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I ’ve seen and heard others with Tourette’s talk about their happy place - the one time they’re free of the fight to suppress. For some it’s on stage performing for their adoring fans, for others it’s burying their head inside their favorite novel. For me it’s a rundown ice rink on a quiet Boston street.

As the name implies, Green Line Ice sits just off the Green Line. It’s one of Boston’s busiest train lines, and begins - or ends - at Boston College.

It’s a special place to me, actually special can’t begin to describe it.

Gran was best friends with Marty and Donna, its owners, and brought me here for weekly lessons. Nothing could lift my spirits like gliding on the ice, but when Mom got sick, money got tight, and despite Marty’s insistence that I could partake for free, Gran stubbornly refused to take what she saw as charity, and the lessons stopped. It was a decision that broke her heart as much as it did mine.

“You deserve so much more than what we can give you,” she’d said months later when she busted me, a sad, sobbing mess cleaning the blades in my room. “Things won’t always be like this sweetheart. I promise.”

Things had stayed like that though, and those skates had lived in a box beneath my bed for almost eight years, only seeing the light of day when they were pulled out and dusted off once a month for The Green Line SKISCO, it’s an under tens skate-disco. There I played DJ, helped pack up, then had the ice to myself as payment.

Until Claire, and the “You deserve this,” she whispered into my ear on my birthday, those one or two glorious hours had been my only true happiness. But her words, so eerily reminiscent of Gran’s, stirred something inside me, so I’ve scrimped and saved enough to come skating twice since, each time feeling Gran next to me, smiling and shivering as she pulls my feet onto her lap to tie the laces.

Flushed cheeks, misted breath, steel carving through ice. The air rushing against my skin blows away the cobwebs that bind me. The freedom of movement, the effortless glide, all of it centers me. Tonight though, even before I’ve hit the ice, something feels … off. Like I’m being watched. Marty will be here somewhere, but it’s more than just him and the ghost of Gran.

As I slip my pink earmuffs on then roll my legwarmers over my calves and stand, I search the empty stands, looking for another face or set of eyes, but see nothing. It’s just me. “Stop being so paranoid.” I scold myself and stomp onto the thoroughfare dividing the seats from the rink, push open the waist high door and step onto the ice. I’m still more than a little rusty, so I take my time to warm up, cruising for a few easy laps, switching direction, forwards and backwards and right on queue, Billie Eilish, my favorite singer, pumps out via the overhead speakers and Marty is calling out over the boards.

“Hey there, Kiddo. Looks like it’s just you, me and Billie. Got any requests?”

I smile, spin and sail past him backwards, “ Bury a Friend, Birds of a Feather, I don’t wanna be you anymore .”

“Ahh, the golden hat-trick,” he yells. “Coming right up… oh, hi there, champ. Look at that, Kid. Maybe we’re not alone after all.”

I come to a short and sudden halt, spraying ice all over my feet and legs suddenly before me. “You didn’t fib to me did you, Little D?”

Despite the location, heat rushes through me as I dare to meet his eye. “Noah, you scared me half to death. What are you doing here? Oh my God, you are a stalker!” It’s one third joke, one genuine panic, one deflection. And he knows it.

“I’ll get to all that, but I’m very interested in the pretty white things attached to those pretty long legs. I thought you were giving those skates away, Lotte?”

“Um, I was. But. Um …” I’m flustered because he’s drifting closer as he speaks. His breath is warm and minty fresh and mixes with mine in the ever-narrowing space between us.

“You look incredible out here, and this outfit.” Looking me up and down, Noah exhales, his smirk spreading as his fingers brush over my fluffy pink earmuffs, “These. The braids, pink leg warmers over white leggings and skates. Just seeing you in color … you’re killing me, West.”

He’s too close. Too hot. Too … everything. I need to move before I melt into the ice. “I’m leaving you for dead, too.” In a hail of laughter I take off, skating as fast as I can as far away from the boy I can’t escape thinking about. It’s useless. He catches me easily, then pins and skates in front of me.

“Nice try, but I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

“So it would seem.”

He chuckles and runs his hand through his hair as he glides. It’s unreasonably attractive, so I distract myself by talking. “I know we’ve fallen into this little game of ask but don’t tell, but seriously. Why, and how, are you here?”

He winces and skates, no - runs on ice - away. The length of his strides, the strain in his neck, the flow of his hair, damn that hair, it’s … hypnotic. “I know you have the super weird thing about me following you, but…”

I don’t have a good feeling about this. “But?” I ask.

“But I followed you.”

“Noah!”

“It’s weird and super creepy, I know. But I swear it’s perfectly innocent. I saw you jump on the train as I left O’Reilly’s, and I called out, but you didn’t hear me and … yeah. You looked so cute, and I really wanted to see you and curiosity got the better of me.”

“So, is this something you do often? Have you been watching me in the grocery store, too?”

“No of course not … but then again, if I saw you, I would want to watch you, so I can probably say it’s firmly within the realm of possibility.”

“Well, that sure puts my mind at ease.” He huffs out a laugh and sprints away, lapping me twice before slowing beside me. I’m not impressed by his speed and agility at all. “And the skates.” I quiz, “You just happened to have a pair in the car?”

“I always have a pair on me in case of an emergency, but in this case, I’d just left training. See, it was meant to be.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, really. Now, it’s my turn. Why do you come to this crusty old skate rink twenty minutes from home when we have a multi-million-dollar facility minutes from your door?”

As much as I’m enjoying the playful tête-à-tête, thing we’ve got going on, I feel an increasing need to open up, to answer honestly, that scares me more than I care to admit.

And doesn’t come naturally.

An uncounted number of laps pass in silence, our bodies drifting closer and closer each time we pass beneath the cluster of lights that split our shadows in multiple directions. Our stride has synchronized, our fingers are brushing and I am hardly breathing and for some reason it all comes tumbling out.

“My mom had Tourette’s too, but she wasn’t diagnosed until I was, and that was when I was seven. Like Gran had done with her, Mom did the best she could to protect me without knowing whatever it was that plagued us. The only thing was, her idea of protection was to hide me away. No one wants a girl with the devil in her heart .”

“Lotte,” looking every inch the heart breakingly beautiful poster boy he is, Noah cocks his head and sighs, “You don’t believe that do you?”

“No, and she didn’t either. But people, teachers , used to say it to her as a kid, and she would say it to me too, but as warning of how cruel others can be. That cruelty is why I was mostly home schooled, and why the only friends I had were the ones I made when I snuck out of the house to play with kids on our street.”

“Jesus, Lotte.”

“The one activity she let me do was the lessons here with Marty, and that was only because there were three or four students per class. But then she got sick and couldn’t work. Weekly lessons became fortnightly, then monthly, but in the end, I lost them too.”

When I finish speaking, my arm is brushing Noah’s, our pinkies sliding between each other’s before he inhales sharply and takes my hand in his. I’d normally hate this, so self-conscious I am of the scars lining the insides of my fingers and usually hide my hands in my sweater sleeve. But his warm, calloused ones are a pleasant contrast, and through his smooth palm I swear I can feel the erratic thud of his pulse through. It’s beautiful, and the most physical contact I’ve had with a man in a very long time, and despite the heaviness of what I just revealed I feel like I’m floating. The music changes, Billie’s haunting harmonies are replaced by the thumping beat of Into You by Ariana Grande.

Fucking Marty.

By the time Ari gets to the chorus and is begging to be touched, all melancholy is forgotten. I’m redder than Elmo, every inch of me ablaze, and when I try to discreetly side-eye, check out Noah, he’s sweating, like dripping and watching me too.

He twists his body and moves closer. Our mouths are inches apart, and I hold my breath and wait. For a split second I think the hottest guy I’ve ever seen is going to kiss me. Me.

“Lotte.” His voice is deep and raspy and the definition of sex as his fingers caress my cheek and the outer edge of my lip, but before I can close the space between us, or even reply, I wobble. There’s the sharp clang of metal on metal as skates collide and then I’m in free fall, slamming into the ice and Noah, Noah is coming with me. His hands all over me as he tries to protect me from the impact. I manage to roll just before I land with a sickening thud and Noah lands on top of me.

Noah Petterson is lying on me.

His body is on top of mine.

On top.

One of his hands is on my right boob and I think the other is wedged between my ass cheeks.

Usually hazel eyes that tonight seem a deep-sea glass green, watch me with concern, but I can see he’s trying not to laugh, too. “Shit. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m great.” Yeah, I’m great? I’m a fucking idiot .

Noah and I have skated in near silence for over an hour, the only breaks coming when he apologized for accidentally groping me, or to laugh about him accidentally groping me, and not one minute of it was uncomfortable. My hand only left his when I again fell on my ass, or when he felt the need to show off which was frequent and kinda hot. Eventually the playful banter began again. I told him of my desire to travel and see the world and he’s telling me his dream to one day play for Boston, but it’s almost nine and I can hear Marty’s heavy footprints plodding their way towards us.

The most fun I’ve ever had is over.

Marty leans over the boards and bangs them the same easy he’s done since I was a kid. “Sorry, Kid. But If I don’t get home soon, Donna is going to kick my ass.”

“It’s okay, Marty. Thanks for staying back so late.”

“Yeah, thanks, Marty,” Noah adds. “Your rink is awesome by the way. We need you over at Conte Forum. I think they could learn a thing or two from you.” There’s no hint of patronization. He means it, and Marty beams.

“That’s a real compliment coming from you, Captain Petterson. Thanks, yourself.”

I smile as Noah nods then leads me towards the boards.

“Does everybody know who you are?”

“If they watch College hockey, they probably do, yeah. Don’t you remember, I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Yet you’ve chosen to make friends with me, the complete opposite.” I can’t help but notice the way his face scrunches, and how his grip of me loosens when I say friends. Immediately I backtrack. “Not that we’re friends friends, I mean, we are hanging out by default because of Claire, so what’s that? Friends twice removed?” I’m bumbling. Blushing. Making a fool of myself as usual.

“We are friends, Lotte. Good friends, but even though … I hope you know even if I wanted, if we wanted more it has to stay that way. I’ve been drafted to Tampa, and will be gone by the end of next year … maybe earlier. It wouldn’t be fair to—”

I pull my hand from his and hurry off the ice. “I would never presume such a thing. Friends is good. Great. Friends is perfect.”

Noah still looks decidedly awkward and I know deep in my heart this is the last time I will be hanging out with Captain Petterson.