Tomorrow? Fuck.
I was too worried about my voice being all high and pitchy and giving away how overwhelmed I was at what was happening, that I decided to keep my mouth shut and nod again. I was going to need to talk to my boss today. Holy shit.
“Is that it then? You don’t want me to do a tryout?” I asked, just to be sure.
“That’s it,” she confirmed. The expression on Coach Lee’s face wasn’t exactly a smile, but she looked… pleased. She extended her hand out in my direction, and I took it. “Good. Tomorrow we get to work then. I’ll schedule your physical today and let you know where to go and what time.”
“Tomorrow,” I agreed on an exhale, feeling this weight lift off my chest for all of a second before crashing back down. Feeling heavy, I pulled my hand back to my side and turned to where Ivan had been sitting the entire time. He hadn’t moved. His elbows were still on his knees, hands hanging loosely between his legs, and his attention was still on me. That long, blunt line of his jaw was set firmly, and it was an expression I’d seen enough.
I had a feeling it was one I was going to keep on seeing a whole lot of over the next year.
The next year. Shit.
I had told Coach Lee we could get past this, or at least put up with each other, and I wasn’t about to back down or take my word back. I wasn’t going to screw this up for myself. I could be the better person… and thinking about it like that put a smile on my face.
Hesitating for a just a moment, I extended my hand out toward him.
And it hovered there. For a second. For two seconds. For three seconds.
Three more seconds and I was going to slap him in the face.
Ivan was watching me in return as he stood up, going up to that full height that put him at an inch shy of being a foot taller than me… and he slipped his hand into mine for the first time ever.
His eyes met mine, and I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking the same thing.
Once—just once—years ago, I’d fallen badly after a jump. He had been on the rink with me at the same time. I’d been lying there on the ice, blinking up at the rafters, trying to catch my breath because even my brain had hurt after hitting the ice so hard. This bitch had skated up to me for some reason. And he’d stretched his hand out toward me, looking down at me with a smirk on his face.
I hadn’t been thinking. All I’d seen was a hand reaching out toward me, so I’d tried to take it. Like an idiot.
My fingers had probably been inches away from Ivan’s when he’d snatched his hand back, smirked even wider, and left me there. On the ice. Just like that.
Bitch.
So he could only blame himself when it took me a minute to close my fingers around his, giving him a look the whole time, expecting the worst. But nothing happened. His palm was cold and wide, and his fingers were longer than I’d expected. In all the years we’d gravitated around each other, we’d never touched except for the one Thanksgiving I’d spent at his family’s house and he’d sat beside me and had taken my hand during their prayer. We spent the whole three minutes squeezing each other’s hands as hard as we could, at least until Karina had kicked him under the table, probably seeing my fingertips going white.
If he was expecting me to say something, he was going to be waiting forever because there was nothing I needed to say to him. Okay, maybe I just didn’t trust myself not to say something stupid before we were too deep into this to go back. Apparently, there was nothing he needed to say to me either. Fine by me.
That was the good thing about figure skating. You didn’t have to talk to do it.
Ivan gave my fingers a hard squeeze.
And I squeezed his as hard as I could right back.
Chapter 5
I’d forgotten how much it hurt to get dropped.
“Are you all right?” came Coach Lee’s voice from… somewhere.
I had my eyes closed as I lay there, thankful for the fact that someone had decided at some point in history that the world needed cushioned mats. Because if it weren’t for cushioned mats—even if they were only an inch thick—I probably would have broken three times as many bones as I had in my life.
But still.
Fuck.
I tried to take a breath, but from the sting of it, my lungs were still in shock from Ivan’s hands slipping—or whatever the fuck had happened—resulting in me falling from close to eight or nine feet in the air and landing right on my goddamn back.
Fuck.
“I’m fine,” I half whispered, half wheezed out, trying to take another inhale but only being able to take a baby-sized one that wasn’t anywhere near enough.
Gulping, I tried to take another breath and only managed half of one before my spine went “Not yet, sucker.” Dragging my bare heels across the mats, I planted my feet on the floor and attempted to take another breath, a little more successful that time. The good thing was: my ribs weren’t broken. The other good thing was: at least he’d dropped me on here and not the ice, which felt like the equivalent of cement when you hit it.
I swallowed again, took another breath, and when that went well, I reminded myself this was nothing. Not really, at least.
I opened my eyes and immediately spotted the big hand that had held me high above the floor—the big hand that had wobbled and dropped me—extended in my direction.
For a second, I thought about taking the hand offering me help, but then remembered the other time he’d done the same thing. I shook my head and rolled up onto my butt on my own. “I’m fine,” I muttered, only wincing with my entire face as I did it.
“You need a minute?” Coach Lee asked from her spot off the mats as I shifted onto my knees and slowly climbed up onto my feet, taking a couple more breaths that only slightly made my back ache. I was going to feel it tomorrow for sure.
“I’m fine. Let’s do it again.” I waved her off as I tipped my head back and took another breath to catch the one the fall had taken from me. When my breathing was back under control and I was ready to go, I turned to face my brand-new partner of all of four hours.
Four hours.
We’d spent that morning doing basics, and I meant the most basic of basics. I hadn’t slept well the night before, mostly because of the anticipation of what was coming the next morning—our first practice—but when I woke up, I’d been ready.
When we’d met up beside the rink at four in the morning, I’d already had a black L on the top of my left hand and a red R on my right hand; I’d warmed up on my own and so had he. Coach Lee had started us off skating laps side by side… for hours. All to find our rhythm together. His legs were longer than mine, but we both listened to Coach Lee’s corrections, kept our mouths shut, and it had worked out. I didn’t even think we looked at each other’s faces, we were so busy focusing on our feet… and only a couple of times did I have to glance at my hands.
And when she’d told us to hold hands and do it all over again, we did it. Then we just did it over and over again, holding hands and not holding hands until we got it right. Baby steps, but they were important. These were all things we should have figured out if we’d done a tryout.
So when we got to the rink that afternoon after I’d gone to work—and explained to my boss that I was going to have to work less hours from here on out—Coach Lee had told us we’d start off working on lifts on the mats, I’d been pretty pumped to move forward a little more.
At least until his hold got weird as he had me in a carry lift—his hands on the spot between my lower stomach and right above my groin, his arms locked straight above his six-foot-two head, while I had my legs together and extended, back arched and head held high. I’d done it a thousand times before with my ex-partner.
But just like I’d forgotten how much it hurt to fall, I forgot how every lifting partner had a different way they liked to hold. Or so I’d been told. I had only had one partner in my short and shit pairs career.