My stomach tightened.
Beside me, Mila went very still.
I waited for the words that instinct told me were lurking beneath the surface.
They never came.
“We skate as we train,” Sokolov continued. “And we train without distraction.”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.
Mila echoed me a second later.
Sokolov watched us both for another moment before nodding once toward center ice. “Again.”
We pushed off, and this time I focused harder, stripping everymovement down to mechanics alone: edge pressure, timing, rotation speed. The familiar rhythm steadied me while repetition forced everything else into the background.
For a while, that worked.
Then Dean walked onto the ice.
I didn’t see him immediately. My attention stayed where it belonged, fixed on the sequence beneath my blades while Mila matched my timing beside me.
Awareness hit first.
Then I looked up, and my pulse stuttered.
Dean pushed into a warm-up lap with effortless speed, moving with a confidence that seemed totally unconscious. He moved freely, every transition flowing into the next without hesitation.
I dragged my attention away at once.
Focus elsewhere.
Another skater near the boards. A jump sequence.Anything.
It lasted maybe five seconds before I found him again.
My jaw tightened.
This was becoming a problem.
I drove into the next edge and gathered speed.
It didn’t help. No matter where I looked, some part of me remained aware of him.
Then he gazed straight at me.
The moment our eyes met, I knew he’d caught me. Again.
Heat surged through me so quickly that it felt like a physical blow.
Suddenly I was fourteen years old, lying awake in the dark and wishing I could unknow something I already understood. Dean’s expression held no calculation whatsoever. No caution either. He simply stared at me.
My breath stalled.
I broke eye contact first and pushed harder into the next pass, letting speed swallow the reaction while my heart hammered against my ribs.
The feeling stayed anyway.
