Page 24 of Make Me Mean It

CHAPTER SEVEN

CONNOR

The lights buzz to life when I step into the rink, one strip after another flooding the empty stands and untouched ice in harsh white.

The building is completely still, nothing but the faint hum overhead and the soft scrape of my shoes against concrete.

I breathe in deep, the clean bite of the ice filling my lungs. No music pounding through the walls, no shouting, no Marcus laughing loud enough to hear from three rooms away.

No Theo.

Just me and enough silence to think.

I shrug out of my hoodie and shove it into my backpack, not bothering to fold it. Cold air scrapes over my bare arms, goosebumps rising in its wake, and I close my eyes, letting it bite.

The cold finally starts to settle some of the restlessness beneath my skin.

The scratch of a blade cuts clean across the ice, breaking the silence apart, and my eyes open, another following it, louder this time.

I stare out towards the rink, the quiet I came here for already slipping away.

Theo cuts across the ice, carving around in a wide turn before slowing near the boards.

Theo looks up towards the stands, his hand lifting against the glare, and whatever ease there was in his movement changes when he spots me, his head tipping slightly to one side.

He pulls off his helmet, pushing a hand through his hair, shaking out the damp curls flattened beneath it. His face is flushed from exertion, dark hair sticking around his forehead, and apparently there is nowhere in this entire city I can go without running into him.

“What’re you doing here, Reid?” he calls, his voice cutting straight through what little quiet I had left.

Reid again.

I push away from the railing and start down the steps, taking my time even when I can feel him watching me come.

By the time I reach the boards, I’ve managed to shove everything from earlier somewhere far enough down that I can pretend it isn’t still circling my head. I drop my backpack onto the bench behind me and look at Theo across the barrier.

“I could ask you the same.”

That familiar smirk pulls at Theo’s mouth around the end of his glove where he grips it between his teeth, pulling it off.

“Not really, princess,” he drawls once his mouth is free. “Me being here makes complete sense.”

I manage not to roll my eyes, though the lift of his brow suggests the effort isn’t nearly as subtle as I’d like.

Theo hums, his eyes moving slowly over me, and my fingers find the hem of my t-shirt, tugging absently at the crease across my stomach before I catch myself reaching up to fix my hair.

My hand drops straight back to my side.

“You, on the other hand,” he adds, still slightly out of breath.

I grab his water bottle from the bench and throw it at him.

He catches it one-handed without so much as fumbling, that stupid pleased grin spreading across his face while he lifts it towards me in a mock toast.

Next time, I’m aiming higher.

I turn towards the ice before he can see the smile threatening at my mouth.

Silence settles between us again, but it isn’t the same silence I walked into. Theo’s skates scrape quietly against the surface whenever he shifts, his breathing still slightly uneven from whatever he was doing before I interrupted him, and I can feel the question sitting there even though he doesn’t ask it.