Page 21 of The Fall

I take a deep breath and remind myself over and over again that he wouldn’t do that.

“Ready?” he asks, over the scrapes of our blades on the ice. My heart is pounding, but I nod.

Before I realize what’s happening, his hands are on my body. I’m twisted upside down, and miraculously, he doesn’t drop me on my head. I pull myself up, and he holds me while I move my body around his until I’m balancing on his knee before bringing my blades back down to the ice.

He doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead, he pulls me back toward his body, stopping us completely in the middle of the rink.

“See? Told you I wouldn’t drop you.” His voice is deeper and lower than usual. Or maybe it just sounds like that because my heart is beating so fast in my chest.

I look up into his blue eyes. The sadness I saw earlier is gone. Now there’s something else there entirely. His eyes dip to my lips.

My throat suddenly goes dry. I swallow quickly and look away. “Yep.”

I skate backwards, and he lets me go.

“I gotta head out, but thanks for the extra practice,” I say.

He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his eyes on me as I skate away from him. I practically trip off the ice and onto a bench to take my skates off. I don’t know what the fuck that was, but it was not something I wanted to be feeling with my coach. Logan Fucking Sokolov, no less.

I quickly change into shoes and book it out of there.

The apartment I share with my sister is only about a fifteen-minute drive from the rink, so I’m home before I can process what just happened.

Kelsey is in the kitchen cooking something that smells amazing when I walk in.

“Hey, sis,” she says.

“Hi.”

She sets her spatula down and turns to me. “What’s wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

I look around. For what, I don’t know. Maybe to make sure we’re alone. “I, uh... Is this a no judgment zone?”

She laughs. “No, it’s my legal right as your little sister to judge you.”

“Fine, then I’m not telling you.”

She grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Come on, you know you can tell me anything.”

I sigh. “I don’t know. Something weird happened with my coach tonight.”

She gasps. “Did he touch you inappropriately? If he did, you need to tell someone right now.”

“No, no, no, it wasn’t like that. It’s just the way he… looked at me.”

“He looked at you,” she repeats slowly as if she’s trying to understand what I’m saying. Hell, I’m trying to understand what I’m saying.

“Yeah, he looked at me like he wanted me,” I whisper.

“I thought he hated you?”

“I’m the one who hates him, actually.”

“Oh, right, right. So… did this make you uncomfortable? Is that why you’re worried?”

“It didn’t make me uncomfortable, and that’s why I’m worried.”

“Oh,” she says with wide eyes. A slow smile spreads across her face. “So you’ve got a little crush on your coach?”