Chapter 40: The Dead Ice

"You're freezing," Knox said.

He didn't care that Coach Foley and the league officials were still standing by the zamboni slot, or that the local news vans were probably circling the block. He stepped off the gray ice, walked straight into the team box, and wrapped his massive arms around me.

The heavy fabric of his team jacket was cold against my face, but the solid heat of his chest cut right through my shivering. I buried my hands under his coat, pressing my palms against his thin thermal shirt just to feel the steady, reassuring thrum of his heartbeat.

"I'm fine," I whispered into his neck, my voice cracking from the stagnant arena air. "I'm just... I can't believe it's over."

"It isn't over," Knox murmured, his fingers sliding up into my hair, holding me against him like the rest of the world had completely vanished. He leaned down, pressing his lips to my temple. His breath was warm against my skin. "The venue changed, Lila. That’s all. We're still standing."

Foley let out a dry, functional cough from the edge of the rink, the sound echoing through the rusted iron rafters.

"I'll leave the entry-level redraft on the counter, Ryder," Foley said, his tone flat but not unkind. "The league compliance officers need to verify the emergency lighting grid by noon. You and Shaw have until tomorrow night to make this ice skateable. If the scouts show up and the surface splits, the contract is void for both of you."

"It won't split," Knox told him, his arm still wrapped tightly around my waist, anchoring me to his side.

We listened to the heavy thud of Foley’s leather shoes as he and the officials walked up the concrete steps, the steel emergency door clicking shut behind them. The silence that rushed back into the warehouse was different now. The panic from the 8:00 AM deadline was gone, replaced by a deep, exhausting quiet that left just the two of us under the humming yellow mercury lights.

Knox guided me down onto the wooden bench, sitting close enough that his thigh pressed against mine from hip to knee. He reached down and took both of my hands in his, rubbing his large, calloused thumbs over my knuckles to bring the blood back into them.

"Look at me, Lila," he said softly.

I lifted my head. The icy blue of his eyes was wide open, completely stripped of the cold, bad-boy mask he used to wear like armor on campus. For three years, I had watched him from afar at family dinners, convinced he despised me. For three months, we had lied to everyone we knew just to keep my secret from destroying us.

But looking at him now, in the dim light of the old rink where he grew up, there wasn't a single lie left between us.

"I was terrified," I admitted, my voice barely a whisper in the empty arena. "When your phone rang, and when Mason said his dad was going to pull the pin... I thought I’d ruined everything for you. I thought my writing had cost you the draft."

"Your writing didn't cost me anything," Knox said. He lifted my hands, pressing his lips to my knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine. "Your writing is the only reason I started paying attention, Lila. I told you at the diner, I’d been looking for a reason to talk to you for over a year. I was just too much of a coward to cross the line in that house."

"You? A coward?" A faint smile finally touched my lips, cutting through the cold.

"When it came to you? Yeah," Knox said, a short, rough laugh escaping his throat. He reached up, his hand framing the side of my face, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a gentleness that made my chest ache. "You were Mason's stepsister. You were the quiet girl who read at the kitchen table. I was the guy with the suspension record and the wrong address. I thought if I touched you, I'd just drag you into the mud."

"You didn't drag me into the mud," I told him, leaning into his palm. "You saved me from it."

"We saved each other," he corrected softly.

He leaned in, closing the small distance between us until his mouth found mine. The kiss wasn't like the desperate, hungry one from the apartment hallway hours ago, when the clock was ticking down and everything felt like it was breaking apart. This was slow, deep, and completely certain. He tasted like the winter wind and the faint, sweet trace of the coffee we’d shared, his lips warm and unhurried as he pulled me closer against his chest.

When he finally broke the kiss, his forehead rested against mine, our breaths mingling in a single cloud of white steam in the freezing air.

"Monday night is going to be a media circus," I whispered against his lips, my fingers curling into the collar of his jacket. "The reporters, the scanners, my mother... they're all going to be looking at us."

"Let them look," Knox said, his fingers tightening around my waist as he pulled me up onto his lap, the old wood of the team bench groaning under our weight. He looked out across the empty, gray sheet of ice, his jaw setting into a line that wasn't dangerous anymore just completely determined. "They can bring every camera on campus down to Cherry Street. They can print whatever version of the story they want."

He looked back down at me, his eyes softening into that dark, intense blue that belonged only to me.

"But you and I know how the story ends, Lila," Knox whispered, his mouth brushing mine one more time. "And this time, we're the ones writing it."