“Oh,” I say, straightening my shoulders when his hands leave them. “Do you still have family there?”
He nods, stepping closer to me as we walk, and I think it’s probably just to avoid all the students, but a small part of me hopes he wants our shoulders to accidentally brush the way I do.
“My grandparents. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. They mostly live in Brno.” He glances at me. “Where are you from? How’d you end up coming to school here?”
“I’m from Toronto. But my grandparents had a cottage on this side of Lake Huron and ... I don’t know.” I shrug, giving him asmall smile. I’m not quite sure how to tell a boy I just met that the only time I ever really remember my mind being quiet and kind was when I was that little, that small, and nothing could touch me when I was there every summer. “Sentimentality won out in the end, I guess.”
He looks at me, and there’s something in the way one eyebrow rises, the curve of his mouth not quite a smile, that tells me he doesn’t believe me.
Bohdan doesn’t say anything as we walk the last block towards the arena, and neither do I.
Usually, I’d feel so guilty, like the whole weight of carrying the conversation, of making him happy, of entertaining him, of generally being enough would be sitting on my shoulders, but I can feel his eyes on me with each step we take, and he doesn’t seem to mind.
I think I can even see the slant of a smile on his lips.
They’re great lips, actually. Full, bowing slightly in the middle where they part. They might be the only soft thing about him, offset by the sharp lines of his jaw, shadows of stubble peeking through golden skin.
Tia would call them sensuous.
I call them beautiful. Fascinating, even.
“What’s your major?” he asks, voice low, practically drowned out by the loud squeak of hinges when he yanks the arena door open.
“Oh.” I blink. “Anthropology.”
Bohdan pushes the door back, hand splayed wide across the glass, arm raised so I have to duck under it to get inside.
Out of habit, I try to shrink myself, shoulders curving inward, but I brush against the planes of his chest, hard even beneath his jacket and sweater.
His breath whispers across my ear. “What do you want to do with that?”
It could be a rude question, but somehow, coming from him, I know it’s not.
I pause, halfway inside and halfway out, turning my head to look at him.
He’s studying me, striations in his eyes alight with interest, head cocked slightly to the left, and those lips parted just so in the middle.
I inhale, expecting the telltale scent of the arena, whatever it is they use to make them all smell the same way, but it’s just him invading my lungs—pine and snow and quiet nights.
That might be why I give him the real answer.
“Understand people. Maybe understand me.”
He nods once, considering, thoughtful, and I think we might stare at each other all night, me half pressed against him, his eyes nowhere else, but he jerks his chin towards the inside of the arena.
“What about you?” I step out from under him, looking back over my shoulder when he closes the door.
“Geological science.” Bohdan shoves his hands back in his pockets, crossing the concourse of the arena with purpose, like this is where he belongs, and I guess, in so many ways, it is.
I follow, watching, and maybe a bit envious he has a place where he knows he’s meant to be, where he feels so at home. Smiling, I repeat his question. “What do you want to do with that?”
He grins at me, left side of his mouth quirking up just a bit higher than the right—a little piece of him I categorize and file away in my brain under things that make my heart stumble and all the air leave my lungs.
“I won’t do anything with it. I just like it.” He says it simply, and I follow him through a narrow hallway that doesn’t seem to belong to the general public, until we come out beside the small skate rental shop by the left entrance to the ice. It’s hardly everopen, and none of the skates stacked neatly in the cupboards along the boards look used.
“This is what you want to do?” I point towards the sheet of ice, stretching and illuminated under soft lights.
“Since I first set foot on the ice.” Bohdan nods before pointing to a small bench. “Sit, I’ll fit you for skates.”
