"It's so cold in here." His voice carries in the empty rink, bouncing off the boards. Talking to nobody, the way he always does, like every thought in his head automatically becomes public information. “Every single time. You’d think I’d remember.”
“It’s a rink,” I call back without looking at him. “It’s literally made of ice.”
“Thank you, Nash. Truly.” I can hear the grin in his voice already. “The clarity you bring to my mornings is unmatched.”
He steps onto the ice and I watch him in my peripheral vision do the thing he always does — one full lap, loose, getting his legs under him, the warm up that looks like nothing and is actually deliberate. I've noticed that about him lately. Most of what looks casual is actually very intentional and calculated.
I finish the drill and loop back toward center ice.
“Your outside edge looks cleaner,” he says as he skates aroundme.
“It’s better.”
His mouth twitches. “Humble.”
“Accurate.”
He grins at the ice.
We fall into the morning sequence — the back and forth of it, him taking a puck and working through something while I watch, me running a sequence while he watches, both of us calling small things and adjusting. It's gotten easy in a way I don't have an explanation for. In a way I didn’t expect. That’s still strange to me. How the friction just left. Like we both decided to give it a try and now there’s nothing left in the space that all that anger used to live in.
"So," he says, after almost an hour of work.
I glance over. "So."
"I have a question."
"You always have a question."
"I'm a curious person." He collects a loose puck with the toe of his blade, rolling it back and forth against the ice.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
"What do you actually do? When you're not here."
I look at him sideways. He's skating backward, watching me, the cold air moving around him. Completely at ease going in reverse.
"I'm always here."
"Obviously. But like. When you're not." He passes me the puck. "Do you have hobbies? A friend? A sad TV show you watch alone in your room?"
"I watch film."
"That's not a hobby, that's homework."
"I like it." I shrugged.
"Okay then, what else?"
I catch the pass and redirect it without thinking about it and narrow my eyes at him. "Why?"
"Because I've known you for months and I know your stats and that you have no life, but I don't know one single thing about you as a person.” He holds my stare from across the distance between us. “I don’t know if anyone does."
I look at the ice and decide to reveal a tiny bit of myself.
"Soccer," I say, honestly.
He blinks. Stops skating like someone slammed on the brakes. "What?"
