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The Bench
publish date:
2026-06-23 08:44:31
Latest chapter
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance The Bench
POV: Silver PrestonI make it to Old Campus before my legs decide they're done with the project of walking normally.I find a stone bench along the perimeter of the quad and lower myself onto it carefully, feeling the tremor in my right knee that signals I've pushed too far.My bag drops beside me with a thud that echoes louder than it should.The cold of the stone penetrates my coat immediately, seeping through wool and cotton to press against my spine, but I don't shift my position. I just sit with it, let the discomfort anchor me to something physical and real.Other students cross the quad around me. Boots crunching in snow. Fragments of conversations about problem sets and weekend plans. The ordinary Thursday afternoon of a campus that doesn't know anything significant just happened in a coffee shop on Chapel Street, that doesn't know Leona Preston just dismantled her daughter with surgical precision over lukewarm coffee.I try the breathing technique my physical therapist taught
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Leona Continued
POV: Silver PrestonShe texts at eight in the morning.*In New Haven for a meeting. Lunch at one. Blue State on Chapel Street.*No question mark.No *are you free* or *would you like to* or *I hope this works for you.*Just the location and the time, delivered with the same efficiency she applies to everything, because Leona Preston doesn't ask. She schedules. She dictates. She assumes compliance.I stare at the text for a long time, watching the words blur and sharpen on the screen.Americus still sleeps, one arm thrown over her face, her sequined sleep mask catching the gray morning light filtering through the window. Riley left early for the library, her departure marked only by the ghost of her presence - a coffee mug in the sink, her bed hastily made.The room sits quiet around me. Waiting.I type back: *okay.*Then I place my phone face down and spend the next four hours attempting to read my American Literature notes, retaining approximately none of it. The words swim across th
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Leona
POV: Silver PrestonThe snowball fight leaves me feeling like someone temporarily rewired my emotional circuitry, replacing my usual defensive skepticism with something dangerously close to genuine happiness.I return to my dorm that Thursday afternoon flushed and breathless, my cheap drugstore gloves completely soaked through, bits of snow still clinging to my hair despite my attempts to brush them away. My cheeks burn from the cold and from something else I don't want to name - something that feels suspiciously like joy.The sound of my own laughter keeps echoing in my head like music I can't quite shake. Unguarded, messy, real in a way that feels both terrifying and addictive. I haven't laughed like that in years, maybe ever. The realization sits heavy in my chest, a mixture of wonder and grief for all the moments I've missed while chasing perfection on ice.And then there's the memory of Eli's grin.Not his usual careful almost-smile or the controlled expression he wears during ou
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Battlefield
POV: Silver PrestonSnow transforms Yale's campus in a way I never anticipated.I've spent my entire skating career surrounded by snow. Training facilities in Colorado where overnight drifts piled against the rink doors. Outdoor exhibitions where we cleared ice between performances. International competitions where winter weather became just another logistical variable to account for between warm-ups and program run-throughs.That snow served a purpose. Something to work around, to endure, to manage.This is different.By Thursday morning, Old Campus lies beneath a blanket that fell overnight with the specific depth and evenness that only happens when conditions align perfectly. The ancient courtyards between Vanderbilt, Durfee, and Farnam hold a hush that the stone usually resists. Every Gothic arch wears a white edge. Every gargoyle sports a small, absurd hat of snow.Standing in the doorway of Branford, I allow myself to acknowledge, briefly, that it's genuinely beautiful. The kind
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance She's Smarter Than Any of Y
POV: Silver PrestonI catch up to him on the steps outside Sterling.I don't plan to.My feet make the decision before I've finished arguing myself out of it, which is becoming a pattern I don't entirely like. There's a recklessness to it that doesn't suit me, this acting before thinking, this letting impulse override careful deliberation. I've built my entire academic career on measured responses, on thinking three steps ahead. Yet here I am, chasing after someone I barely know, propelled by something I can't quite name.The November air hits immediately, cold and direct, the kind of temperature that clarifies things. It sharpens the edges of thought, strips away pretense. My breath comes out in visible clouds, dissipating into the late afternoon gray.Eli stands at the bottom of the stone steps, bag slung over one shoulder, moving toward the athletic complex with the unhurried pace of someone who has practice in an hour and knows exactly how long the walk takes. There's a precision
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Maybe Americus Was Right
POV: Silver PrestonI said it too fast and too hard, and now I cannot take it back.No interest in hockey boys.The words hang in the air between us still, weeks later, like a challenge I issued to myself as much as to her.Americus has been conducting a campaign ever since.It isn't aggressive. That's what makes it effective. She doesn't push or argue or bring it up directly. She just deploys these small, perfectly timed observations into the atmosphere and lets them sit there, waiting for me to acknowledge what she already knows.A raised eyebrow when my gaze lingers on the hockey team's dining hall table half a second longer than necessary.A small hum, almost too quiet to hear, when Eli passes through the periphery of whatever space we occupy."Hockey boys," she murmurs under her breath in the precise moment between two other sentences, casual enough to be deniable, targeted enough to land exactly where she intends.Professionally speaking, it's impressive.It's also deeply irrita
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Yorkside
POV: Silver PrestonI have barely managed to pull my toiletries from the depths of my duffel bag when Americus materializes beside my bed like a sequined genie, hands planted on her hips."We need a bonding night."I look up from the narrow desk where I am attempting to arrange the handful of thing
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Glitter
POV: Silver PrestonThe hallway stretches before me like something out of a movie set.Narrow. Dimly lit. Worn wooden floors that announce every footstep with a creak that sounds like the building itself is paying attention. The walls carry the particular smell of old wood polish layered over indus
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Cobblestones
POV: Silver PrestonUp close, Yale looms even larger than it did from the shuttle window.The Gothic spires press into the late afternoon sky, their shadows cutting long and dark across the courtyards below. I have competed in arenas built specifically to intimidate, designed with high ceilings and
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance The Long Way Back
POV: Silver PrestonThe question won't leave me.If I couldn't skate, who was I?It follows me through every MRI scan, every consultation with specialists who speak in careful, measured tones about torn ACLs and damaged meniscus tissue. It echoes through physical therapy sessions at the San Jose sp
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