorm stairs to meet him at the bottom.
He stands there, hands shoved into the pockets of a black jacket, the hood of a grey sweater peeking out, amber hair damp and curling against it at the nape of his neck, jaw set in a firm line as he watches me walk down the steps.
But it’s the way his voice lowers and catches on a rough note when his eyes pass over me and he says hi, and I hear my name on Bohdan Novotnak’s lips for the first time.
“Hello, Sloan.”
The sound traipses across my skin, my shoulders, down my spine until I shiver, and I think my heart starts beating for the first time in my entire life.
I raise a hand when I stop on the stair at the bottom, eye level with him. “Hi, Bohdan. It’s nice to meet you ... in person, I guess. I’m not sure the Polaroid exchange counted.”
“Can you skate?”
He doesn’t say thank you for coming, that it’s nice to see me, he doesn’t even ask me how I am or what I might want to do. It’s something I learn quickly about him—he doesn’t always say much, but he says what he means.
“Not well.” I blink, wrinkling my nose with a smile. “Are you asking me that because I’m Canadian?”
“No. I’m Canadian, too.” He gives me a sideways grin, pointing his chin towards the other end of campus, where the faint glow of the lights from the Munn Ice Arena are visible against the dusk.
He waits, holding his hand out expectantly, and I nod, warmth flushing across my cheeks when my palm meets his.
Our skin touches for the first time as he helps me step down, and I raise my chin to keep my eyes on his.
It’s just a brush, two palms touching for the first time, old skin that’s already living on both of our bodies, but I think I’m new all the same.
Bohdan looks down at me, too serious for a boy his age, and his fingers curl against the back of my hand for a too-brief moment, before he tips his elbow in the direction of the rink again and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets.
The lamps lining campus flicker on over us, but all that does is illuminate the carved line of Bohdan’s jaw, the planes of his cheekbones cutting across his face, and make the grey of his eyes look like an early morning.
“I didn’t know you were Canadian. Where are you from?” I fold my arms across my chest, falling into step beside him as we weave through the groups of students spilling out from dorms, linked arms and laughter echoing up to the sky.
Bohdan nods once, eyebrows raising and chin tipping up in acknowledgement as people stop and point at him, some students going as far as to scream his name like they’re watching him on the ice. “Yeah. Recruitment landed me here. I grew up in Ottawa, but my parents are originally from the Czech Republic. We immigrated when I was two.”
He sidesteps a student who stumbles backward from a group, looking like they’ve had far too much to drink for seven p.m. on a Thursday, shoulder bumping mine before his hands reach out with reflexes faster than your average person to keep me from rolling my ankle off the sidewalk.
