The Ice King Regrets

The first time I saw the photos on a stranger’s phone, I was standing behind the counter of a coffee shop in Lower Manhattan with steamed milk burning my fingers.

At first, I did not understand what I was looking at.

That was the terrible part.

For three whole seconds, my brain protected me.

The phone belonged to a girl in a red NYU hoodie waiting for her oat milk latte. She stood close to the pickup counter, laughing with her friend, the glowing screen tilted just enough for me to see the headline.

RISING HOCKEY STAR NOAH KADE SPOTTED LEAVING HOTEL WITH MYSTERY WOMAN

Below it was a photograph.

Noah. My Noah.

His dark blond hair was messy beneath the flash of cameras. His jaw was tense and his hand was wrapped around the wrist of a woman whose face was turned away. She wore a black coat, high heels and large hoop earrings.

My hand slipped and hot milk splashed across my fingers.

“God,” I gasped, jerking back.

The girl glanced up. “Are you okay?”

I didn't say anything. I just stared at her phone.

She followed my gaze, then smiled in that careless way people smiled when they wanted to give sweet gossip. “Crazy, right? I thought he had a girlfriend.”

The espresso machine screamed behind me. The lunch rush was building. Cups lined the counter. My manager was calling my name. Someone asked if their croissant was still warming.

But all I could hear was one sentence.

I thought he had a girlfriend.

He did actually.

Me.

I was the girlfriend.

I was the girl who stayed up until two in the morning editing his media responses because he hated sounding fake in interviews. The girl who knew he took his coffee black before games and sweet after losses. The girl who sat on the floor of her tiny apartment with him while he iced his shoulder and promised that when everything got bigger, we would not get smaller.

I was the girl who believed him.

“Aria!”

Marco’s voice snapped through the fog.

I blinked and looked down at my hand. The skin across my fingers was red but the pain felt distant like it belonged to someone else.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly.

“You’re not fine,” Marco said, coming toward me. “Go run it under water.”

“I said I’m fine.”

The girl took her drink and moved away, still talking about Noah like he was a public event instead of the person who knew where I kept my spare key.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket. Once. Twice. Then again.

For one foolish second, hope rose so hard in my chest it hurt.

Maybe it was him. Maybe he had seen the story. Maybe he was calling before I could ask. Maybe there was an explanation, because the Noah I knew would never hurt me this way.

I rushed to the storage room, almost knocking into a delivery guy carrying boxes of paper cups.

My cracked phone lit up with notifications. But it was not from Noah.

It was from Simone, my best friend.

SIMONE: Aria, call me.

SIMONE: Babe. Please call me now.

SIMONE: Don’t look online until you talk to me.

Too late.

My thumb shook as I opened the article about Noah popping up on my screen just then.

The coffee shop Wi-Fi loaded slowly, every second tightening around my throat.

Then the same image showed up along with an article that was as crazy as the picture above it.

My stomach folded in on itself. So it was really true.

“No. God, please, no.” I whispered even as I called him.

The line rang once, then went to voicemail.

I called again. Voicemail.

Again. Voicemail.

By the fourth attempt, my heart had started beating with a strange, cold rhythm.

It was not panic.

It was something worse. Humiliation.

Outside the storage room, the coffee shop moved on.

Milk steamed. Orders were called. People laughed. New York continued being New York, loud and hungry and careless while my life quietly split open beside a tower of napkins.

The voicemail beeped and I pressed the phone to my ear.

“Noah,” I said.

My voice cracked on his name and that made me furious and sad at the same time.

I swallowed hard. “Noah, I just saw the photo. Call me. Please. Just call me and tell me what this is.”

I stopped just then and ended the call before I begged.

When I stepped back into the shop, Marco took one look at me and lowered his voice.

“Go home.”

“I need the hours.”

“You also need your fingers.”

“I’m fine.”

“Aria.”

I hated kindness when I was close to falling apart. It made everything worse.

“I need the hours,” I repeated.

Marco held my gaze, then looked toward the counter, where the line had grown longer. “Then take ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. As if grief could be scheduled. As if betrayal could sit politely in the corner until my break ended.

Bulshit.

I went to the tiny bathroom, locked the door, and stared at myself in the mirror.

There were dark curls escaping my bun. Brown eyes too bright. Lips pressed together until they had lost color. Coffee stains on my apron. Ink marks on my wrist from the notes I had taken during my unpaid internship before rushing here for my shift.

I looked exactly like what I was.

A twenty-three-year-old journalism student trying to survive in a city that charged rent like it hated dreams.

And Noah?

Noah looked like the future.

That was what everyone said.

Noah Kade was not fully famous yet but he was close enough to touch it. Close enough for people to start changing around him. Close enough for reporters to use words like promising, explosive, franchise face and once-in-a-generation talent. Close enough for strangers to care who he walked out of hotels with.

I had loved him before the headlines.

Before the suits.

Before the agents started using his full name even in private conversations.

Before cameras waited outside arenas and girls screamed from behind barricades.

Before people began looking at me like I was temporary.

My phone buzzed again. This time, I answered without checking. “Noah?”

“No, babe. It’s me.”

Simone’s voice was soft, which meant she was scared.

I closed my eyes. “I saw them.”

“I’m coming to you.”

“No.”

“Aria—”

“I’m at work.”

“You should not be at work.”

“I can’t lose this shift.”

There was silence at first. Then Simone cursed quietly. “I hate this city.”

I almost laughed. “Did you know?” I asked.

“What?”

“Before this photo…did anyone know?”

“No. Aria, no. I swear.”

I relaxed against the sink, pressing my burned fingers under cold water. The sting sharpened. Good. At least it was honest.

“I called him,” I said.

“And?”

“Voicemail.”

Simone was quiet again.

That silence did more damage than words.

“Maybe his phone is off,” she said but even she did not sound convinced.

“His phone is never off.”

“Maybe his management took it.”

“Why would they take his phone?”

“Because they’re obsessed with controlling everything around him.”

I looked at myself in the mirror again. “He would find a way to call me.”

Simone did not answer and my chest tightened.

“He would,” I insisted because I needed someone to believe it.

“I know,” she said gently. “I know he loves you.”

I pressed my lips together.

Loves. Such a messed up word.

A knock came at the door.

“Aria,” Marco said from outside. “Your break is over in two.”

I turned off the tap. “I have to go,” I said to Simone.

“Come to my place after work,” Simone said.

“I have class.”

“Skip class.”

“I can’t.”

“You’re allowed to fall apart.”

“No,” I said, wiping my hand on a paper towel. “I’m not.”

Because that was the truth.

Some girls could fall apart and know someone would catch the pieces. I was not one of them. My rent was overdue. My journalism professor had warned me that missing one more seminar would affect my grade. My internship editor expected article pitches by midnight and did not care if my heart had been turned into public entertainment.

So I unlocked the bathroom door and went back to the counter. I made drinks. I smiled when customers thanked me. I said, “Have a good day,” with a voice that sounded almost normal.

And every few minutes, between orders, I checked my phone.

Nothing at all.

Noah did not call. Not during the lunch rush. Not when my shift ended. Not while I changed out of my apron in the back room. Not when I stood outside under a gray New York sky, rain misting against my face.

By then, the photo had spread everywhere.

Sports pages. Gossip accounts.nFan forums.Someone had even already made a thread about me.

Simone sent a screenshot and immediately followed it with: DON’T READ THE COMMENTS.

Of course I read them.

She was never going to last.

Noah can do better.

Imagine thinking a college girl could keep him.

Wasn’t she just using him for access?

That one made me laugh.

A dry, stunned laugh that felt like it belonged to a much older woman.

Access.

I had spent months avoiding writing anything about hockey because I did not want anyone to say I used him. I had turned down interviews. Ignored leads. Removed myself from stories where his name might appear. I had worked twice as hard to be taken seriously because loving Noah Kade made people assume my ambition had borrowed his fame.

And now strangers were calling me a fool anyway.

My phone rang just as I reached the subway entrance. It was an unknown number. My heart kicked hard as I answered. “Hello?”

“Miss Vale?”

The voice was that of a man. But it was not Noah. A cold feeling moved through me. “Yes?”

“My name is Daniel Price. I work with Noah Kade’s management team.”

The entrance to the subway yawned in front of me. People pushed past, umbrellas knocking into shoulders, shoes splashing through dirty water.

I stood still as I responded, “Where is Noah?”

“Mr. Kade is unavailable at the moment.”

Mr. Kade.

My stomach turned.

“I don’t want to speak to his management team. I want to speak to my boyfriend.”

There was the smallest pause.So small someone else might have missed it.

I did not.

“I understand this is a difficult situation,” Daniel said.

“Do you?”

“We are handling it internally.”

I gripped my phone tighter. “Handling what?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss details.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

Another pause. “To advise you not to make any public statement.”

For a second, I forgot the rain. The subway. The people. The photo.

I forgot everything except the insult. “You’re advising me?” My voice sounded incredulous as I asked.

“We believe silence is in everyone’s best interest.”

My laughter when it came was even more incredulous. “Everyone’s?”

“Miss Vale—”

“No. Don’t Miss Vale me like I’m some liability you found on a spreadsheet. Put Noah on the phone.”

“That won’t be possible.”

“Why?”

“He needs space.”

There it was. The knife. It twisted deeply inside of me and I felt sharp pain.

“He said that?” I managed to ask.

Daniel did not answer quickly enough. My chest then went hollow.

“Did Noah tell you to call me?”

“Aria—”

“No,” I said. “You don’t get to use my first name.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“Then put him on the phone.”

“That cannot happen tonight.”

“Then tell him I called.”

“I will pass along the message.”

I looked down at my shoes. Water had soaked through the canvas. My toes were numb. Something about that small discomfort almost broke me.

“Tell him,” I said slowly, “that if he has enough courage to walk out of a hotel with another woman, he should have enough courage to speak to me himself.”

Daniel exhaled softly. “Goodnight, Miss Vale.”

The line went dead.

I stood there with the phone still pressed to my ear, not knowing what to do with my heart breaking like glass.

It was clear that Noah had chosen fame over me.