Offside in the Friend Zone novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Skate Shed

Nobody ate the salmon.

Mrs. Frost stood and said lunch was over, and she took Kaspar by the elbow and walked him out of the dining hall.

He went with her, but he looked back at us over his shoulder, white as paper.

Elsa threw her arms around her brother, then around me, then burst into tears on both of us.

Rolf stood by the fireplace and whistled once, softly, through his teeth, the way he does when a season has gone sideways.

By dusk the lodge had gone quiet, with every door shut and everyone whispering behind them.

I took H.A.'s skates down to the pond.

The ice was freshly plowed, and the floodlights on the lodge roof made it a gold oval in the blue snow.

The rental shed stood at one end, a tin-roofed box with a bench, a rack of sticks, and a bin of hockey tape.

I sat on the bench and began unlacing my boots.

Boots crunched in the snow behind me.

"I'm not here to apologize again," Henrik said from the doorway.

"Good," I said.

"I'm not here to be fixed, either."

"I know."

"I want to tell you something, and I want you to hear it standing up."

He stood there with his hands in his pockets and his hair blowing across his face.

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend