Page 37 of The Play Maker

“Yeah.” He nods, his arms folded across his chest. “You figure skate, right? I saw your videos.”

I freeze.

My stomach drops, just for a second. “You… saw them?”

He shrugs. “You followed me the other day. I clicked on your profile. Sue me.”

Heat crawls up the back of my neck. Great. Austin Rhodes, king of hockey, professional flirt, has now seen me twirling on the ice. Fantastic.

I brace myself for the smirk, the joke, some sarcastic jab about glitter or twinkle toes. Because of course, that’s what a hockey player would do.

Instead, he smiles. “You’re good,” he says. “Like… really good.”

And I don’t know what to do with that.

My skating life has always been separate from everything else. A world I keep walled off from people who wouldn’t get it. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it. I love it, but I’m used to being able to decide when and how people see that part of me.

With him, I didn’t get that choice.

“You’re blushing,” he adds with a grin, those damn dimples making an appearance again.

“I’m not.”

“You totally are. It’s adorable.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“Nope,” he says, unapologetically. “It’s part of my charm.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling before I can stop myself. Damn him.

He shifts in his chair, and I pretend like I’m not ridiculously aware of the way his knee just barely bumps mine under the table.

“What made you start skating?” he asks.

I blink. “My mom put me in ballet lessons when I was six. She always thought it was beautiful, and I… loved it too,” I admit. “But I fell in love with figure skating. It was like ballet, but on ice. I liked that it wasn’t about being the loudest person in the room. You could just… move. Be quiet. And still say something.”

He tilts his head. “That’s kind of cool.”

There’s something in his voice, almost like interest and respect. It disorients me. Guys don’t usually listen to me like this. Especially not him.

“What about you?” I ask him. “Why hockey?”

His gaze drops to the table as he spins his pen between his fingers.

“Started playing at six too. My mom works as a cleaner at this rich-kid prep school. They had a rink, let staff kids join their programs. She said I had too much energy and needed an outlet.”

He shrugs, still looking down. “It was always the one thing I was good at. When school sucked. When… everything sucked, actually.”

I shift slightly, my arms folding in front of me. His tone is different now. The jokes are gone. His voice is quieter. I’ve never heard him be this quiet before.

“I used to feel like a screw-up every time I came home with a bad grade. But hockey?” He pauses, glancing up at me. “I could show up, skate fast, hit hard, and for a couple hours… it felt like I wasn’t failing everything.”

Something twists in my chest.

I don’t know what I expected when I agreed to tutor him. Probably eye rolls and frustration and me doing 90% of the work while he scrolled on his phone. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect him to be… a person.

“But now I’m suspended from playing,” he says, letting out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “So… yeah. I kinda need to pass this class.” He wipes a hand down his face and mutters under his breath, “God, I hope this works.”