Cole’s POV
I should’ve hit something.
Instead I sat in my truck in the dark parking lot with the engine off, forehead against the steering wheel, replaying the way Aria Lang had looked at me like I was the reason her whole life was falling apart. Maybe I was. Hockey had taken the prime ice. I had taken the rest of the space just by existing.
Five a.m. shared ice. Patel’s idea of a peace treaty was a death sentence.
I dragged my hands down my face. The scar through my eyebrow pulled. Everything pulled lately. Coach’s warning still rang in my skull: one more fight and the scouts would dry up. Northridge wasn’t exactly crawling with Division-I eyes, but a couple had started showing up. Enough to keep my mom from crying over the bills she thought I didn’t know about. Enough to get me out.
If I didn’t screw it up.
My phone lit up with a text from my captain, Jace.
*You good? Looked ready to murder the figure-skating chick.*
I typed back. *Fine.*
I wasn’t fine.
Because when Aria had stolen my puck with that ridiculous toe pick and told me to fetch, something old and dangerous had kicked in my chest. The same something I locked up years ago. The part that still remembered how to move on a clean edge, how to hold someone in the air like they weighed nothing, how to listen to music with my body instead of just smashing into people.
I killed that part the night of the accident. Buried it under muscle and rage and black-and-blue hockey gear.
I didn’t skate pretty anymore. I hit, I protected, I survived.
And now I had to share dawn ice with a girl who skated like the whole world was watching and judging every breath. A girl with fire in her mouth and fear in her eyes when she thought no one noticed.
I started the truck, blasted the heat, and drove home through empty streets. The house was dark. Mom’s double shift meant she wouldn’t be back until after sunrise. I moved quiet so I wouldn’t wake my little brother, dropped my bag, and stood in the garage for a long time staring at the storage bin I never opened.
Inside it were white skates. My old ones. Still scuffed from the last pairs session before everything went to hell.
I left them there.
Sleep didn’t come. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Aria’s face when Patel delivered the verdict—shocked, furious, trapped. I knew that look. I wore it in the mirror most mornings.
4:48 a.m. the next day I was already at the rink.
The place was a tomb. Only the emergency lights glowed over the ice. I laced my hockey skates out of pure spite and stepped on, doing hard laps until my lungs burned. Anything to remind myself who I was now.
At 4:59 the side door opened.
Aria walked in wearing a faded lavender jacket over her skating dress, hair pulled into a severe bun, face set like she was heading to war. She didn’t look at me. Just sat on the bench, pulled on those white boots, and tightened the laces with vicious little tugs.
I coasted to the red line and waited.
She stepped on, did a few strokes, then stopped twenty feet away. Cold air turned her breath into ghosts.
“Your half is that end,” she said, pointing with her chin. “Mine’s this one. Cross the center and I end you.”
I leaned on my stick. “Good morning to you too, Lang.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t talk to me like we’re friends. We’re not. We’re cellmates.”
I almost smiled. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, princess.”
She pushed off and started jumping. No warm-up spins, no gentle edges. Straight into doubles like she had something to prove. I tried to focus on puck-handling drills, but my eyes kept drifting. The way she picked up speed, the exact angle of her takeoff, the tight landing that still wobbled a fraction. She was good. Better than good. She was hungry.
And she was skating on fumes.
On her third combination she over-rotated. I saw it before she did. Her blade slipped, body twisting the wrong way. I moved without thinking—old instinct, pure muscle memory—closing the distance in three hard strides.
I didn’t touch her. She saved herself, hand brushing the ice, chest heaving. But I was right there, close enough to see the furious tears she blinked back.
“I said stay on your half,” she snapped, voice raw.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered.
“I didn’t ask for help.”
“No. You asked for ice. Congrats. You’ve got it. Try not to break your ankle before sunrise.”
Her eyes flashed. For a second I thought she might actually swing at me. Instead she laughed, short and bitter.
“Why do you even care? You hate figure skating. All you hockey guys do.”
The words hit harder than a clean check. I looked away, jaw locked so tight it ached.
“I don’t hate it,” I said quietly.
The admission surprised us both. Aria stared at me like I’d grown a second head. I could feel the old edges trying to rise up through my feet, the ghost of music, the memory of someone’s hands in mine on this same cold surface.
I shut it down.
“Just stay out of my way, Lang. I need this scholarship. You need… whatever it is you need. We survive the hour and get out. Deal?”
She studied me for a long moment. Something unreadable passed behind her eyes. Then she nodded once.
“Deal.”
We skated in silence after that, opposite ends of the rink.
I should have stayed on my half. I didn’t.
When she moved into a double axel combination near center ice, her landing wobbled hard. Without thinking I closed the distance.
My hands never touched her. They didn’t have to.
She recovered, chest heaving, eyes locked on mine like she’d just seen a ghost.
Then she whispered the one question I couldn’t afford.
“Cole… why do you skate like a pairs partner?”