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“You got a girl over there, Kap?” another guy asked.

He ripped off his headset and scrambled for the controller to exit the game.

My arms went lax, dropping the garbage bag. “They have no idea that you’re here.” I swallowed hard. “They don’t know what you’re doing, do they?”

Kappy’s forehead creased. “Why should they? It’s not their business.”

“You haven’t even told your coaches you’re not going back, have you?” I swallowed hard. “You’re still not sure, are you? You might still back out?”

He just stared at me.

Shit, shit, shit.

My brain went haywire. The longer we tried to make this work, the more time I was losing to find another partner. We had to make this work. In another week, there’d be no going back for me.

“I have an idea,” I said suddenly.

He rubbed his forehead. “Really?”

“Yeah. I think we should get to the rink early, just the two of us.”

His face scrunched in confusion.

“I think we should improv a little. Stop trying to be so structured, just see what happens.”

He crossed his arms and held his chin, thinking. “Okay, worth a shot. ”

The tension in my chest eased by a tiny fraction. “Be ready with a couple songs.”

His lips curved up in amusement.

________

“You choose first,” I said, handing him the aux cord with a trembling hand. Hans zammed the rink at night, meaning it was even colder than usual in here. I could practically feel the chill seeping deep into my bones. “We need to get m-moving, I’m f-freezing,” I said with chattering teeth.

He grinned as he tugged me in front of him and rubbed my arm with one hand while he scrolled his phone with his other.

I forced myself to relax my muscles and welcome the comfort.

I needed to stop thinking of him as a potential love interest because that was just making me jumpy and nervous.

I let Patrick comfort me all the time, so why not Kappy?

“Didn’t you say you used to pretend you were making music videos?” he asked.

Suppressing a shiver, I looked down and spied the bunga pads peeking out of his skates that I gave him. “Yeah. I’m surprised you remember that.”

He laughed. “I just thought I was the only one who did that. All right, you feeling fast or slow first?”

“We need to move. Definitely fast.”

The first few beats of “Maneater” by Nelly Furtado blared over the speakers.

Spinning around, I swatted his arm. “Oh my God.”

His face lit up with a laugh. “Let’s go, Viper.”

I hated to admit it, but “Maneater” was a solid song choice. It was a song that had me wanting to move, wanting to dance, and it was an easy beat to follow. We finally loosened up and stopped running into each other. We weren’t worried about being technical, we were just flowing together.

By the time we hit an ending pose, we were both breathing heavy and grinning hard.

“Wow,” I breathed out. A mixture of happiness and relief bubbled up inside of me.

“Yeah.” He sounded just as relieved. “It’s way easier to do this with music. It feels way less awkward. Like I can turn my brain off and just move.”

I smacked my forehead. “Wait, that makes so much sense.” It was hard to dance in general without music. “Why didn’t I think of that before? We could’ve been flowing together weeks ago.”

Kappy shook his head and laughed.

“What?” I asked defensively.

He gave me a wry grin. “It’s just textbook smart girl.

” I must’ve looked as confused as I felt because he added, “Smart girls will learn something new and then blame their younger selves for not knowing.” He glided closer to me.

His hand darted up to my chin, then was gone in an instant.

“The rest of us just accept it as learning, sweetheart.”

I stared at him. Since when did he acquire… wisdom?

“Maybe we should slow it down a little for the next song?” He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe sweat from his brow, showing off his impressive abs with a dusting of hair overtop. A little spark went off in my stomach, and I immediately snapped my neck away.

Bad, bad, bad.

I could not lust over my partner.

“I’ll take that under consideration,” I murmured as I glided away, trying hard to shove any and all attraction into a tiny box in my brain.

But leaning against the boards and scrolling through my phone, the weight of the decision felt heavy, and I struggled to pick a song.

“Just choose what you feel in this moment,” he called out from center ice where he was working on some edge pulls. “Like we did back in college.”

Gathering up a little courage, I clicked on the first song that came to mind and stroked back to him.

He listened with his head down for a second, a frown etched on his serious face. “I don’t think I know this one. What’s it called?”

“‘Maybe I’m Afraid’ by Lovelytheband.”

His brown eyes locked on mine. “I like it.”

Feeling a slight blush, I dropped my eyes to his skates. “This would be a good song for footwork, wanna learn an easy step-sequence?”

“Lead the way.”

He was able to nail my little rocker-choctaw-edge roll into a twizzle sequence on his third try. By the fourth try, he didn’t bobble a single time, not even during his twizzles .

I blinked at him. “You’re really getting better, I’m impressed.”

He cracked a grin. “Thanks, I think you and Patrick forget that I’m a professional athlete as well.”

I shook my head. “I never forget.”

I was rewarded with a flash of dimples as he skated off to choose the next song.

When Hozier’s “Work Song” echoed through the empty rink, it shocked me to my core.

His face looked haunted by deep thought as he extended a hand to hold mine, and then it felt like we were flying around the rink with long extended strokes, moving in sync to the music, letting go here and there to move independently.

I felt each beat in my heart as he spun me around so naturally, and while Hozier vowed that nothing, not even death, could separate him from his true love, it’s like something clicked into place for us.

“Wanna try a lift?” I asked breathlessly as we continued skating. “The one we’ve been working on off-ice?”

He did a double take. “Really?”

Nodding, I squeezed his hand. “I trust you.”

With a quick nod, he smoothed away from me, waiting.

Sucking in the cold air, I jumped into him with reckless abandon and moved through the lift with the same precision I was used to with Patrick, knowing that Kappy would sacrifice himself before letting me fall.

He held my calves, and I balanced on his thighs. My ponytail flowed behind me, and it felt like I was flying through the cold air as I extended my arms.

A few seconds later, he smoothed me onto the ice, and his mouth gaped open. “We did it. We fucking did it.”

I laughed. “You sound surprised! Should I not have let you try?”

His whole face lit up with a smile. “Let’s keep going, your choice.” He nodded to the music box.

Gliding away from him, I ran through my song choices. Hozier’s slow ballad was beautiful, but heavy and a bit somber. I needed to lighten the mood.

Skating back to him, Sabrina Carpenter’s voice crooned, “Please, Please, Please.”

He dropped his neck back with a chuckle. “Ahh, I see how it is, you get to play sassy and I play the simp?”

“Is that not accurate?” I feigned innocence and struggled to keep a straight face.

He pushed into a little spread eagle to circle me. Dipping closer, he whispered in my ear, “Careful, Viper.”

Whipping around, I placed a hand on his chest and pushed into some sassy skate-steps. “When have you ever known me to be careful?”

With a wicked grin, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into a twist. We exited on the perfect beat. The next beat, he dropped me into a dip.

“You’re gelling!” Patrick’s voice boomed over the music, making Kappy flinch and almost drop me.

“Sorry.” Kappy grimaced and pulled me up a bit too hard, making me knock into him. He shuffled for a second to regain his balance, but then flew clean off the back of his skates to his butt.

Patrick immediately cut the music.

“I think I broke my tailbone.” Kappy’s groan echoed in the rink and his hand went to his butt. “I miss my hockey pants.”

With a laugh, I reached a hand down to help him up. “Let’s go, big guy.”