Chapter 3: The Phone Call That Saved Them
The shadow on the frosted glass was a smudge. A dark, blurred silhouette that paused directly in front of the door.
Lucy's lungs stopped working.
Tim was still inside her. Still braced above her, his breath caught mid-exhale, every muscle in his body locked tight. She could feel his heartbeat slamming against her chest, or maybe that was her own, impossible to tell anymore.
The doorknob didn't turn.
Instead, a phone rang.
Not just any phone. That specific, grating chime—the default iPhone ringtone that Coach Bradford had never bothered to change, even after three years of Tim begging him to pick something less obnoxious.
The silhouette shifted. A muffled curse bled through the door.
Then footsteps. Retreating. Growing fainter with each step, accompanied by the low rumble of his father's voice answering the call.
"—yeah, I'm still here. What do you want?"
The words faded as he moved down the corridor, swallowed by the distant hum of the rink's ancient HVAC system.
Neither of them moved for a long, horrible moment.
Then Tim exhaled, and it came out as something between a laugh and a wheeze. His forehead dropped to hers, and she felt the tremor running through him, the adrenaline bleeding out of his muscles in slow, shaky waves.
"That," he whispered, "was the worst thirty seconds of my life."
Lucy wanted to laugh. She really did. But her entire body had gone rigid, and not in the good way, and she was suddenly, painfully aware of every single thing that was wrong with this picture.
Her ribs were throbbing. The shredded paper was sticking to her back. And she was lying naked on a trainer's table while her coach—her coach—had been six inches away from catching her with his son.
"Lucy." Tim's voice cut through the spiral. "Hey. Look at me."
She looked.
His eyes were steady, even though his hands were still trembling slightly against her hips. "He's gone. We're okay. But we need to move. Now."
Right. Move. Clothes. Yes.
She nodded, and he pulled out slowly, carefully, and the loss of him was a physical ache that she shoved down deep. There was no time for that. No time for anything except the frantic scramble that followed.
Her leggings were on the floor, tangled with his jeans. She snatched them up, sat up too fast, and the room tilted sideways as her ribs screamed in protest.
"Shit—" She sucked in a breath through her teeth, one hand flying to her side.
Tim was already half-dressed, hopping on one foot as he yanked his other shoe on. He froze mid-motion, eyes tracking to her face. "How bad?"
"I'm fine."
"You're white as paper."
"I'm fine." She gritted her teeth and pulled the leggings up over her hips, and the compression was both a relief and a fresh burst of pain. "Just—give me a second."
He didn't give her a second. He gave her his shirt instead, pressing it into her hands.
"Put that on. Your sports bra is somewhere under the table and we don't have time to dig."
She didn't argue. The shirt was soft, worn thin in places, and it smelled like him—like sweat and cedar and something faintly antiseptic from the rink. She pulled it over her head and it hung past her thighs, swallowing her whole.
Under any other circumstances, she might have found it cute.
Tim finished lacing his shoes and grabbed his keys from the counter. His hair was a disaster, sticking up in every direction, and there was a red mark on his neck that she definitely hadn't noticed before.
She'd done that.
The thought sent a small, vicious thrill through her that she immediately crushed.
"Stay here," he said, already moving toward the door. "I'll make sure he's actually gone."
"Tim—"
"I'll be right back." He paused at the threshold, hand on the frame, and looked back at her. His expression was unreadable. Something flickered across it—worry, maybe, or regret—and then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft click.
Lucy sat alone on the ruined table.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, indifferent and relentless. The shredded paper crinkled beneath her thighs. Somewhere down the hall, she could hear the faint echo of the rink's zamboni, running its nightly circuit across the ice she'd spent all day training on.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Her ribs protested. She ignored them.
The photo on the corkboard caught her eye—the one she'd noticed before but never really looked at. Tim Bradford, maybe nineteen or twenty, skates still strapped on, holding a hockey stick like it was an extension of his arm. His smile was wide and easy, the same crooked grin she'd seen a hundred times, but younger. Unburdened.
She wondered what it had cost him to hang that up. To look at that version of himself every day and remember what he'd lost.
The door opened.
She flinched, heart lurching, but it was only Tim. His shoulders were loose now, the tension drained out of him, and that familiar crooked smile was back in place.
"Coast's clear. He left the building. Security camera caught him heading to the parking lot."
Lucy exhaled, and the breath she'd been holding for what felt like an eternity finally released.
"Thank God."
"Yeah." Tim crossed the room, stepping over a stray ice pack that had somehow migrated to the middle of the floor. He stopped in front of her, looking down at her curled up on the table, wearing his shirt, looking like absolute hell.
His expression softened.
"You okay?"
"I'll live."
"That's not what I asked."
She didn't answer. Couldn't. Because the truth was, she wasn't okay—not even close—and she didn't want to examine why.
Tim seemed to understand. He didn't push. He just reached down and took her hand, his fingers warm and rough against hers.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here."
She let him pull her to her feet. Her legs were unsteady, her ribs ached, and her hair had come completely loose from its bun, hanging around her shoulders in a tangled mess.
She must have looked ridiculous. She felt ridiculous.
But Tim was looking at her like she was something else entirely.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
He grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door and draped it over her shoulders. Then he grabbed his own jacket, his keys, and that crooked smile widened just a fraction.
"Somewhere with a real bed," he said. "And no fluorescent lights."
He pulled open the door and gestured for her to go first. The hallway stretched ahead of them, empty and dim, the rink humming its quiet song in the distance.
Lucy stepped through.
Behind her, Tim let the door swing shut, and the trainer's room— with its ruined table and shredded paper and the ghost of what they'd just done—disappeared from view.
The rink was silent as they walked. Their footsteps echoed off the concrete walls, too loud in the emptiness. The zamboni had finished its circuit; the ice sat smooth and perfect under the dimmed lights, gleaming like a mirror in the dark.
Lucy paused at the edge of the boards.
Tim stopped beside her. "What?"
She stared at the ice. At the clean, untouched surface. Tomorrow, she'd be back on it, running the same drills, chasing the same dream. She'd lace up her skates and push through the pain and pretend like nothing had changed.
But something had changed.
She could feel it in her ribs, in the ache between her legs, in the way her heart was beating—not with fear, but with something else. Something she didn't have a name for yet.
"Nothing," she said. "Let's go."
Tim held out his hand. She took it.
They walked out of the rink together, and the door swung shut behind them, and the ice sat in the dark, waiting for morning.