All Chapters of FAKING IT ON ICE: DATING THE SPORT KING: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

SEVENThe next few days became a blur of early practices, long video sessions, conditioning drills and Mikka's university classes, and I started noticing just how little time she allowed herself to breathe. She would leave a lecture hall with her bag hanging from one shoulder, hurry across campus and arrive at the arena just in time for our morning meeting, then spend hours in the video room studying clips until everyone else had gone home. Sometimes I would find her still working when I returned from the gym, her eyes fixed on the screen and her fingers moving quickly across her notebook. Whenever I asked if she had eaten, she gave me the same distracted smile and told me she was fine, even when the coffee beside her had gone cold and her stomach was probably empty.“You ate today, right?”She looked up from her screen.“I had something.”“That wasn't my question.”She smiled.“Yes, Seven. I ate.”“What did you eat?”She paused.“Food.”I stared at her.“That answer makes me trust yo

MIKKAI kept staring at Levi's message while Seven waited across the room, watching me with a quiet question in his eyes. The awkwardness from only a few minutes earlier was still sitting between us, and now Levi's name had made everything feel even more uncomfortable. I could still remember the way Seven had leaned toward me, the warmth of his hand against mine and the look in his eyes before my phone had interrupted us. My heart was still beating too fast, but I forced myself to lock the phone and push those thoughts away because I had another problem standing in front of me.Seven studied my face."Who was that?"I forced a small smile."Nobody important. Someone just reminded me that I need to pick something up."He didn't look convinced, but he didn't question me again. I remembered everything we had talked about, especially his promise to respect my choices and my own promise to stop pretending that I could handle every problem without telling anyone. Still, I wasn't ready to ex

MIKKAI was halfway through a report when the door suddenly opened and one of the players rushed inside, breathing hard enough to make me look up immediately. His face was tense, and before he even spoke, something inside me told me that whatever had happened was not good. He looked at me for a second before glancing toward the hallway."Mikka, you need to come with me.”I pushed my chair back."What happened?""It's Seven."My stomach dropped."What about him?"The player swallowed."He and Levi almost came to blows outside the locker room."For a moment, I couldn't move. The words seemed to hang in the air while my mind tried to understand them, and then I was already grabbing my notebook and rushing toward the door. I barely heard the player explaining that Levi had started the confrontation, because all I could think about was Seven and everything he had worked so hard to rebuild. He had spent weeks earning back the trust of the coaches, the organization and the fans, and now one

MIKKA.I barely said goodbye to Seven before I stepped out of his SUV and closed the door behind me. I gave him a small smile through the window, then turned toward my residence before he could say anything else, but the moment I started walking, my mind went straight back to the waterfront. I could still feel how close he had been, how his voice had softened when he asked if I would regret kissing him, and how neither of us had moved away when our faces were only inches apart. I had been so close to kissing him that I could almost feel his lips against mine, and that thought made my heart beat faster.I tried to tell myself it had only been a moment brought on by everything we had talked about that night. We had shared things we had never told each other before, spoken about our fears, our families and the parts of ourselves that hockey had shaped, so maybe it was normal for emotions to become confused after a conversation like that. Maybe the quiet waterfront, the cold air and being

SEVENI waited outside the meeting room with my hands shoved into my pockets, trying not to look through the glass every few seconds. Mikka had asked me not to help her, and I had promised that I would respect her decision, so I stayed where I was and gave her the space she needed. Still, watching her walk into that room alone had made something tighten inside my chest because I knew how much this moment meant to her. She had spent so long fighting to prove that she belonged here, and now she was finally getting the chance to prove it without anyone standing beside her.Through the glass panel, I watched her connect her laptop and arrange her notes on the table. She took one slow breath before looking up at the coaching staff, and for a second, I could see the nervousness she was trying to hide. Then she began speaking, and the nervousness seemed to disappear as soon as the first slide appeared on the screen. She explained the opponent's defensive patterns, showed them clips from prev