Silver had been avoiding Eli Hayes with the methodical precision of someone executing a complex competition routine since Weston's whispered warning at the student organization mixer.
It wasn't particularly difficult, not with Americus keeping her social calendar packed tighter than a figure skater's training schedule and Weston somehow managing to materialize in every possible corner of campus with a perfectly calibrated smile ready-made for her benefit. Still, whenever she caught an unexpected glimpse of Eli's familiar silhouette across Old Campus's Gothic courtyards or spotted him through the windows of Ingalls Rink during her carefully timed walks past the athletic complex, Weston's carefully planted words would replay in her head with poisonous clarity: He plays dirty off the ice. He burns people. Always has.
And Silver Preston had already been burned badly enough for one lifetime.
