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Chapter 37: Where The Fire Couldn’t Reach
publish date:
2026-07-06 03:41:30
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Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival CHAPTER 70: The Mercer Way
I woke before Dean without meaning to. The room had already begun its slow shift toward morning, light pressing through the curtains in a thin, washed strip that made everything feel briefly suspended, like the day was still deciding what it wanted from us. Dean lay beside me, one arm tucked under the pillow, the rest of him unguarded in a way I doubted many people ever saw. There was nothing performed in him here. No control, no awareness of being watched. Just sleep smoothing out every edge. I stayed still longer than I should have, caught between the comfort of it and the awareness of what waited outside the apartment. Sponsors, cameras, Arthur Mercer. It all felt like it belonged to a different life when he looked like this. His eyes opened before I could convince myself to move. "You've been staring," he said, voice rough with sleep but already amused. "I have not." "I can literally see you doing it." "I was thinking," I said, which only made his mouth curve further. "Tha
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 69: Familiar Ground
By the end of the second day, the campaign had settled into that stretched-out exhaustion where no one quite stopped moving, but everything slowed just enough to feel it. Volunteers folded banners with stiff hands, students rushed to upload interviews before the light disappeared, and athletes lingered to sign one more stick, pose for one more photo. Melissa caught me just as I was slipping away, already holding tomorrow's schedule like she knew I wouldn't argue. I answered on autopilot, my attention drifting elsewhere. When she let me go, I almost turned toward the hockey station out of habit. I stopped myself. If I meant anything I'd been telling myself all day, I couldn't keep waiting for Dean to close the distance. That had been easy before. It had also been part of the problem. I headed for the parking lot instead. His SUV sat where he'd left it that morning. I leaned against the passenger door, trying to look like I belonged there instead of someone who'd shown up without
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 68: Finding Our Way Back
I stood in front of my wardrobe longer than necessary, staring at two identical campaign polos as if one of them might offer better judgment than the other. It didn’t. They were the same shirt, same fabric, same logo, same everything. I grabbed the one on the left to end the pointless debate and got dressed, already aware that the real decision waiting for me had nothing to do with clothing. Mason’s voice had followed me home the night before and refused to leave. It lingered through my shower, through the quiet of my room, through the kind of sleep that never quite settles into rest. I didn’t believe what he said. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was that I had listened, really listened, and then walked away without giving Dean the same chance. After everything we had been through, that didn’t sit right. By the time I climbed onto the Mercer Athletics bus the next morning, I had already made up my mind. I was going to talk to Dean. Riverside Community Park looked less like a ch
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 67: Out Of Frame
Melissa had kept her promise. The problem was she’d solved the wrong one. I stared at the updated campaign schedule while everyone else loaded equipment onto the buses. Instead of spending the next three days attached to Mercer Athletics and Easton’s media team, I’d been reassigned as Campaign Media Director. It sounded impressive, and judging by the amount of responsibility suddenly sitting on my shoulders, it probably was. I was no longer covering one university. I was overseeing media operations for the entire outreach campaign, coordinating student journalists, photographers and videographers from every participating school, making sure sponsors received the visibility they’d paid for and that nothing slipped through the cracks. Mercer Athletics would still represent Easton. Hart Athletics would represent Northbridge. Around them were half a dozen other universities with their own sponsors, athletes and media teams, all squeezed into the same three-day event. Since Northbridge
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 66: Three Days
I had spent the better part of the morning pretending the campaign didn’t exist. Unfortunately, Mercer Athletics had other ideas. By ten o’clock, my room looked less like a dorm and more like a temporary equipment room. Hoodies were folded across my bed waiting to be packed, campaign folders had taken over my desk, and my phone refused to stay quiet for more than five minutes. One email wanted me to approve tomorrow’s launch captions. Another asked me to confirm I’d be available for interviews before the first outreach event. A third reminded me to bring my camera, as though I hadn’t built half my life around the thing already. I was wrestling the last folder into my overstuffed tote when Ava wandered in, helped herself to the kettle chips she’d clearly stolen from my cupboard, and looked around the room like she was taking in the aftermath of a natural disaster. “Your life is genuinely my favourite K-drama,” she announced. “Every season finale somehow becomes the pilot episode fo
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 65: The Things We Tell Ourselves
The door had barely clicked shut before the apartment felt too quiet. I stood there longer than I should have, staring at the empty doorway as though Dean might suddenly come back and tell me we’d both overreacted. It was a pointless thought. Dean wasn’t impulsive. He didn’t walk away from conversations only to change his mind five minutes later. If he’d left, it was because he’d already made peace with the decision. Eventually I crossed the room and sat on the edge of my bed. My textbooks were still scattered across my desk, a hoodie still hung off the back of my chair like it had claimed permanent residence there, and my favorite mug sat beside the tin of hot chocolate I’d been promising to wash for days. The room hadn’t changed at all. I had. We hadn’t fought. Nobody had shouted. Dean hadn’t questioned my honesty, and I hadn’t lied to keep him from leaving. He’d asked me for certainty, and I’d discovered, at the worst possible moment, that I didn’t have it. Maybe this really wa
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