Page 18 of Ice Princesses
Nina watches my face carefully.
Then she groans and presses her palms against the ice. “How did you do this for twenty years?” she asks. “My spine feels like it’s trying to leave my body.”
“I did it for more than twenty years, sissy.” I laugh as I stand and do another lazy lap while she wobbles to the boards, coffee in hand again.
“I’ll see you later?” I yell, and she mumbles something under her breath in response.
And for the first time all morning, the rink feels less like a battleground and more like ours again.
CHAPTER 6
CECILIA
In my opinion,one week is enough time to see the edges of a place.
Not the polish—that’s immediate and in this particular case, it was very obvious the moment we stepped out of the van that brought us here the first day. The ice, the equipment, the staffing, the way everything runs on a schedule that actually holds.
What takes a week is noticing what changes underneath.
By day seven, I can map out the training facility without thinking. Which of the rinks is louder. Which hallway smells more like hockey boy sweat than rubber mats. Where the coaches gather when they want to be seen, and where they go when they don’t.
There are resources everywhere. Not just money, but attention. Time. What feels, to me, like redundancy. Three people assigned to a problem that back home would’ve beenmine alone, solved between skating sessions with duct tape and a very loud prayer to whoever listens.
And watching the athletes is something spectacular, because they absorb all of this so fast.
Especially Rodrigo and a young skater from Texas, Katia.
It’s small things. The way he skates into the rink instead of waiting for me at the door. The way he listens with his whole body when someone else is speaking, shoulders squared, eyes up, even if he looks back at me afterward, checking to see if I agree.
He hasn’t pulled away. But he’s on a stretch assignment that is making him grow so fast in front of my eyes.
And that’s what scares me.
The other coaches are loud. Not careless, just big. Big egos in a sport where ego and presence is everything. They coach with their whole torsos, voices cutting through the rink, instructions barked mid-lap like commands that don’t expect to be questioned.
“Again.”
“Higher!”
“No, not like that.”
They fill space without apology.
And I don’t.
I wait until Rodrigo skates to the boards. We’ve been working with a Korean choreographer who keeps asking him to slow down—stretch the edges, let the step sequence breathe, trust the music instead of chasing the next element. Rodrigo’s breath steadies and his eyes flick in my direction, asking without words.
“Vení,”I say, soft enough that he has to lean in. “Yourtiming was fine,” I tell him. “You rushed that takeoff because you were anticipating the correction. Don’t.”
He nods once. Resets. Goes again.
And it works. The landing is cleaner this time, the exit flowing instead of fighting him. Rodrigo skates past the boards with a grin he tries to hide and fails completely.
I feel eyes on us again.
When I glance up, Isabella is standing a few feet away, listening to two coaches argue about jump entries. She isn’t looking at them.
She’s looking at us.
