Chapter 9 Chapter 9

Amber

The Grind smelled like stale IPA and floor bleach. Neon signs hummed over the sticky wood tables.

Nat slammed her pint glass down, foam spilling over her thick knuckles. We crushed that ice session. Julian’s high-pressure entry drills worked. No wasted crossovers. No dead weight on the inner oval.

"We actually look like a real team," Nat yelled over the bass thumping the floorboards.

I nodded, sliding my phone flat against the laminate.

Julian pulled a matte black tablet from his bag, setting it between our baskets of fries. He didn't talk down to me. He didn't pull that weird pity face people make when they remember I cannot talk back.

He tapped the glass, pulling up the digital lap-timing and corner-tracking map. His thumb hovered over the apex of turn three.

"Your entry speed on the straightaway is good," Julian signed, his fingers sharp and clean in the neon light.

"But you are opening your shoulder too early on the apex," he added with a quick flick of his wrist.

My thumbs flew across my screen. "I can lock the hip rotation tighter."

"Do it on the approach," Julian signed back, a tiny twitch of amusement hitting the corner of his mouth.

"Catch the edge before the centrifugal pull widens your lane," he signed.

It felt normal. No baggage. Just skating mechanics.

We sat there breaking down the lap splits and corner entries play by play. I watched his hands move, translating every technical correction into pure logic.

For the first time all season, I didn't feel like the odd one out on the bench or a liability on the track.

He just treated me like a skater who wanted to win. We drilled the same sequence until my fingers cramped from texting back my answers and adjustments.

Every split we mapped out felt tighter, sharper, building a rhythm that actually made sense under pressure.

"Again," Julian signed, tapping the screen to reset the simulation path.

"From the backstretch acceleration," he signed.

I nodded, typing my acknowledgment into the phone.

We ran through the tactical sequence three more times. Shifting our weight. Locking our edges against an imaginary seam in the turn.

I could feel the muscle memory clicking into place. The exact way my hips needed to drop during the crossover. How to protect my line without over-committing the torso.

Julian didn't rush me or look away like the rest of them.

He stayed right there, tracking every subtle twitch of my hands. Correcting the angle of my skate tracking with a quick flick of his own fingers.

Making sure I understood the spatial awareness required to hold the inside lane.

"Good," Julian signed, his hands moving with precise, measured authority.

"Your blade work is holding," he signed.

"But watch the skater drafting behind you on the straight," he signed.

"They are going to lunge."

I tapped my reply into the screen, my thumbs moving fast. "I'll widen the stride to block."

"Exactly," Julian signed, a small, approving nod cutting through the shadow of the booth.

Then the front door blew open.

Prisca and her cheer squad walked in, their perfume cutting through the beer stench like a knife.

They didn't hit the booths. They dropped right at the high-top table beside us, loud enough to wake the dead.

Prisca flipped her hair over her shoulder, her lips curling into a vicious snarl.

"Wilder has the hockey boys locked in the gym until three in the morning," she scoffed, pitching her voice to carry across the entire room.

"Breaking his own team's gear because he is in a mood," she yelled.

"Some captain."

"Taking his temper out on the Elites just because a wolfless mute will not look at his direction."

Her friends snorted, high and fake.

My jaw locked. Teeth bit down hard into my bottom lip until a sharp copper taste hit my tongue.

Ignore them. Let the basic clowns bark.

Don't give them the satisfaction of a twitch. Don't look over. Just breathe through the anger crawling up the back of my neck.

They wanted a reaction. Letting their petty high school bullshit get under my skin and ruin the only decent thing happening tonight.

Prisca craned her neck, her eyes landing right on my face with pure poison. "Pathetic."

My fingers curled into tight fists inside my hoodie pocket. Nails dug into my palms.

I wanted to hurl my glass straight into her teeth. I wanted the noise in this dump to stop.

I wanted to shatter every illusion she had about what she thought she knew.

To stand up and shove the words right back down her throat even if I had to spell them out with my bare hands.

Every second her voice hung in the air, the pressure in my chest grew heavier, burning hot and sharp against my ribs.

Nat shifted beside me, her knuckles turning white around her glass, ready to flip the table over and start a brawl right here in the sticky middle of the bar.

I raised my hand to stop Nat from moving. Keeping my face flat and unbothered even though my pulse was hammering against my ears like a piston.

I didn't need anyone fighting my battles.

And I sure as hell wasn't going to let Prisca see that her garbage words actually reached me.

I focused back on the grain of the wooden table, watching the neon blue light bleed across the surface. Trying to drain the static out of my head.

Julian didn't look back at them either.

His hand reached across the table, his fingers pressing firm against my bare shoulder to drag my focus back to the glowing screen.

My skin scorched.

A violent, electric jolt tore up my neck, freezing the air inside my lungs. Acid spiked the back of my throat.

My shoulder recoiled from his touch like his palm was burning red-hot iron. My entire upper body jerked back so hard my chair shrieked against the tile floor.

Julian froze, his hand hanging suspended in the cold air between us. I could not pull oxygen into my chest. My ribs heaved.

Why did a simple touch feel like actual poison?

I couldn't understand it but that was it for the night. Nat walked over to say we have to go back to our dorm now, it was already an exhausting day.