Chapter 3

THE ENEMY WHO WOULDN'T LEAVE

"You still haven't answered me," I said.

Noah shifted his weight but stayed where he was, hands back in his pockets, completely unbothered by the fact that I was standing two feet away from him on a dark bridge in the middle of the night looking like I wanted to put my fist through something.

"I will," he said. "Just not here."

"Then we have nothing to talk about." I turned back to the railing.

He did not leave.

I could feel him still standing there. I waited for the sound of footsteps walking away, they did not come. A full minute passed, maybe longer, and the only sounds were the river below us and a distant car somewhere on the far end of the city.

"You came here to enjoy this, didn't you," I said. It was not really a question. "You heard what happened, and you came to see it. One more thing to hold over me. One more way the great Noah Knight gets to watch Liam Cole fall apart."

"No."

"Then what? Do you feel sorry for me? Is that it?" I laughed, and the sound that came out of me was bitter and hollow and not like my laugh at all. "That's almost worse. I don't need pity from the guy who has spent three years trying to end my career on the ice."

"That's hockey," he said. "This isn't hockey."

"Go home, Noah."

"Stop telling me what to do."

I turned around again. "What do you actually want from me?"

"I want you to get off this bridge," he said, and something in his voice was different when he said it. Quieter, more direct, not aggressive, just firm, the way a person sounds when they are telling you something they actually mean. "That's all I want right now."

I looked at him for a long moment. The lamplight caught the side of his face. He was not smirking. He was not enjoying any of this. Whatever I had expected from Noah Knight standing on a bridge at midnight, it was not this.

"I wasn't going to do anything," I said.

"Okay," he said.

"I mean it."

"I believe you." He tilted his head slightly. "But you were still standing on a bridge alone at midnight after what just happened to you, so forgive me for not walking away."

I did not have an answer for that. I looked down at the velvet box still in my hand, turned it over once, and pushed it into my jacket pocket.

"I'm nothing to you," I said. "I'm the opposing captain. We don't even like each other."

Something moved across his face. "You don't know what you are to me."

The words were so unexpected that for a second I forgot to be angry. I just stood there, trying to figure out if I had heard him right.

Before I could respond, he nodded toward the end of the bridge. "Come on."

"Where?"

"You'll see."

"I'm not getting in a car with you, Knight."

"Then walk," he said, already moving. "But I'm parked right there and it's cold, so suit yourself."

He did not look back. He just walked, slow and steady, like he already knew what I was going to do. I stood there for another ten seconds telling myself I was absolutely not going to follow him.

Then I followed him.

His truck was a dark green pickup parked just off the bridge on a side street. He unlocked it and climbed in and started the engine without saying anything. I got in the passenger side and stared straight ahead.

"Where are we going?" I said.

"You'll see."

"You keep saying that."

"Because you keep asking."

We drove in silence for about fifteen minutes. I watched the city move past the window. At some point I took my phone out and saw seventeen more notifications and put it back without looking at any of them. Noah glanced at me once but said nothing.

He pulled into the parking lot of an ice rink on the east side of the city. The public rink, not either of our team facilities. It was late but the building was still lit inside. He had a key. I did not ask why.

"Skate," he said, dropping a pair of skates on the bench in front of me.

I looked at them. "You're not serious."

"They're your size."

"How do you know my size?"

"I've been watching you play for three years," he said flatly. "I know everything about the way you move on the ice. Size eleven. You favour your left edge on sharp turns. You drop your shoulder before you pass right." He sat down and started lacing his own skates. "Size eleven."

I stared at him, I put the skates on.

The ice was empty and clean. The overhead lights hummed low, casting everything in pale white. I stepped on and the feeling was immediate, that particular sensation of the blades connecting with the surface, the slight give of it, the way your whole body adjusts without you telling it to. I have been skating since I was four years old. The ice was the one place in the world where everything always made sense.

I skated, slow at first, then faster. I went through drills without thinking, crossovers, stops, pivots, backwards strokes. I did not look at Noah, I just moved.

At some point he skated up beside me and matched my pace.

"She wasn't worth it," he said.

"Don't."

"I'm not saying it to make you feel better. I'm saying it because it's true."

I kept skating.

"You can quit her," he said. "You can quit him. You can walk away from all of it and nobody would blame you." He paused. "But don't quit hockey. Whatever you were thinking tonight on that bridge, don't let any of this take the ice from you. That's the one thing that's actually yours."

I slowed down, I looked at him.

"The texts," I said slowly. "The unknown number."

He held my gaze and said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.

"That was you," I said. "All night. That was you."

He turned and skated a slow circle, hands clasped behind his back, unhurried. "Get some sleep, Cole."

"Noah."

"Get some sleep."

I changed out of my skates in silence, my mind working through everything, the bridge, the messages, the way he had shown up like he already knew exactly where I would be. I pushed through the side door of the rink into the cold parking lot air.

And then I stopped walking.

Mia and Marcus were standing on the far side of the parking lot. She was leaning into him, his arm around her waist, but they were not kissing. They were talking. Talking to someone standing with his back to me, someone in a familiar jacket, someone whose posture I recognized immediately.

Coach Derrick..My coach.

As I stood there, Mia raised one hand and pointed directly at me. And Coach Derrick slowly turned around..