“She looks at you differently,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
I blink at him, and for the first time in my thirty-seven years of life, I’m grateful that the cold air of the rink keeps my cheeks permanently flushed. He can’t tell the difference between that and embarrassment. I lower my gaze to mynotebook, flipping a page I don’t need to flip, sliding the pen carefully back into the spiral binding just to give my hands something to do.
“Focus on your edges,” I say, which isn’t an answer at all.
He smirks like he’s storing the moment away for future leverage and pushes off towards the locker room, skates scraping lightly across the rubber mat.
“Y dejá de ser tan chusma,” I call after him, not raising my voice enough for it to sound sharp.
He laughs loudly before turning around.
I remain at the boards, staring out at the empty stretch of ice he just left behind, aware that something fragile has begun to exist in the space between Isabella and me.
It feels real.
It also feels visible.
And visibility, in this sport, always costs something.
CHAPTER 21
ISABELLA
“I don’t curl,”Cecilia says flatly.
She doesn’t even look up from the stack of annotated program sheets she’s reviewing in my office. The overhead lights are off today, and instead the warm light of my lamp is on, catching the edges of the paper and the sharp angle of her jaw. The mug she brought with her is mine; she probably found in the staff lounge where it was drying.
“You’ve never curled,” I correct gently.
“That’s because I don’t curl.”
I lean back in my chair and study her for a moment, the way she sits with one ankle hooked over the opposite knee, pen tapping lightly against her thigh while she thinks. She looks comfortable in my space now. That realization does something subtle and dangerous to my chest.
“I’m not asking you to take it up professionally, Ceci,” I say. “It’s one evening. The kids are enjoying themselves tonight and apparently it’s very fun. Nina says so.”
Cecilia snorts despite herself.
“That sounds like something she would say.”
“It absolutely is.” I pause. “She also said I’m not allowed to show up alone because we are playing doubles.”
Now she looks at me.
“That sounds even more like something she would say.”
I tilt my head slightly. “She thinks I need hobbies.”
“You do need hobbies, Princess.”
“You need hobbies, too.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. She doesn’t realize she’s smiling yet.
I let a beat stretch, then add lightly, “Rafe will be there.”
She frowns. “Who the hell is Rafe?”
“I don’t know. But Nina keeps bringing him up and calling him the next big thing in curling, so he must be important.”
