It didn’t work.
My pulse was still too fast. The muscles across my shoulders felt tight.
I could not seem to remove him from my head.
What was worse, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I am not in control anymore.
“I am done,” I muttered, drifting toward the exit much earlier than planned.
Mila stayed on the ice, though I knew without looking that she was watching me.
The bench felt cold through my training pants as I sat down with my forearms braced against my thighs. I focused on slowing mybreathing, counting each inhale while the sounds of the rink settled around me again.
Then I looked up.
Dean was still there.
He was a little older than most of the skaters training this early, probably mid-twenties, built for power without carrying unnecessary bulk. Strength sat naturally on him, balanced with flexibility and control rather than fighting against it.
But it was his face that kept drawing my attention back.
Dark hair curled across his forehead, seemingly incapable of following instructions. Strong cheekbones caught the light whenever he turned. His mouth was expressive in a way I found distracting, always on the verge of a smile. When he turned beneath the lights, I remembered thinking that he looked impossibly alive.
He came to a stop near center ice and looked toward me again, and although every instinct told me not to, I watched him watching me.
Dean smiled.
The warmth of it hit me with surprising force. My stomach dropped. For a heartbeat it felt directed at me.
My pulse stumbled.
Kvrat.
This was ridiculous. We had never even spoken.
I turned away, my jaw tight, and fixed my attention on the boards, the rafters, the ice.
Anywhere except Dean Foster.
Seconds later I found myself looking at him again.
Dean had resumed skating as though nothing unusual had occurred. A few seconds later he lost an edge entering a turn, laughed again, and recovered without the irritation I would have expected from myself.
That laughter…
Suddenly I was fourteen again, sitting on a freezing bench whileolder skaters finished practice at my home rink. One of them, a boy with dark hair and flushed cheeks, fell hard during a jump attempt and laughed as he hit the ice before climbing immediately back to his feet.
I’d watched him for the rest of the session. I told myself it was because he was a good skater.
Even then, I knew I was lying.
Later that night I’d lain awake staring at the ceiling while panic twisted in my stomach.
I told myself I was being ridiculous. Plenty of boys admired older skaters. Plenty of boys paid attention to people they wanted to emulate. That was all this was.
To prove it, I tried thinking about girls.
