Coach’s gaze cut to him, and the tension between them was electric, old, something I hadn’t known lived under Brody’s skin until now. “Don’t forget who gave you your second chance, Brody,” Coach murmured. “Who kept your record from following you here. Who made sure you could skate at all.”

My heart stuttered. I turned to Brody, but he wouldn’t look at me. His jaw was tight, his eyes locked on Coach with something close to hate.

“What’s he talking about?” I whispered.

Brody didn’t answer. Coach did. “Some debts never vanish. You think he’s here because he loves this school? No. He’s here because he owes me. And I always collect.”

The silence afterward was unbearable. My blood roared.

Coach took one last step forward—so close now I could smell his aftershave, sharp and chemical. His gaze dropped deliberately to my throat, to my lips, then back to my eyes. The kind of look designed to strip, to shame, to see if I’d break.

I didn’t flinch. Not even when his hand lifted—two fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face, far too intimate.

Brody moved like he’d been shot. He caught Coach’s wrist, yanking it away, his voice a growl. “Don’t. Touch. Her.”

The moment hung sharp as broken glass. Coach looked at him, at the grip on his wrist, and for the first time his composure cracked—just a flicker, just enough to show that Brody’s defiance mattered.

Then Coach smoothed it away, tugged his hand free, and stepped back.

“You think you’re protecting her,” he said, voice low again. “But you can’t even protect yourself. Keep poking around, Miss Hart, and you’ll find out how quickly this school forgets a name. Even Ronald’s.”

And then he was gone. Just like that. No shouting, no scene—only the echo of his boots and the sour taste of his threat.

⸻

The silence that followed was worse than anything he’d said.

I turned to Brody, my chest heaving. “What the hell was that?”

His eyes were dark, haunted. “The part I didn’t want you to see.”

“That you owe him? That he owns you?” My voice cracked. “You should’ve told me—”

“I couldn’t,” he snapped. “Because then you’d look at me like you are right now.”

I swallowed hard. I wanted to argue, to demand answers, but instead what came out was raw, unsteady: “I don’t know whether to be terrified or furious.”

“Try both,” he said bitterly. “That’s how I live every day.”

We stood there, shaking in different ways, and then suddenly the distance between us was unbearable. The adrenaline, the fear, the anger—all of it twisted into something else, something hotter.

I shoved at his chest, half in fury. “You should’ve told me.”

His hands caught mine, pushed me back against the locker room door. “And you should’ve stayed away.” His mouth crashed into mine.

The kiss was violent at first, teeth clashing, breath ragged. But it melted, deepened, turned into something hungrier than anger. My nails dragged down his back; his hands lifted me, pressed me into the door as if he could fuse me there.

Every nerve in me screamed that it was wrong, reckless—Coach could return, the whole team could see—but that only made it burn hotter.

“Fuck, Em,” Brody muttered against my mouth, his breath harsh. “You drive me insane.”

“Then stop,” I gasped, arching into him.

“Not a chance.”

His hands slid under my shirt, over heated skin, palms rough and urgent. I moaned into his kiss, my body giving in even as my mind screamed at me about secrets, about Ronald, about everything collapsing if we were caught.

And maybe that was the point. Maybe we wanted to be caught. Maybe we wanted to burn it all down.

When he pressed me harder into the door, his hips grinding against mine, the thought vanished entirely. There was only Brody, only this fever we couldn’t put out, only the storm still raging inside us both.

The kiss should’ve ended the second Coach’s footsteps faded.

It didn’t.

Brody’s mouth was still on mine, greedy, desperate, as though kissing me harder could erase what we’d just seen. His hands dragged over my waist, anchoring me like he was afraid I’d vanish. I clutched his shoulders, not because I was steady, but because I wasn’t.

“Brody,” I gasped, but it came out like a plea, not a protest.

He pressed his forehead against mine, panting, his chest heaving against mine. “Tell me to stop.”

I opened my mouth. The word stop tangled somewhere in my throat and died.

That was all the answer he needed.

His hands slid lower, gripping my thighs, and in one swift movement he hoisted me up so I wrapped around him. My back slammed against the locker room door with a metallic thud that echoed across the empty rink. The noise should’ve terrified me. Instead it electrified me.

“Someone could—” I started, but his mouth devoured the rest. His kiss was punishment and salvation in one, his tongue pushing past my lips like he was starving.

The danger of it, the absolute wrongness, made my pulse kick harder. It was a dare written in fire: Get caught. Be ruined. Do it anyway.

⸻

Inside the locker room the air was warmer, damp with the ghost of sweat and disinfectant. Benches stretched in rows, hooks clinked with forgotten jerseys. Brody carried me to the nearest bench, dropping me onto it like he couldn’t hold me still another second.

“God, Em,” he muttered, yanking his jacket off, tossing it aside. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

My fingers fumbled with his shirt, dragging it up over muscle that flexed and tensed under my hands. He was all sharp lines and heat, every inch of him coiled like he’d been holding back for years.

“Then show me,” I whispered, reckless, begging. “Don’t hold back.”

Something flickered in his eyes—hunger, yes, but also something broken. As if every kiss, every brush of skin was both a relief and a wound.

“Careful what you ask for,” he said roughly, before shoving me back against the bench and covering my body with his.

⸻

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was teeth scraping skin, hands clutching too hard, the metallic taste of adrenaline still in my mouth. Every thrust of his hips against mine felt like a dare, like he wanted me to understand just how dangerous this was.

And I did. I understood it with every nerve, every gasp.

If Coach walked back in, if Ronald ever found out—this would destroy us both.

But destruction had never felt so addictive.