Chapter 18: The Unexpected Audience
The echo of the guard’s footsteps hadn’t fully faded when Y/n let out a low chuckle. The sound vibrated through her arm, still linked with Amber’s.
“My public,” Y/n said, her tone dry. “Relentless.”
Amber said nothing. The spell was broken, the private arena suddenly just a public facility again. The distant hum of the village waking up—a delivery truck reversing, a door slamming—seeped through the walls. She became acutely aware of her own hand, the one steadying Y/n. The heat of it through two layers of glove and sleeve. She pulled back, slowly, as if extracting herself from a current.
Y/n didn’t stumble. She just adjusted her stance, the ridiculous rental blades sinking into a wider, more stable position. She watched Amber retreat a half-step. “So. Curfew.”
“Yes.” Amber’s voice was too crisp. Coach’s voice. “We should go.”
“Or,” Y/n said, her green eyes tracking the pale dawn light now bleeding through the high windows, striping the ice in cold blue and gold. “We could use the hour.”
Amber followed her gaze. The ice was a mess of their combined tracings—her elegant, deep curves intersecting with Y/n’s shallow, skidding scrapes. A chaotic map of the last twenty minutes. It looked alive. It looked like a crime scene.
“One more song?” Y/n asked again, quieter this time. Not a challenge. An invitation.
Amber’s body decided before her mind could veto. She pushed off, a single, smooth stroke that carried her backwards, away from Y/n, towards the center. A retreat that was also a claim. She stopped, the ice shaving up in a fine spray. She didn’t look back. Just waited.
She heard the clumsy, determined scrape-slide of Y/n following. Heard her muttered “shit” as she almost wiped out. A smile touched Amber’s lips, brief and private. She turned.
Y/n reached her, breathless from the effort of not falling. “You pick,” she said, nodding toward the speaker on the boards.
Amber skated over, the decision forming from some deep, ignored well. She knew what she wanted. Not the chaos of rock, not right now. Something else. She scrolled through Y/n’s phone, the interface unfamiliar. She found it. A track by Portishead, all slow, looping drums and haunted, detached vocals. It was cool. It was controlled. But underneath, it throbbed with a desperate, sexy loneliness.
She pressed play.
The sound filled the space differently. It didn’t crash; it oozed. It was a mood, a fog. Beth Gibbons’s voice whispered about being nobody, about missing someone.
Amber began to move. Not skating, really. Gliding. Small, precise edges that traced intricate patterns on a single patch of ice. Her arms lifted, not in choreographed positions, but in slow, testing reaches. She let her head fall back, her platinum hair a curtain down her spine. The music was in her ribs, a second heartbeat. She wasn’t performing for judges. She was translating a feeling into motion. The feeling of being watched, of being truly seen for the first time in years. It was vulnerable. It was terrifying. It was power.
She didn’t look at Y/n. She didn’t need to. She felt the weight of her attention like a physical touch.
When the song dissolved into static and silence, Amber came to a perfect, preternatural stop. Her chest rose and fell steadily. The world had narrowed to the ice, the fading note, the person standing ten feet away.
A slow clap broke the silence. Not sarcastic. Measured. Appreciative.
Y/n was leaning against the boards now, having made her way off the ice. “Okay,” she said, her voice rough. “Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Amber skated to the exit, stepping off the ice with practiced ease. She sat on the bench and began untying her skates, her fingers steady. “Your turn to pick a song was last time. That was my pick.”
“Fair.” Y/n pulled off a rental skate, rubbing her ankle. “Jesus, these things are torture devices. How do you walk in these, let alone jump?”
“You don’t walk. You glide.”
“Glide,” Y/n repeated, as if tasting the word. She looked at Amber, really looked. “You’re different out there when you forget we’re here.”
Amber focused on the leather of her skate guard. “We?”
“The world. The clock. The scoreboard.” Y/n stood, pulling her boots on. “You look like you’re having a conversation with the ice instead of giving it a command.”
The observation was so sharp, so unnervingly accurate, it stole Amber’s breath. She’d never had words for that feeling. Y/n had found them in seconds.
They walked out of the rink together, into the grey-pink morning. The air was startlingly warm compared to the arena. The Olympic Village was stirring, a few athletes in tracksuits shuffling toward dining halls, eyes puffy with sleep.
“Coffee?” Y/n asked, nodding toward the main square where steam rose from a vendor’s cart.
Amber’s instinct was to refuse. To retreat to her room, to her regimen, to the silence. To analyze the morning like a training session. But the ghost of the music was still in her muscles. The memory of Y/n’s hand on her arm.
“Yes,” Amber said.
They got paper cups of bitter, too-strong coffee and sat on a cold metal bench overlooking a frozen reflecting pool. The silence between them wasn’t empty anymore. It was full of the morning’s echoes.
Y/n took a sip, grimaced, and pulled a flask from her jacket pocket. She tipped a clear splash into her cup. She offered it to Amber, an eyebrow raised.
Vodka. At seven in the morning. A coach’s nightmare. An act of pure, casual rebellion.
Amber stared at the flask. Then, without a word, she took it. The metal was warm from Y/n’s pocket. She added a small measure to her own coffee, screwed the cap back on, and handed it over. Their fingers brushed.
Y/n’s smile was soft at the edges. She took the flask back, didn’t put it away, just held it in her palm.
“So,” Y/n said, watching a group of speed skaters power-walk past. “The deal. You want to win your way. What’s the first move?”
Amber wrapped her hands around the warming cup. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. You always know.”
Amber looked at her. The dawn light caught the silver in Y/n’s short hair, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes from squinting at sun on snow. “The first move,” Amber said slowly, “was letting you play Pearl Jam in an empty rink.”
Y/n nodded, accepting this. “And the next one?”
“The next one,” Amber said, her voice dropping, “is I skate my short program this afternoon. And I don’t think about the technical panel. I think about that last song. I think about the conversation.”
Y/n was silent for a long moment. She took a long drink of her spiked coffee. “They’ll still be judging you, Glenn.”
“I know.” Amber met her gaze. The fear was there, a cold knot in her stomach. But beneath it, something hotter. “Let them.”
A slow grin spread across Y/n’s face. It was the grin from the halfpipe video. Fearless. “Now you’re talking.” She stood up, stretched, her joints popping. “I’ve got practice. But I’ll be there. Nosebleed seats. Waving a little flag.”
“You don’t have a flag.”
“I’ll make one.” Y/n started to walk away, then turned, walking backwards. “Hey. For the record? Your way is way more interesting.”
Amber watched her go, her tall, easy stride swallowing the path. She lifted her coffee to her lips. The mix of bitterness and alcohol burned, sharp and clean. She didn’t wince. She sat on the bench until the cup was empty, until the sun cleared the buildings, and the ice in her veins felt less like fear and more like potential energy, waiting for release.