All Chapters of Heart On Ice, Puck The Rules : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Nova's POV The classroom smelled like new textbooks and ambition. I walked in thirty seconds before the bell — late enough to be noticed, early enough not to be rude about it and the teacher was already at the board, marker in hand, clearly the kind of teacher who started exactly on time whether you were ready or not. She stopped writing when she saw me. "Class, we have a new student joining us today." She gestured at me like I was an exhibit. "Would you like to introduce yourself?" Twenty-three pairs of eyes swung in my direction. Don't ask me how I can count that fast, I just can. "Nova Reyes," I said. Smiled once. Didn't elaborate. The murmuring started immediately. "Is that bag limited edition—" "—where did she get those—" Two rows back, a boy let out a low whistle that earned him an elbow from the girl beside him. I didn't look at him. Looking would have meant acknowledging it, and acknowledging it would have meant I cared. I scanned the room again in the t

Nova's POV I woke up gasping. The nightmares that had plagued my sleep for months now always came without warning. One moment I was nowhere, the deep blank nothing of exhausted sleep, and the next I was there, cold air, concrete railing, the specific dark of a school building after hours. Fear that wasn't mine flooded my chest like water finding cracks, and I could feel her heart racing, my heart, hammering against my ribs with the desperate urgency of someone who knew, in the wordless animal way of knowing, that something was very wrong.I couldn't see who was there. I never could. Just the shape of another presence, the sound of a voice I couldn't quite resolve into words, and then—The room swam into focus around me, dusty mats, grey walls, the thin strip of light under the door. For three full seconds I didn't know where I was.Then I did, and it was worse.I sat up. Something slid off my shoulders, soft, unfamiliar — and I grabbed it before registering what it was. A sweater. D

Ryker's POV Chase handed me the sweater without a word.Just walked up, held it out, and looked at me the way guys look at each other when they want to say something they've decided isn't worth the energy. The glare underneath it was clear enough. Stay away from her.I took the sweater. Tucked it under my arm. Gave him nothing back because there was nothing to give that wouldn't make this worse.I wasn't going to stay away from her. We both knew it before he turned and walked back down the corridor, and the fact that he knew it and said it anyway with his eyes instead of his mouth told me Chase Whitfield was smarter than he looked.That was a problem for later.___________Harper's idea of a small gathering was forty people, a catering table, and a playlist that cost more to license than most people's rent. I stood in her doorway at nine-fifteen and took it in with the patient expression of someone who had attended enough events exactly like this one to know exactly how it was going

Nova “Truth or dare?” He said it like he already knew the answer, that smirk sitting in the corner of his mouth like it had been there all evening waiting for exactly this moment. I ran the calculation in approximately two seconds. Truth was a trap. Ryker Lennox with a direct question and a legitimate excuse to ask it was the last situation I needed in front of forty witnesses. Dare at least gave me the illusion of control. Except. If he dared me to kiss someone, and I kissed someone, and I had never actually kissed anyone, then forty people at Harper Caldwell's party were going to watch me freeze up like a first-year student who had accidentally walked into the wrong exam room. Which would dismantle every single piece of the persona I had spent three weeks constructing. "Nova." I snapped back. Ryker was watching me with those grey-blue eyes, patient and deeply entertained. "Dare," I said, then repeated it because the first time came out too quiet. His face gave

Ryker's POV The ice was cold beneath my blades.I skated hard, fast, the puck tapping against my stick in a rhythm that should have been automatic. It wasn't. My mind was somewhere else, stuck on a loop I couldn't break.The party. The circle. The bottle.Her lips.I'd had better kisses. That was a fact. I'd been kissing girls since I was fourteen, and most of them knew what they were doing. Nova didn't. She'd been completely lost, barely holding onto my jacket like she might fall over.And yet.I couldn't stop thinking about it. The way she'd frozen. The way her hands had gripped me tighter. The way she'd forgotten where they were.She's an excellent actor, I thought. She hid that so well.But then I'd kissed her, and the mask had slipped. I'd felt the inexperience. The fear. The moment she almost pulled away.And then I'd held her neck and she'd stopped running."LENNOX!"Coach's voice cut through the rink like a whip. I almost dropped the puck."Get your head in the game or I'm g