Twenty minutes. That's what Vlad's text had said. Twenty minutes until practice, and she'd taken forty-five to pick her outfit, another ten to talk herself into leaving the apartment, and now she was walking across the quad with her keys pressed between her fingers like a talisman, the cold air biting at her exposed stomach where her cropped hoodie ended three inches above her jeans.
She saw him before he saw her.
He was already there, standing outside the rink entrance in his team jacket, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows despite the cold, showing the dark ink that crawled up his forearms. Two paper cups in his hands. Steam rising in thin curls. His head was turned, scanning the path that led from the dorms, and when his gray eyes landed on her, his whole face changed.
Not a smile. Not quite. Something softer. His jaw loosened, the corners of his mouth pulling up just barely, and he straightened from where he'd been leaning against the wall.
She felt her step falter. Felt the familiar heat crawl up her neck, settling in her cheeks. Stop it. Act normal. You're a person. He's a person. People meet for coffee all the time. This is coffee.
"Malyshka." His voice carried across the distance, low and warm, and he lifted one of the cups in greeting. "You're not late. I'm early."
She closed the last few steps, and up close he smelled like cold air and something clean, something that made her want to press her face into his chest and breathe until she forgot her own name. He held out the coffee, and she took it, and their fingers touched.
That was the moment her brain left the building.
His knuckles brushed the inside of her wrist. Just a brush. Barely a second. But the heat of it traveled up her arm and settled somewhere behind her ribs, and she clutched the cup like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
"You're early," she managed, and her voice came out smaller than she wanted. Quieter. The way it always did around him, like the confident words she had for everyone else just evaporated the second those gray eyes landed on her.
He shrugged. One shoulder. Easy. "Wanted to make sure you got coffee before the machine runs out."
The machine. The coffee machine in the student lounge. The one he'd made her hot chocolate from two days ago. She looked down at the cup in her hands, and the heat of it seeped through the cardboard into her palms, and she thought about how he'd stood in the cold waiting for her, holding two cups, making sure she got one before the machine ran out.
"You didn't have to," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word.
He made a sound. Low. Almost a laugh, but not quite. "I know I didn't have to."
His hand moved. She felt it before she saw it — the weight settling at the base of her spine, his palm flat against the bare skin where her hoodie ended and her jeans began. Warm. Heavy. His hand was so big it covered most of her lower back, and he left it there like it belonged, like he'd forgotten it was even touching her.
She stopped breathing.
"Cold?" he asked, and she felt the rumble of his voice more than she heard it, because he was standing close enough that she could see the collar of his jacket, the thin white t-shirt underneath, the vein in his throat.
"No," she said. "I mean. Yes. No. I'm fine."
He looked down at her, and she saw his eyes flicker — a brief, assessing scan, like he was checking for something. Hypothermia, probably. Frostbite. Anything except the actual reason she couldn't form a sentence.
"You're not wearing a jacket."
"I have your jacket." She said it before she could stop herself, and immediately felt heat flood her face. "At home. I mean. In my apartment. I didn't— I wasn't sure if you—"
"Keep it." His hand pressed a little firmer, a small reassuring weight. "It's cold. You need it more than I do."
She wanted to say something. Something witty, something that would make him laugh, something that would prove she was the same girl who could hold her own with anyone in any room. But the words wouldn't come, and instead she just stood there, her coffee warming her hands, his palm burning against her skin, and the cold air doing nothing to cool the heat under her collar.
Footsteps on the pavement. Heavy, jogging. Someone called out in Russian, a short burst of words she didn't understand, and she saw Vlad's head turn, his eyes flicking toward the sound.
A guy from the team was approaching, a defenseman she recognized from the lounge — broad, red-haired, already in his practice gear. He said something else, grinning, and Vlad answered in the same language, a short phrase that made the other guy laugh.
But Vlad didn't move his hand.
The other guy's eyes dropped to Vlad's hand on her back, then rose to her face, and his grin widened. "Ooh. Who's this?"
Vlad's jaw tightened. Just barely. If she hadn't been watching, she would have missed it. "Mina. My friend."
Friend. The word landed somewhere in her chest, soft and dull, because of course that's what she was. Of course that's what he saw when he looked at her. The girl who needed his jacket. The girl who got shy around him. The friend.
"Friend," the other guy repeated, drawing the word out like it meant something else. "She hot, Rosanov?"
Vlad's eyes didn't change. But his body shifted — a small, almost invisible adjustment that put him more squarely between her and the other player. His shoulder blocking. His frame filling the gap. "She's cold. Go warm up. Coach wants drills in five."
The guy laughed again, clapped Vlad on the shoulder, and jogged toward the rink doors. But Mina barely noticed him leave, because Vlad's hand was still on her back, and his thumb had started moving — a slow, absent circle against her spine, like he wasn't even aware he was doing it.
She couldn't breathe.
"You're early," she said again, because she'd already forgotten she'd said it before, and the words were the only thing she could find.
He looked down at her, and there was something in his expression she couldn't read. Not quite a smile. Not quite a question. Something softer, something that made her stomach flip. "You already said that."
"I know." She squeezed her coffee cup. "I'm repeating myself. That's what I do. It's my thing. I repeat things."
A laugh. Low and quiet, barely more than a breath. But she heard it. She felt it, in the way his chest moved, in the warmth of the sound between them. "You're cute when you're nervous, malyshka."
Cute. He said cute. Like she was a puppy. Like she was a kitten. Like she was something small and harmless that he wanted to protect but never, not in a million years, wanted to kiss.
She wanted to scream.
Instead she took a sip of her coffee, and it was perfect — exactly the way she liked it, cream and a hint of vanilla, and she didn't want to think about how he'd remembered, how he'd known, how he'd stood in the cold holding two cups of coffee waiting for her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You remembered," she said, and her voice came out small.
He tilted his head, and for a second he looked genuinely confused. "Remembered what?"
"How I take my coffee."
His brow furrowed, like the question didn't make sense. "You had coffee yesterday. In the lounge. You put in cream and vanilla." He said it like it was obvious. Like everyone paid attention to those things. Like it meant nothing at all.
Something cracked in her chest. Soft and quiet, like ice giving way under pressure.
"You watched me put cream in my coffee?"
He shrugged again, the same one-shoulder roll. "I watch you do a lot of things, malyshka."
She forgot how to swallow. Forgot how to blink. The coffee cup was warm in her hands, and his palm was warm on her back, and she was standing in the cold outside a hockey rink while a Russian forward told her he watched her like it was nothing, like it didn't mean everything.
"I watch you put cream in your coffee. I watch you bite your nails when you're reading. I watch you tuck your hair behind your ear when you're nervous." He said it the same way, casual, matter-of-fact, like he was listing the ingredients on a label. "You do it right now. Tucking your hair."
She was. She wasn't even aware she'd done it, but her fingers were at her ear, sliding a strand of hair back, and she dropped her hand like she'd been caught stealing.
"I'm not nervous," she said.
"You're always nervous around me."
The words hit her like ice water. Because he saw it. He saw her nervousness, her stammering, her inability to form a coherent thought. And he didn't see why. He didn't see the why. He saw the symptom and missed the cause entirely, and she was trapped in the space between what she felt and what he saw, with no way to bridge the gap.
"You make me nervous," she said, and it was the closest she'd ever come to telling him, and she watched the words land on him and bounce right off, because he smiled — a soft, fond, brotherly smile — and squeezed her shoulder.
"I'm not scary, malyshka. I'm just big."
He was big. He was so big she felt small standing next to him, small and fragile and protected in a way that made her knees weak. His hand was still on her back, and his thumb had stopped moving, settling into a steady pressure that anchored her in place.
She wanted to tell him. She wanted to say I don't think you're scary, I think you're beautiful, I think about your hands and your voice and the way you say malyshka like it means something, I think about you when I'm alone in my apartment wearing your jacket and I wish it was you instead.
But she didn't. Because he was looking at her with that easy, unguarded warmth, the same warmth he'd give a little sister, and she couldn't be the one to break it.
"You're not early," she said instead. "I mean. I am. But you are too. We both are. We're early together."
He laughed again, and the sound did things to her chest that she couldn't name. "We're early together. I like that."
His hand dropped from her back, and she felt the absence like a physical loss, cold air rushing in to fill the space where his palm had been. He reached for his own coffee, still held in his other hand, and she watched him take a long drink, his throat moving as he swallowed.
"I should go," he said, nodding toward the rink. "Practice. Coach will kill me if I'm late."
"Yeah. Go. Practice. Definitely." She was nodding too fast, and she forced herself to stop, pressing her lips together before she could say something else stupid.
He took a step toward the door, then stopped. Turned. His gray eyes found hers, and there was something in them, something she couldn't read, something that made her breath catch.
"Malyshka."
"Yeah?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I liked your text last night."
Her brain short-circuited. Her text. The one she'd sent after he'd said good girl. The one where she'd said you can't just say things like that and expect me to function. She'd sent it in a moment of courage, and he'd replied with a laughing emoji and nothing else, and she'd spent the rest of the night convinced she'd ruined everything.
"You did?" she managed.
He nodded, slow, his eyes holding hers. "It was funny. You're funny." He said it like a discovery, like he was seeing something new. "You get all quiet around me, but your texts are sharp."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I'm not quiet," she said. "I'm just. Processing."
His mouth curved. "Processing what?"
Processing how badly I want you to kiss me. "Processing how tall you are. From up close. It's a lot."
He laughed, and it was warmer this time, deeper, and she felt it in her chest like a second heartbeat. "Good thing I'm not scary, then."
"You're not scary," she said, and her voice came out softer than she meant it to. "You're just. A lot."
His eyes held hers for a long moment, and something passed between them — something she couldn't name, something that made her pulse skip. Then he turned, pushed open the rink door, and disappeared inside.
She stood there in the cold, holding her coffee, her heart hammering against her ribs, her lower back still tingling where his hand had been.
Processing. She was going to die of it. Processing. Processing the way his voice dropped when he said her name. Processing the way his thumb had moved against her spine. Processing the way he'd said I watch you do a lot of things like it was normal, like it was nothing, like it wasn't the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She pulled it out, her fingers clumsy with cold, and saw his name on the screen.
Daddy: You should come watch practice sometime. From inside. Where it's warm.
She stared at the screen. Read it twice. Three times. Watched the words blur and sharpen and blur again.
Inside. Where it's warm. Where she could sit in the bleachers and watch him skate, watch his body move, watch the way he dominated the ice like he owned it. Where he'd look up and see her, and his face would soften, and she'd have to pretend she wasn't drowning.
She typed back before she could stop herself.
Mina: Are you inviting me to watch you practice, Rosanov?
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Daddy: I'm inviting you to sit somewhere warm. If you happen to watch me while you're there, that's your business.
She laughed out loud, the sound sharp and bright in the cold air, and a girl walking past gave her a strange look. She didn't care. She was standing outside a hockey rink holding coffee a man had brought her, and he'd just asked her to watch him practice without actually asking, and she was so far gone there was no coming back.
She tucked her phone into her pocket and started walking toward her first class, the coffee warm against her palms, the memory of his hand still burning against her spine. Inside. Where it's warm. She'd be there. She'd always be there.
She just wished he knew why.