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2026-06-20 10:06:07
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Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance What I Did
POV: Americus BentleyI have made a mistake.I know this approximately half a second after Silver says no, which is not fast enough, because the no that emerges from her is not the one I was anticipating.I was expecting the small, defensive no of someone who needs one more nudge. The no that really means not yet, I'm scared, convince me.This is not that no.This comes from somewhere much deeper, somewhere primal and raw.Silver's face contorts into an expression I have never witnessed before, which means something because I have spent an entire semester watching Silver Preston's face, learning most of its vocabulary, cataloging its subtle shifts and careful masks.This is not defensive.This is not embarrassed.This is a person who has been pushed past the fragile thing they were holding together with trembling hands, past the breaking point they've been desperately avoiding.She says it again."I said no," she repeats, her voice cracking on the second word.Louder this time.Loud e
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance I Said No
POV: Silver PrestonI make it approximately forty feet from where I left Eli before Americus materializes beside me.She emerges from the crowd the way she always does, with the precise timing of someone who has been tracking my location and chose this exact moment to intercept. It's a talent she's perfected over years of student government and social orchestration."There you are."Her emerald satin gown catches every light source in the room simultaneously, which is very Americus. The fabric shimmers as she moves, demanding attention in a way she never has to ask for verbally.Her cheeks are flushed with the energy of someone who has been genuinely enjoying this event and wants everyone else to share the experience whether they want to or not. There's champagne on her breath - the expensive kind the alumni donors brought - and her eyes have that bright, determined gleam that means she's on a mission."You are lurking by the refreshment table," she observes."I am taking a break from
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Let Her Go
POV: Eli HayesShe says it the way she says *I'm fine*.Fast. Final. A wall assembled in a single syllable.*No.*I keep my hand where it is for one beat, still extended in the space between us like an offering she has declined.Two.Then I let it fall to my side, the movement controlled and deliberate, because that is what I do. I do not let things show on my face that I have not decided to show.My jaw is doing something I am managing not to let reach the rest of my face, which is the specific work of the last three days compressed into this moment. The muscle tightens, releases, tightens again, a rhythm I cannot quite control.Silver is already turning away.I watch her move back into the crowd, the silver-gray dress catching the fairy lights as she goes, her posture perfectly composed in the way I have learned means the opposite of composed. She holds herself like someone bracing against impact, shoulders back, spine straight, every line of her body communicating a control that co
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Dance With Me
POV: Silver PrestonI should look away.The practical, self-preserving part of my brain has been issuing this instruction since my eyes found Eli across the ballroom, and I have been ignoring it with the specific stubbornness that has characterized most of my decisions tonight.The gala moves around us in the way formal events do when they succeed. The string quartet's sound fills Woolsey Hall the way good music fills a space built for it, finding the corners and the high ceiling and returning transformed. The fairy lights we hung do their work on the stone walls, casting patterns that shift with each movement in the crowd. Couples glide across the polished floor in patterns that the room seems to have been waiting for, as if the space itself has been holding its breath for this moment.I stand near the entrance with my sparkling water and my silver-gray dress and my awareness of exactly where Eli Hayes is at all times - a habit I have apparently developed without making a conscious d
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Across The Room
POV: Silver PrestonWoolsey Hall is unrecognizable.Which isn't accurate, because the structure remains exactly as it was when I stood on a ladder clutching tangled extension cords two weeks ago. The soaring ceilings. The stone walls. The tall windows - all unchanged.But the fairy lights are on.All of them.Every string that Eli hung from the upper reaches of the hall while I wrestled with electrical cords below, every warm gold line that Americus directed into place with her color-coded diagram, every connection we tested and corrected and tested again until our fingers went numb.They blaze now, transforming Woolsey Hall at night the same way they did in the late afternoon when the first string came alive and the whole room shifted into something magical.I stop just inside the entrance, my breath catching.The string quartet occupies the far corner, their sound filling the space in the specific way of live music in a room with high ceilings - different from recorded music in a wa
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance The Winter Gala
POV: Silver PrestonI swore I wasn't going.After the hockey house - after the words that came out too sharp and too true, after the silence that answered the one question I should never have asked - the last thing I want is another crowded room. I can't bear the thought of lights and noise and the very specific possibility of encountering Eli Hayes in a space I cannot leave without making it obvious that I'm fleeing.*You're impossible.*My own voice, still ricocheting inside my chest three days later. Each time I remember saying it, I wince. The accusation had flown out of my mouth before I could stop it, fueled by frustration and something deeper I refuse to name.The memory produces equal parts regret and defensiveness, an uncomfortable combination to carry through a week of American Literature seminars and committee debrief meetings. We've been professionally civil to each other in that specific way two people adopt when they're both carefully not discussing the thing occupying a
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Guess We'll See
POV: Silver PrestonThe challenge sits between us like a dropped puck at center ice.Neither of us moves to pick it up immediately.I look down at my notebook and let the ambient noise of Blue State fill the silence. The espresso machine grinding. Students calling out orders. Someone near the back
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Blue State
POV: Eli Hayes She is going to be late.I knew it the moment I sat down and checked the time and did the math on how far Branford is from Blue State on a bad knee.I ordered my coffee anyway and picked the corner table by the window because it gives a clear sightline to the door, which is habit mo
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance Modern American Literature
POV: Silver PrestonI swore I would not unravel again.Not in public. Not where other students could watch it happen. Definitely not where Eli Hayes could observe it from across a dining hall with that unreadable expression he seems to have permanently installed.I bolted anyway.Left my untouched
Ice & Ivy - A Hockey Romance The Dining Hall
POV: Silver PrestonSleep is impossible again.Every time I close my eyes my brain pulls me back to Ingalls. The sound of Eli's edges on the ice. The way the arena felt when his gaze lifted from the ice and found me in the stands without any effort at all.I tell myself it means nothing.I tell mys
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