It’s not just that she’s beautiful, though she is. It’s not just that she can do things on ice that seem physically impossible, though she can.
It’s the way she looked at me like I was a minor inconvenience. Like being a professional hockey player meant nothing to her. Like I was just some random guy interrupting her practice.
I’ve never had someone be that completely unimpressed by me. And for some reason, that makes me want to know her even more.
Almardon notices almost immediately. His goalie instincts make him the smartest and most observant person in the room at any given moment.
“You’re being weird,” he says one day after practice, about a weekafter what I’m coming to think of as ‘the incident’. We’re in the locker room, the smell of sweat and ice still clinging to everything.
“I’m not being weird.”
“You keep checking your phone like every five minutes. You’ve been distracted all week. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Rodriguez.”
“There’s this girl.”
He laughs. “Oh my God. Always a girl with you.”
“Not like this. I can’t get her out of my head and she wants absolutely nothing to do with me.”
“So leave her alone then.”
“She might train at our facility though.”
He shakes his head and shoves his hand through his hair, water from his wet hair flicking onto the bench. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Very aware.”
I don’t lookfor her. I swear I don’t.
But two weeks later I’m in the PT suite, just hanging out and talking to Jake when she walks past, bag over her shoulder, heading toward the practice rinks.
So she does train here.
Jake notices me noticing. “That’s Juliette,” he says.
“I know.”
“She teaches here too. Beginner classes, mostly.”
“Right.”
“You interested?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’re not well known for your subtlety, Rodriguez.” He’s grinning. “I’ve never seen her date anyone though. At least not since she started training here last year.”
That alone should make me give up.
Instead it just makes me more determined.
I find her Instagram account that night. It’s public and filled with mostly skating content. Videos of her training, competition clips, some teaching moments with her students. I watch every single one, multiple times.
It’s not creepy if it’s public, right? This is what Instagram is for.
