Chapter 4: The Rinkside

Jessie

The door to The Rinkside sticks, and I throw my shoulder into the warped wood twice before it gives. The air that hits me tastes like the inside of someone else's coat. Beer, wet wool, and floor cleaner that gave up trying three semesters ago.

My neck still aches where Silas looked at me earlier, right where that one word landed. I rub the spot with my thumb and catch a loose thread on my hoodie sleeve. It doesn't come free when I pull it.

"Okay, why does it always smell like a laundry bag threw up in here?" Tinsley shoves past me, already scanning the room like she's auditioning for a show about finding the hottest guy in a dive bar.

"That's the whole aesthetic, Tins." Brooke unwinds her scarf, coughing into her elbow. "Come on. I need a drink. Like, three. Possibly four."

"Can we just sit in the corner and not be perceived?" I mutter.

Tinsley's already dragging me forward by the elbow, and my question dies under the bass. Glasses on every table shiver against the wood with each beat drop.

The floor grabs at my sneakers, sticky in a way that says someone spilled a pitcher of cherry syrup years ago and decided mopping was a concept for other people. Neon wolf signs overhead wash everything red and gold.

"Ooh. There they are." Tinsley's nails dig into my arm. "Corner booth. Look."

I don't want to look. My eyes go anyway, straight to Martins, and somehow I catch pine and cold stone under the beer and wet wool before I even see his face.

He's got one arm slung along the back of the booth, and Lila Beaumont is draped over his thighs, laughing at something he clearly didn't say. Her fingers keep working at his collar. She tugs her own neckline every few seconds too, checking if the tape's holding.

"She's wearing a top held up by double-sided tape," Tinsley whispers. Loudly. "I give it ten minutes before something pops out."

"Okay, but look at the jawline situation over there," Brooke says, fanning herself with her scarf like she's in a period drama. "I'm filing a formal complaint with God."

"I'm not looking." I am looking. Something in my chest catches, quick and annoying, and I hate that some part of me clocked the set of his shoulders before I told myself not to.

His jaw's locked tight. The knuckles on the hand resting on his knee have gone pale, like he's holding onto something that isn't there.

Jonah spins a coaster on the table. Silas sits with both hands flat against the wood, not moving, not drumming his fingers the way everyone does when a table's this sticky.

"Jess. Hey." Tinsley tugs my sleeve. "I'm gonna go say hi to Trent. Back hallway."

"I saw him first," Brooke says.

"You literally didn't."

"Whatever." Tinsley's already moving. "Don't wait up."

She disappears toward the hallway where Trent Lasky leans against the wall. A second later Nolan Pike appears at our table, leaning into Brooke's space like gravity tilted just for him.

"Hey. Can I buy you a shot?"

Brooke glances at me. "You good?"

"I'm fine. Go."

"You sure?"

"Brooke. Seriously. Go." I need her gone. I need both of them gone so I can stop watching Martins and pretending I'm not.

She grins and lets Nolan pull her toward the bar. I push through the crowd, squeezing between two guys arguing loudly about a penalty call. Jenna Kline stands behind the counter, not looking up from the glass she's polishing.

"Rough night, mascot?" She sets the glass down. "Heard you broke the cage door. Word travels fast when half the team saw it."

"I didn't break it. Someone else broke it."

"Sure." She slides an amber drink across the wood. "Try not to break anything else."

"Not making promises."

I sip. It burns going down, and I welcome it, something sharp enough to compete with the heat still crawling under my skin. From the way Silas stared at my throat. From that one word still sliding through my skull like a splinter I can't dig out. I rub my neck again. The thread's still there. I pull harder this time, and it snaps.

Someone drops onto the stool beside me.

"So. You survived."

Jonah Kline, pear skin and pink pepper too close, his knee bumping mine under the bar. His warmth radiates sideways, careless, like he doesn't realize he's doing it.

"I'm not really in the mood, Kline."

"Ouch." He grins, elbows on the sticky wood. "Still mad about the suit? I could buy you a drink to make up for the whole..." He mimes ripping something off its hinges.

His hands shake a little when he does it, just a tremor in the fingers, gone as fast as it came, tucked under the bar before I'm sure I even saw it.

"You already owe me a new cage door. And an explanation."

"I told you. It just came off."

"It didn't come off. You tore it off."

"Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "Honestly, no idea how that happened. Adrenaline, maybe. Maybe I'm stronger than I look."

"You look exactly that strong."

"You think I look strong?"

"I think you're annoying."

He grins again, and I almost forget to be mad. His hand brushes my elbow and the skin there warms, and I pull my arm back fast enough to knock my knee against the bar rail.

I glance past him. Across the room, Silas sits alone, no drink in front of him. His gaze stays on me the way a teacher watches a kid working through a problem, slow, patient, a little too calm for how uneasy it makes me feel.

"Vane's weird, right?" Jonah follows my gaze, voice dropping. "Three years I've sat next to that guy, and he's never once finished a sentence about himself. You ask him something personal, he just looks at you until you stop talking."

"I wasn't looking at him."

"Sure you weren't."

The music swells, and Jonah leans in to shout something over it. His hand drops to my waist. To steady me, he'll say later. His thumb finds the curve of my hip through my hoodie, warm and deliberate, and the scent of him thickens in the space between us.

My breath catches. Half a second. Maybe less.

"Move your hand."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

He doesn't. His thumb presses once, slow, through the cotton, and I completely lose the thread of what I was about to say next.

Something cuts through the bass. Low. Vibrating. Not a sound exactly, more like a pressure, like the floorboards just exhaled, and my back teeth throb with it in a way that has nothing to do with the noise.

Jonah's hand goes rigid against my hip.

"Did you hear that?" I whisper.

"Hear what?" His voice comes out wrong. Too quick. His free hand curls into a fist on the bar.

"Don't do that. Don't pretend."

He pulls his hand back and looks hard at the bottles behind the bar. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I scan the room. Tinsley laughs in the hallway, palm flat against Trent's chest, while Brooke does a shot with Nolan, their shoulders bumping. The pool table clicks, the jukebox thumps, everything doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing. Except three hockey players who keep finding me in a crowded room like I'm the only thing in here actually running a fever.

Across the booth, Martins hasn't looked away. His fingers tighten around his glass, slow.

Lila tugs his sleeve. "Martins? Babe, you're crushing my hand."

He doesn't answer. His gaze drops to Jonah's hand near mine on the bar, and pine and cold stone cut sharp through the air, like biting straight into a frozen branch.

Jonah follows my line of sight. "Ah. Captain's pissed."

"Why would he be pissed?"

"No idea." But he's already sliding off the stool. "I should, uh. Go check on something."

"Sure. Go."

He hesitates. Half turns. "Jessie. Whatever you think you..." He stops himself, swallows. "Never mind."

He disappears into the crowd.

I finish my drink in one long pull and set the glass down hard enough that Jenna glances over. Then I head for the restrooms, past the pool table, into the hallway where the bass fades to a dull thump under the floorboards.

Bathroom. Water on my face. Count to ten.

You're not losing it. You're just tired. You're standing in a hallway that smells like old carpet and cheap vodka, and you are, obviously, completely fine.

I press my back against the wall, cinderblock cold through my hoodie.

Silas is there.

Not approaching. Not arriving. Just standing near the restroom door like he's been there the whole time and I only now registered him.

Hands in his jacket pockets. I can't read his face, can't tell if he's concerned, amused, or simply waiting for me to catch up to something he already knows.

"Can I help you?" I say.

"Your heart's beating too fast, Jessie."

My hand freezes on the doorframe. "How do you know my name?"

He tilts his head slightly, like a dog catching a frequency no one else can hear. "You smell like snow and blood."

The hallway doesn't change. The walls don't move. But I have to remind myself how to breathe, like my body forgot the instructions for a second.

"What did you just say?"

"You heard me." He steps closer, and the black tea and damp earth scent of him rolls off heavier now, enclosing. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

I should walk past him. Find Tinsley. Leave. My hands are empty and I don't know what to do with them, so I shove them into my jacket pockets instead.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing." The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. "Wanted to see if you knew."

"Knew what?"

He doesn't answer that either. His attention drops to my sleeve, to the thread I've been working loose without noticing.

"That's not going to survive the night," he says, and steps aside, nodding toward the bathroom door.

He moves past me, unhurried, and by the time I turn to say something else, the hallway behind me is empty. I didn't hear the door. I didn't hear footsteps. He's just not there.

I stay right where I am, back against the wall, and repeat the only two words that matter.

Snow and blood.

He knew my name before I gave it. He knew my pulse was racing before I said a word.

From the bar, Lila's laugh cuts through the music, too loud for anything that's actually funny. I don't check if Martins is still watching the hallway. I already know he is.