“Cecilia.”
“Yes.”
Her voice is steady, but her body isn’t. Those finger taps against her thigh are faster now. There’s a hum under my skin that has nothing to do with the cold.
“I hope you know that that’s not how I feel at all,” I say. “Your technique is—was—always spectacular. So technically accurate. And it’s evident in Rodrigo, too.”
Our gazes lock.
I see the moment before she does. The micro-shift. The recognition, passing through her expression like something she hadn’t expected and hasn’t decided how to contain.
I should step back. I know that with the same clarity that tells me this entire conversation has already crossed whatever line I thought existed between us. Instead, I move, closing the nonexistent distance I’d left as a concession to reason, until there’s nowhere for her to retreat without making a decision of her own.
I lift my hand slowly, deliberately, giving her time to stop me if she wants to. My fingers brush her wrist, light enough to be a question rather than a claim, and I feel the quick, unmistakable jump of her pulse under my touch. Her breath catches, just barely, and it’s that— the involuntary response, the way her body answers before she does—that undoes me.
She says my name, quietly, and I know it’s meant to be a warning.
I don’t listen.
I lean in and kiss her.
The contact is immediate and unguarded, not tentative, but so certain that it surprises me even as it’s happening. For a fraction of a second she stays still, and then her hands come up, gripping the front of my coat and pulling me closer with a strength that tells me she’s been holding herself back for longer than I have.
The noise coming from the rink reaches us almostimmediately. A burst of laughter, amplified and bright, followed by music thudding through concrete and steel, the sound spilling down the corridor and making my stomach tighten with sudden awareness. It sounds close enough that someone could round the corner at any moment, and the thought cuts through the haze in my head with startling clarity.
I don’t pull away.
My hand slides from her wrist to her waist as I turn, shoving the door we’ve been leaning against open just enough to slip us inside before swinging it shut behind us with more force than I mean to use. The snick reverberates slowly in the space, the latch catching as I reach back and snap it into place with a quick, practiced motion that feels far too instinctive for something I haven’t planned at all.
“Isa—”
Cecilia pushes me against the lockers, crowding the space between us until my back meets cool metal with a dull, hollow sound. My hands come down on either side of her, and I grab her by her hips, pulling her against me as I lift one leg and wrap it around her body.
“What are you doing?” she almost asks, in a not-quite-a-question way.
Cecilia looks at me, startled now, breath uneven, and the sight of her standing there—flushed, steady-eyed, entirely present—sends another sharp zap through me.
“Ceci?” I hear behind the door. It sounds like Rodrigo on the other side, probably done with their evening activities. “¿Estás ahí?”
My body reacts before my brain does.
I stiffen so abruptly that it almost feels like something has hit me, my grip on Cecilia’s hips tightening for half a second before I force myself to let go. The unmistakable jolt of panic rushes through me, and the sound of his voice slices cleanly through whatever narrow, sealed-off world I’d been operating inside, dragging reality back in with startling speed.
I drop my leg, creating space between us, and Cecilia steps back a second later.
The movement is quick. Her hands are still on me, but her eyes shift to the door, then back to my face and down my body, taking in the change of my posture and the sudden distance I’m trying to put between us.
“I—” I start, and then stop, because there are too many words running through my brain at once and none of them feel like the right one for this specific moment.
Behind the door, someone laughs—Katia, probably—and music swells again from the rink.
Cecilia exhales, slow and controlled, even as her gaze stays locked on me.
“That was fast,” she says.
“I didn’t—” I try again, then abandon that, too, heat climbing up the back of my neck in a way that has nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the woman in front of me.
“Isabella,” Cecilia says with a heavy sigh, and I see her face transform. She’s impossible to read, but something in her expression is unsettled.
