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publish date:
2026-03-23 13:01:54
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Mate on thin ice 016
FRACTURED TRUST~MABLE POV~His door was open a bit when I arrived. Not all the way, but just enough, like when you're waiting for someone and don't want them to have to knock.I pushed it and stepped inside and he was standing in the middle of the loft with his arms crossed over his bare chest, sweats low on his hips, his hair pushed back like he had been running his hands through it. His eyes found me the second I walked in and stayed there.It was like a storm brewing. Not mad, not trying to protect himself, but just full of energy, like the air before a big event."You saw," he said.I held up my phone. The picture was still on the screen, showing the club, the girls, and the time. It felt like a quiet reminder of what happened."Yeah," I said. "I saw."My voice came out steadier than I felt. There was a crack in it somewhere that I could hear even if I was the only one who knew where to listen for it."How many?" I asked. "While we've been doing this. How many, Darin?"He did no
Mate on thin ice 015
SABOTAGE BEGINS~MABLE POV~I woke up to forty-three notifications.It's not the slow kind of alert, where your phone buzzes a bit and then again, giving you a heads-up for what's next.It's that instant kind. The kind where you grab your phone when you're barely awake and it's so busy, your brain takes a sec to figure it out.I sat up.The first group chat message I opened had the photo attached. The one from the club, two girls, his arms around both of them, the timestamp sitting in the corner like a small, neat fact. I had seen this one last night at the rink. I had said his name and the chapter had ended there and I had not finished the conversation because I did not have the words for it yet.Apparently the internet had finished it for me.The caption on the repost read: 'Mable's new man stays busy. Someone tell her the audition's over.'I scrolled down.Second post, different account, same night, different angle. This one caught his face more clearly, his expression relaxed
Mate on thin ice 014
NIGHT OF DOUBT~DARIN POV~I left the frat house parking spot at eight and drove back to the loft and sat with my cold coffee and thought about Aiden's face in the window.He had seen me. I had known he would. That was the point.I wanted him to spend the day thinking about what it meant that I was parked outside his building at seven thirty in the morning with nowhere else to be. I wanted him to feel really, really bad about being watched by something that could wait forever.He had grown up in a family where power announced itself loudly, expensive cars and pack titles and public ceremony. He did not know what to do with the quiet kind.Let him figure it out.I called Mike at nine, ignored his opener about the leaked photo because I already knew about the leaked photo, and told him to trace the anonymous account it came from. Mike asked why. I said because I need to know and that's what I pay you for. He sighed the sigh of a man who had been managing my messes for three lifetime
Mate on thin ice 013
ECHOED WARNINGS~AIDEN POV~I was standing in the street.That was the thing about the dream that made it different from a regular bad dream. I was not running. I was not late. I was just standing there, completely still, watching it happen, like my body had already decided there was no point.The headlights were bright and coming fast and Mable was right there in the middle of the road, her eyes wide, her hair wet from rain that I could hear but not feel. She was looking at me. Not at the car. At me. Like I was the thing she had not seen coming.I did not move.The crash was not loud. That was the part that woke me up. In every movie, every scene, it was always loud. This was just a dull, deep thud, and then she was gone, and the headlights swept past, and I was still standing there in the empty street with the rain coming down and and a strange quiet settled in, the kind you feel when you've seen something bad and didn't do anything.I sat up so fast the sheets twisted around my
Mate on thin ice 012
DIGGING DEEPER~MABLE POV~He texted at midnight.'Still awake?' I looked at the message, cross-legged on my bed with my laptop warm on my thighs and three browser tabs open, and typed back: 'Obviously. Some of us have work to do.' His reply came fast. 'Open your door.' I looked up at the door like it had personally offended me. Then I closed the laptop, got off the bed, and opened it.Darin was leaning against the hallway wall opposite my room, hoodie up, hands in his front pocket, looking like a man who had driven across campus at midnight and had decided on the way over that he was not going to explain why unless specifically asked. His eyes dropped to my face, did their usual fast read, and came back up."You called me a terrible liar," he said."You are a terrible liar.""Yeah." He pushed off the wall. "So are you. Move."I stepped back. He came in, quickly checked out the room, and then casually sat on my desk chair as if he was supposed to.I stood by the door for a secon
Mate on thin ice 011
FAMILY TIES TIGHTEN~DARIN POV~I waited until the rest of the team had cleared out.The back alley behind the rink was just like the ones in all the arenas I'd played in. It was cramped and dim, with a smell of rubber and old ice melt. It was the kind of place where gear got moved in and out, and people only went there if they had a reason to. I had a reason.I stood in the shadow of the doorway with my hands in my hoodie pocket and listened to the sounds of the building emptying out, voices fading, a car starting somewhere in the lot, the distant clang of the locker room door swinging shut one final time.Then Aiden came out.He was still in his practice gear minus the skates, helmet tucked under one arm, his blond hair wet and pushed back off his face. He was looking at his phone, that easy, unhurried walk he had, the one that came from nineteen years of being told the ground he walked on was already his. He did not see me until I stepped out of the shadow directly into his pat
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