Chapter 1: Trembling in the Locker Room
The air in the private locker room was still and cool, carrying the sharp scent of ice wax and the older, deeper smell of worn leather and damp wood. Polished benches gleamed under the low lights, and faded championship banners hung like silent ghosts on the far wall. The only sound was the distant, hollow echo of the Zamboni finishing its last pass on the main rink.
Louise stood just inside the doorway, her fingers worrying the soft cuff of her sweater. She’d been standing there for seven minutes, according to the clock above the sinks. Her heart was a frantic, trapped thing against her ribs.
She heard the squeak of a boot on tile before she saw him.
Ilia pushed the door open, his skates slung over one shoulder by the laces. A sheen of sweat glistened at his temples, his messy blond hair dark with damp. He was still breathing hard from his final sprint, the powerful lines of his shoulders rising and falling under his thin training shirt.
He stopped when he saw her. A slow smile, genuine and warm, broke across his face. “Hey. This is a surprise.”
“Hi.” Her voice came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat. “I… I was in the library. It closed. I knew you’d be here.”
“I’m glad you came.” He tossed his skates onto a bench with a soft thump. He moved toward her, not with the predatory grace he had on ice, but with a careful ease, as if she were something he might startle. “You’re freezing. How long were you waiting out there?”
She hadn’t even noticed. “Not long.”
He reached out, his hands still red and cold from the ice, and cupped her face. Her skin jumped at the contact, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned into it, her eyes closing for a second. His thumbs traced the arch of her cheekbones, brushing the scatter of freckles there.
“You okay, Louise?”
She swallowed. The words were right there, lodged in her throat. She’d practiced them in the silent carrel of the library, in the echoing parking lot, all the way here. Now they felt clumsy and dangerous.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began, her eyes fixed on the hollow of his throat.
“That’s always dangerous.” His tone was light, teasing, but his gaze was steady on her.
“About us. About… me.” She forced herself to look up. His blue-gray eyes were calm, waiting. He wasn’t going to fill the silence for her. He never did. He just waited, giving her all the time she needed. It was one of the things she loved most about him, and one of the things that terrified her. The space felt too vast, too easy to get lost in.
“I watch you,” she said, the confession feeling huge. “Out there. You’re so… sure. Of every move. Of where your body is in space. You never hesitate.”
“I hesitate all the time,” he said softly. “You just don’t see it. The doubt is part of it. You just learn to move through it.”
She shook her head slightly, his hands still framing her face. “I feel like I’m always hesitating. With you. I’m so scared of getting the step wrong. Of being… awkward.”
“You could never be awkward to me.” He said it simply, a statement of fact.
A hot pressure built behind her eyes. She was going to ruin this. She was going to cry and he’d be kind about it and she’d want to disappear. She took a shaky breath, focusing on the feel of his rough, cold fingertips on her skin.
“Ilia.” Her voice broke on his name. She tried again, steeling herself. “I’m ready.”
For a moment, he didn’t move. He just searched her face, his expression shifting from gentle concern to a dawning, careful understanding. He didn’t ask “for what?”. He knew. They had danced around this edge for weeks.
He took his hands from her face, slowly, and let them slide down to grasp her own. Her fingers were icy in his.
“Louise,” he said, his voice low. “Look at me. Are you sure? Not because you think it’s what I want, or what’s supposed to happen next. Are you sure because you want it?”
The question was so utterly him. It stripped away every rehearsed line, every abstract fear. It left only her, in this quiet, dim room with the man who had never once made her feel like a checklist.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, the truth laid bare. “I’ve never… and you’ve probably… with lots of…”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, a firm, warm press. “Stop. That doesn’t matter. None of that has anything to do with you and me, right here. Your first time shouldn’t be something you’re scared of. It should be something you want.”
“I do want it,” she whispered, the conviction surprising her. “I want you. That’s what I’m scared of. Wanting it this much and being… bad at it.”
A soft laugh escaped him, not mocking, but relieved. “There’s no ‘bad at it’. There’s just us, figuring it out. Together.” He tugged her gently, leading her toward the bench in the corner. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just sit.”
“I don’t want to just sit.”
He sat on the worn cushion and pulled her down to stand between his knees. From this angle, she was looking down at him. It felt different. A small shift in power. He rested his hands on her hips, his touch light through the fabric of her jeans.
“Then tell me what you want,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “One thing. Just one.”
Her mind went blank, then focused. She brought her hands to the hem of her sweater. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could feel it. She pulled the soft material up and over her head in one clumsy motion, dropping it to the floor.
The air in the room was cool on her bare skin. She didn’t wear fancy lingerie, just a simple, practical bra. She watched his face, waiting for the flicker of disappointment, the adjustment of expectation.
It didn’t come.
His gaze traveled over her, slow and appreciative, but there was no performative hunger in it. Only a warm, deepening intensity. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the space between her ribs, just above her stomach. His lips were warm.
“Beautiful,” he murmured against her skin, the word vibrating through her.
Tears did spill over then, silent and hot. Not from sadness, but from a relief so profound it felt like pain leaving her body. He looked up, saw them, and didn’t mention them. He just wiped one away with his thumb, his own eyes looking suspiciously bright.
“My turn?” he asked, his fingers hooking gently under the waistband of his shirt.
She nodded, unable to speak.
He pulled it off. His torso was exactly as she’d imagined from glimpsing it through shirts—lean and defined, the muscles carved by a lifetime of specific, brutal discipline. A pale scar cut across one rib. Without thinking, she reached out and traced it.
He caught her hand, turned it over, and placed it flat over his heart. It beat strong and steady under her palm. “See?” he said. “Nervous.”
He leaned in and kissed her then, for the first time since she’d said the words. It was different from their other kisses. Deeper, slower, with a new, unspoken permission in the way his tongue touched hers. A silent conversation. Is this okay? And this?
She answered by sinking her hands into his hair, pulling him closer. The world narrowed to the feel of his skin under her palms, the taste of him, the quiet sounds in the back of his throat.
He broke the kiss, his breath coming faster. “Bench is gonna be terrible for this. C’mon.”
He stood, taking her with him, and guided her the few steps to a clearer space of floor against the lockers. He shrugged out of his training pants, leaving him in just his briefs. He didn’t make a show of it. It was just a fact. Then his hands went to the button of her jeans.
“Okay?” he checked again, his fingers pausing.
“Okay.”
He helped her out of them, his hands steadying her when she wobbled on one foot. Then they were just there, standing in the semidarkness, surrounded by the silent evidence of his public life—the banners, the trophies in the locked case outside. Here, they were just Ilia and Louise.
He kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, his mouth traveling a slow, devastating path downward as he lowered them both to the floor. He grabbed his discarded training jacket, bundling it into a makeshift pillow for her head. The floor was hard and cold, but his body was warm, covering hers, shielding her.
“We’ll go slow,” he promised, his voice husky in her ear. “You tell me to stop, we stop. No questions.”
“I won’t want to stop.”
“Just know you can.”
He kissed her again, and his weight settled over her, solid and real. This was it. No more waiting, no more watching from the stands. Her fear was still there, a quiet hum in her blood, but it was tangled up now with something stronger, something fiercer. Want. Trust.
He was looking down at her, his eyes dark, his expression so open it almost hurt to see. “Ready?” he breathed.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, her answer physical and immediate. She saw his control fracture for a second, a flash of pure, unguarded need across his features before he composed himself again, his focus returning entirely to her.
“Yes,” she said.
And as he began, true to his word, to move with a slowness that was its own kind of agony and ecstasy, the last coherent thought she had was that he was wrong. This was like his skating. It was all about breath, and balance, and the profound, terrifying trust required to fall, knowing the other person would be there to catch you.
A sudden, sharp buzz shattered the silence, vibrating against the wooden floorboards. Ilia flinched, his body going rigid above hers.
It was his phone, lit up and dancing an inch from her tangled hair. The screen flashed with a name she didn’t recognize, over and over, under the label ICE DAD.