The rink was called The Blade, an Olympic-sized arena in the warehouse district that stayed open until midnight for “freestyle sessions” — which meant figure skaters, hockey players, and insomniacs who liked the sound of blades on ice. I’d been training there for a year — adult figure skating, because I’d watched too much Olympics as a kid and because Sloane had been advertised as “the best technical coach in the city.”
Sloane was the head coach. Twenty-nine. A former national competitor with a triple toe loop that could make you cry and a habit of catching students when they fell — and holding them a second too long.
Tonight was a private. Midnight ice. Just the two of us, the Zamboni driver who’d left at 12:05, and the guard who did rounds at 12:30.
I’d fallen. Hard. A failed axel that had sent me sprawling near the boards, my white turtleneck riding up, my skates splayed, completely exposed on the fresh ice. Sloane had skated over. She’d knelt beside me. She hadn’t helped me up.
“The rink closed at midnight,” I whispered, sitting on the ice near the boards, my breath visible in white clouds that dissolved into the cold air. The overhead lights turned the ice into a mirror. Sloane was kneeling over me in her black fitted jacket, her hand on my waist, her face inches from my neck. “The Zamboni is done. The ice is fresh. The guard locks the doors at 12:30. And your hand is on my waist, not helping me up. You’re supposed to be teaching me a toe loop. Not touching me. Not sliding your gloved hand under my turtleneck. Not—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in, her cheek brushing my cold cheek — a shock of warmth against the freezing air — her hand sliding from my waist to my stomach, then under the edge of my white turtleneck, finding my skin with a gentleness that was completely at odds with the violence of the ice.
“If the rink guard checks the ice,” I breathed, my voice trembling as her fingers traced my ribs, “he’ll see the coach kneeling over her student on the frozen surface. He’ll see your black jacket open and your mouth on my neck and the ice reflecting us from below like we’re suspended in glass and he’ll know that this isn’t a lesson. This isn’t coaching. This is—”
She turned my face toward her with a gloved hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like ice shavings and frostbite and the exact moment when a fall becomes something you never want to recover from because the person who caught you isn’t letting go. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding higher inside my turtleneck, finding my breast, my nipple, pinching through the fabric with a pressure that made my back arch off the ice.
The arena door opened.
The guard — Marcus, twenty-two, hockey player on weekends, completely unaware — skated onto the ice for his final check, his blades cutting sharp lines in the fresh surface.
“Anyone still out here?” he called, his voice echoing in the empty arena. “Closing in five!”
Sloane didn’t pull away. She just pressed her other hand against the ice — steadying herself, steadying me, her fingers still pinching my nipple, her eyes locked on mine. Then she reached down and unlaced one of my skates — a casual gesture, completely coach-like.
“Just fixing her lace, Marcus!” Sloane called out, her voice perfectly steady. “She fell on the axel!”
“Okay! But hurry! I’m locking the gates!”
He skated past us — ten feet away, completely unaware that the coach’s other hand was inside her student’s clothes, that the student was melting the ice beneath her. The reflection in the surface showed two women kneeling on frozen water, one completely undone.
“You fell,” Sloane whispered against my mouth, her thumb circling my nipple, her other hand sliding down my stomach, into my leggings, finding me wet and ready and completely thawed. “I caught you. And now I’m going to melt every inch of this ice. So hold still. Be quiet. And let the cold hide how hot you are.”
She made me come on the ice. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my breast, the frozen surface beneath us, the guard locking the gates in the distance. I came with her gloved hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the arena’s silence, my body shaking so hard my skates scraped against the ice.
After, she laced my skate. She helped me stand. She held my hand while we glided to the exit.
“Same time Friday?” she asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
I still train at The Blade. Sloane is still my coach. And every Friday at midnight, when the Zamboni leaves and the ice is fresh, I fall on purpose near the boards. She says my axel has improved. She says I no longer fear falling.
She’s right. I don’t. Because the only thing softer than the ice is the way she catches me — and the only thing harder is what she does to me after.
