Ice Cold Hearts, Burning Bright

by Noel Everett

Heat 3 / 5Novella · 12 chapters33,239 words2h 25m read~3h 42m listen

At 5:47 a.m., before the Northwood Civic Arena remembers it is supposed to be empty, Cara Voss finds a tape roll on the penalty box bench — imperfectly rewound, blood dried into the core — and a lone defenseman on the ice running drills that should be impossible on a fractured foot. She photographs the evidence. He catches her doing it. Neither of them yields an inch.

Cara has spent three years weaponizing compliance procedure like a penance, and Aleksi Mäkinen has spent just as long making himself look indestructible for reasons she hasn’t uncovered yet. They are not supposed to understand each other. They are especially not supposed to share bad coffee in the dark, or talk too long in a bus corridor at 2 a.m., or feel the specific weight of a hand steadying her on black ice outside the arena as though it means something neither of them is ready to name.

But the closer Cara gets to the truth about his injury, the closer she gets to the truth about why he is hiding it — and the closer she gets to the moment she has been running from since a different arena, a different athlete, and a decision she has never forgiven herself for making.

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