Thin Ice (Winter Warmers) by Cassie Mint

Author:Cassie Mint [Mint, Cassie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Cherry Publishing
Published: 2021-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

Six

Logan

Mila looks wrong from the moment she steps onto the ice. I watch, dry-mouthed, as she skates toward me, because it’s like all the stuffing’s been knocked out of her.

Her shoulders are slumped; there are bags under her eyes. Even her gorgeous hair seems deflated. Mila’s dressed in gray skate pants and a long sleeved black top, and she normally looks like a model just stepped onto the rink, but today she looks ghostly pale. Exhausted.

Did I do this? Does she regret what happened last night?

Fuck. I watch her come to a stop right in front of me, frost spreading through my veins. If I did this to her, if I made her this sad, I’ll…

Well, I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably lay down on the rink and let the hockey players shred me to pieces.

“Mila,” I murmur, reaching for her wrist, but then the rink gate bangs open and Chris steps onto the ice. I pull my hand back, heart pounding.

She seemed so happy last night. So into it. That was my only saving grace, my only feeble excuse: that she seemed as desperate for me as I was for her. Like we were drawn together by this unstoppable pull, and there was no fighting it anymore. No turning back.

But what if that was all in my head? What if she regrets it?

Fuck.

“Mila,” I say again, urgent this time, but it’s too late to ask her. Chris swoops up beside us, his skates cutting through the ice, and he’s tense when he nods at us both.

“Coach. Mila.” He rolls his neck, something popping. “Let’s do this.”

…Okay. So maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s these two. A selfish hope unfurls in my chest, and I cling to it as I watch them warm up together, then move into their first set of drills.

They’re awkward. Tension practically vibrates between them, and their mouths are both pressed in unhappy lines. They’re out of sync, painfully so, and when they begin their first routine, I’m not relieved anymore.

This is bad.

Skating partnerships are ninety percent trust. Without that, without surrendering yourself completely to your partner, the moves don’t work. They become two people dancing far too close, with knives strapped to their feet, and more than once I bite back a command for them to stop.

There’s only one way through it. They need to find each other again, work back to each other, and—

Chris boosts Mila overhead for the first lift. He’s spinning, traveling fast over the ice, and this isn’t even the hardest lift they do, not by far. But his left arm wobbles, and she’s too rigid overhead, and—my heart stops.

I watch Mila tumble to the ice in slow motion.

“No!”

Crack. She hits the rink hard, bouncing and tumbling away like a rag doll. Chris rounds on her, face chalky white, calling her name, but even though he was closer, I beat him there.

“Mila.” My knees sing with pain as I drop too hard at her side. I don’t care. I scan her body, checking her obvious breaks or wounds.

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