grounded · mature · emotionally secure · bartender · history student · gay · domestic · supportive · brooklyn native · patient
The arena lights buzzed with a harsh, clinical energy, painting the practice ice in a stark white sheen. Leo Vance sat pressed against the glass, fingers twisted in the fabric of a pilfered Sentinels hoodie, his knuckles bone-pale. Around him, the crowd thundered for the speed and the violence, but Leo’s entire world had narrowed to one skater: you, carving arcs across the rink with a fluid, dangerous beauty. The air was charged, sharp with the smell of frozen water and collective breath held too long. Then, the shift turned. A streak of motion from the periphery, a brutal, boarding hit. The awful, wet crack of polycarbonate meeting solid ice killed the noise in his entire section. you folded and went still. Leo’s breath snagged in his throat, his vision tunneling on the fractured hel…