Chapter 3
Tyler Garrett hurt. Every last muscle in his body screamed that he had reached his limit, but he couldn’t stop now. That last jump attempt had been so close, but he hadn’t been able to stick the landing.
“Ty? You okay?” His coach’s voice echoed from the other side of the rink.
“Just enjoying the cold for a minute!” Tyler had been working for two hours now. He should have gotten back up after that last fall, but the cold of the ice through his T-shirt made his strained shoulders feel so good.
“Get on up. No one is bringing you a coffee over there. We don’t have room service.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” He slowly clambered back up onto his skates. “I almost had it that time.”
“You had the rotations, just watch your axis in the air.”
Tyler already knew that. He had managed to rotate in the air four times, but instead of being mostly straight, he had had too much of an angle, so when he came down from the air, his blade had slipped across the ice instead of taking his weight. It had been so close.
This was his transition year. He had aged out of juniors and was almost twenty.
Unfortunately, that meant he needed to step up his skating.
While competing as a junior was hard, once you made the move up to seniors it became so much harder.
To have a chance at reaching nationals this year, he would need to reliably make this jump. Close wasn’t close enough.
Tyler looked over at the man. “Yes, Coach Harris.” Mitch Harris was a tyrant on the ice sometimes, but the man got results.
They’d been doing this in the jump harness and in the studio all day.
He could already reliably do a quad Toe-Loop, but he needed to add a second quad jump to his repertoire before the start of the season, and the Lutz would give him the most points on his score.
Yesterday had been his off-ice day, but he’d heard rumors of a new skater.
A friend had texted him that there was some cute boy who really sucked that everyone was giving all kinds of attention to.
No one knew why. He couldn’t think about it now, not as he was building up his speed across the ice, once again without the security of the harness.
Besides, he had sworn off boys after his last break up a few months ago.
Tyler focused, his dark hair already wet with sweat and stuck to his forehead.
He felt the blades of his skates shift to deepen his grip.
He felt his balance switch to a clean outside edge before he brought down his other skate’s toe-pick to slam the ice, assisting his takeoff into the jump.
Arms in tight and legs coiled together, he whipped through the air only to stretch out at the last moment, unraveling his limbs to land on the outside edge of his other skate.
His position was wrong as he landed, his leg not out quite enough, but he still managed to hold the jump together.
He skated back to Coach Harris, knowing the feedback was going to be less than stellar. He had been hoping for more than the reply he got: “Quarter under rotated but you stayed up. Edges were clean. Do it again. Don’t let go of the tuck too early.”
As Coach Harris gestured him off, Tyler nodded, skating back towards free ice to build up speed to do it again. He needed just a little more height and speed.
Tyler built his speed across the ice with some rapid crossovers, covering the length of the rink to prepare for his next jump attempt.
He brought his toe-pick down harder, wrapping his arms tighter as he got his rotations.
His landing edge wobbled a bit as he swung his leg out for balance.
“Yes!” He had landed the jump for the first time… finally.
As he skated back to his coach, he heard clapping. “Good job, Tyler. Let’s call it a day on that high note. You’ve worked your ass off for that. ”
Tyler was their top male skater, not that this was even one of the top rinks in the area.
Tyler had been skating at this rink since he had turned four and had become obsessed when a friend from preschool had had a birthday party at a rink.
His mom thought it would last a year, or he’d end up playing hockey.
No one had expected figure skating to stick, but last year he had actually qualified to skate at nationals.
He didn’t come close to the top there, but he had earned his spot at the competition.
Coach Harris had been working with him on this jump off and on since December. It was about time all that work started paying off. Going into seniors with two quads would make the transition less jarring. He wanted to get back to nationals, and to do that, he needed that second quad at a minimum.