Page 19 of Friction

My stomach tightened.

Beside me, Mila went very still.

I waited for the words that instinct told me were lurking beneath the surface.

They never came.

“We skate as we train,” Sokolov continued. “And we train without distraction.”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

Mila echoed me a second later.

Sokolov watched us both for another moment before nodding once toward center ice. “Again.”

We pushed off, and this time I focused harder, stripping everymovement down to mechanics alone: edge pressure, timing, rotation speed. The familiar rhythm steadied me while repetition forced everything else into the background.

For a while, that worked.

Then Dean walked onto the ice.

I didn’t see him immediately. My attention stayed where it belonged, fixed on the sequence beneath my blades while Mila matched my timing beside me.

Awareness hit first.

Then I looked up, and my pulse stuttered.

Dean pushed into a warm-up lap with effortless speed, moving with a confidence that seemed totally unconscious. He moved freely, every transition flowing into the next without hesitation.

I dragged my attention away at once.

Focus elsewhere.

Another skater near the boards. A jump sequence.Anything.

It lasted maybe five seconds before I found him again.

My jaw tightened.

This was becoming a problem.

I drove into the next edge and gathered speed.

It didn’t help. No matter where I looked, some part of me remained aware of him.

Then he gazed straight at me.

The moment our eyes met, I knew he’d caught me. Again.

Heat surged through me so quickly that it felt like a physical blow.

Suddenly I was fourteen years old, lying awake in the dark and wishing I could unknow something I already understood. Dean’s expression held no calculation whatsoever. No caution either. He simply stared at me.

My breath stalled.

I broke eye contact first and pushed harder into the next pass, letting speed swallow the reaction while my heart hammered against my ribs.

The feeling stayed anyway.