All Chapters of On Thin Ice With You: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

168 Chapters

Chapter 11 - An Explanation

Elias doesn't respond to Lucas's teasing.He's too busy replaying the treatment room in his head—the moment Mia's expression had shuttered, the specific way she'd looked at him like he was something she'd already decided to be done with.He'd assumed the worst, like an idiot, and said it out loud, like a bigger idiot. She hadn't known about the assignment. The math is humiliatingly simple now that his head has cooled.The larger problem is, he's missed another chance to get her number, and without the physio-patient schedule as a bridge, they have no connection at all.He watches her move up in the queue.She looks exhausted, faint shadows under her eyes.She studies the menu with total seriousness and comes away with a Spaghetti Bolognese and a blood orange soda, which Elias finds, against his will, deeply charming.When she turns with her tray, she finds him directly behind her. She pauses for exactly one beat, gives him a minimal nod, and walks around him toward a window table.Eli

Chapter 12 - See You Next Time

Mia comes home to find Ellie upside down on the sofa, legs hooked over the armrest, phone held above her face. She flips upright the moment the door opens."How was it? How is he?" She's already kneeling on the cushions, chin propped on the backrest."Fine. Professional." Mia hangs her keys. "I also met someone called Lisa—admin staff, very kind. You'd like her."Ellie's expression says she has noted the deflection and will be returning to it. "A week off after this session, right? What are you going to do with yourself?""Probably finish the methodology section I've been ignoring." Mia says goodnight and closes her bedroom door on Ellie's theatrical groan.***Elias is already on the treatment table when Mia arrives, one long leg swinging idly off the edge.He's turning a puck between his fingers, and he glances back at her with studied casualness."Fifteen minutes late.""I spent ten of them reviewing your movement footage with Dr. Anderson." She sets her kit down, the metal clasp s

Chapter 13 - The Secret

The apartment has become a library.She's been in here for ten hours with cold coffee, which, for an Italian girl on her first real holiday in months, is either impressive or deeply concerning.Ellie opens the door like she's executing a rescue operation."Mia." She crosses to the window and yanks the curtains open. Sunlight floods in. Mia flinches like a creature that has forgotten what daylight is."I was just finishing the post-injury complications section—""You've been in here since yesterday." Ellie plucks the pen from her fingers."You know what normal people do when they finally get a break? They live. They go outside. They eat something that isn't cold coffee."She holds up her phone. "Look at this."The screen shows a photograph of Tofino—gold sand, deep Pacific blue, a sea otter floating on its back cracking open a shell with a rock.Mia goes still.She thinks, suddenly, of Sunday afternoons in Milan—the lake walk she'd do after exams, the long lunches that somehow became d

Chapter 14 - Tofino

The seaplane descends over Tofino and Mia presses close to the window.Below, the Pacific wraps around forested islands in impossible shades of blue, white sand curving like a ribbon along the shore, dark rock formations rising from the surf with the drama of something geological and ancient.Mia turns from the window. "Wait—you said the Raiders are also in Tofino?""They do a west coast training week every mid-season break." Ellie's eyes are a little too bright. "Rest, conditioning, that kind of thing. This year it just happens to overlap with ours."She adds, with the casualness of someone deploying information strategically, "Elias surfs, apparently. Very physical sport. Very hands-on."Mia's eyes narrow slightly. "That's quite the coincidence."She'd been off the training center schedule all week, focused entirely on her research project, deliberately not checking team news. It hadn't occurred to her to wonder where they'd gone.Ellie pauses for half a second—she does have sources

Chapter 15 - Volleyball

Claire doesn't wait long before making her move.The moment the first game breaks, she's at the net with her hand on her hip and her hair doing exactly what she intends it to do. "Room for a few more?"Lucas looks at Elias.Elias says nothing, which Emily interprets as an opening. "Claire and Elias would make such a good team—""Sure," Elias says.Everyone turns."You take my spot. I need a break."He's already walking before Claire can recalibrate, leaving her standing at the net. Rick watches him go, then glances briefly toward where Mia is sitting. He says nothing.Elias drops onto the sand beside Mia. The heat coming off him is immediate, salt and sun and the particular warmth of someone who's been moving hard in the afternoon light."Water?" He looks at her directly.Mia hands him the bottle without ceremony.He drinks, throat working, water catching at his collarbone on the way down. She looks at the ocean.Ellie, across from them, is communicating entirely through eyebrow movem

Chapter 16 - An Expiration Date

Elias hits every ball toward Mia, not with consistent force, but with the particular variability of someone running an experiment. Some arrive hard enough to sting her palms. Others float in slow and deliberate, like an offering.His eyes don't leave her between either kind.Mia's wrists are starting to protest.She doesn't like this—the targeted attention that doesn't ask permission, the assumption that she'll keep showing up for whatever he decides to send her.She steps back and lets Lucas take the next one."Are we invisible?" Lucas calls across the net. "We do exist over here."Elias doesn't respond.He's watching Mia's retreat with the expression of someone who has just heard something he needed to hear and doesn't enjoy it.I made her pull back. The realization lands badly.The score reaches 10-3.The game continues, but Elias has already changed his approach—quietly, without announcement.The balls that come toward Mia now arrive soft and readable, positioned just within her r

Chapter 17 - Bonfire Night

Mia stands in front of the cabin mirror, weighing the jacket in her hand, then puts it back.The top Ellie picked has a laced back that leaves most of her spine bare, and a jacket would ruin it entirely. She lets her hair down instead and decides that's enough."Perfect," Ellie says from the doorway. "Very Roman Holiday.""We're in Canada.""The energy is the same."The bonfire is already going when they arrive, orange light cutting through the darkening blue of the evening. A dozen people are arranged around it, the warmth reaching just far enough to make the sea breeze bearable.Elias is at the grill, turning salmon fillets. The firelight sharpens the angles of his face and catches the smoke rising around him, and he looks like someone who has never once been cold in his life.Claire and her friends have already claimed the seats closest to him.The red-haired boy from the beach sees them first. "You made it!"Every head turns. Ellie has already seized Mia's half-raised hand and is

Chapter 18 - First Date

The sky outside is still deep blue when Mia slips out of bed, the horizon just beginning to show the first thin line of pale light.Ellie is a complete casualty—buried under her duvet, one arm thrown over a pillow.Mia had forwarded Elias's message to her last night, added a reminder, and then said nothing further.From the looks of it, the time was well spent.Mia checks her phone. Ellie's reply from 1 AM is three exclamation marks and an emoji she's not going to investigate further.She pulls on the lavender swimsuit, knots the yellow sundress over it at the hip, and pins her hair into a bun that leaves her neck bare. Simple. Practical. She's about to leave when—"You're going to see him."Ellie's voice, muffled and knowing, rises from the duvet.Mia nearly drops her sunscreen. "You're awake?""Barely." Ellie surfaces enough to rest her chin on the pillow. "My roommate's first date. You think I'd sleep through that?""It isn't a date.""Mia.""We're going surfing with a group—""The

Chapter 19 - Tutoring

By ten o'clock, the sun is no longer negotiating.Mia changes out of the sundress before they go in, and the rash guard Elias rented goes on. The rash guard is fitted in a way that leaves absolutely nothing ambiguous about her proportions.She turns around to find him already shirtless, white board shorts, the kind of build that makes the surrounding beach rearrange its attention without him doing anything in particular to cause it.She looks at the ocean and picks up her board."Nervous?" His voice comes from just behind her."A little," she says, "I've genuinely never done this.""I know." Elias moves to stand beside her, close enough that she can feel the warmth off him in the sea breeze. "I won't let you get hurt."He puts the longboard in the shallows and has her lie on it.She wades out and climbs on, and the board shifts immediately under her weight, unstable and alive in a way she wasn't prepared for.She grabs the rails.Elias steps in behind her, arms coming around both side

Chapter 20 - His Shot

Walking back along the shoreline, Mia decides privately that she has some natural aptitude for surfing.She's not going to say this out loud. But she thinks it.Elias had been, and this she genuinely didn't expect, an excellent teacher.Patient, clear, never once condescending.If Tyler or Lucas had witnessed it they would have required medical attention.On the walk back, Elias hands Mia a towel.His gaze moves over her wet sundress, and then moves away with a speed."You learned quickly," he says carefully."You taught well." She tucks a strand of wet hair back, not entirely modest about it.He's about to say something when a voice cuts across the beach."Elias. There you are."Claire, yellow bikini, with two friends.Her eyes move over Mia once and settle into a smile. "Teaching a beginner? How sweet of you.""What do you need?""I'd love to learn too." She steps closer. "Would you help me with the board?""There are instructors down the beach," he says, already half-turned away. "

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