Chapter 16 #2
This is it. Everything we’ve been working for and now we finally get to take the first steps. My body knows what it has to do. Hours upon hours of training have ensured that. Now I just need my expression to match that, like Camille has been begging me for years to do. I’m going to do my best.
At the center of ice, we start a few feet away from each other and when “Vienna” begins to play through the speakers, I push off down the ice slowly, knowing he’ll be following close behind.
He catches up and takes my hand to spin me around into his arms and ready to dance across the ice for the next two minutes and thirty seconds.
His free hand finds my waist and mine, his shoulder, and for a split second, barely half a note of the music, we stop and stare. His eyes twinkle at me and the choreographed smile I’m supposed to be wearing is very real and then we’re off.
The program flies and it is showstopping.
We’re perfection the whole way through, not a hand slip, not a misstep.
Even our twizzles are flawless. It feels unconscious, no thought, nothing to stop us, the music in time with every scrape of our skates, and when Brayden lifts me against him and we spin out across the ice, the screams from the crowd overpower everything and we have to rely on our instincts to pull us through the last few seconds of the dance, and then the music fades and it’s over and we find each other again at the center of the ice, me bent back over his arm, his forehead pressed to my shoulder.
His lips graze against the pulse at my throat and it sends my heart rate soaring beyond what I’ve ever felt before on the ice, and the fans’ reaction echoes it, somehow growing even louder.
“Adriana Russo et Brayden Elliot!” the announcer calls as we stand together and bow to each part of the crowd, our hands still held firmly together.
There are stuffed animals being chucked onto the ice and little girls in sparkling skating costumes are rushing around to gather them for us as we retreat to the gate where Camille is waiting for us, the biggest smile I’ve ever seen her wear plastered across her face.
“Brilliant!” she shouts, as Brayden lets me leave the ice first and then follows behind me.
Camille pulls me into a hug and then grabs Brayden too.
For a second, I’m crushed between them as we all laugh together.
We grab our skate guards and click them in place before we move to the Kiss and Cry, the booth where we’ll wait for our scores.
We’re the first competitors on the ice, so no matter what we’ll be in first place, but we’re setting the standard for everyone else, I’m sure of it.
A man slides onto the bench, holding a camera at his side to get our reactions. I hold up my hands in a heart to everyone watching and Brayden’s arm slides around me. His eyes are trained up at the scoreboard flashing on the arena’s screen.
“That was beautiful, Adriana,” Camille says, leaning over to whisper it in my ear. “I felt every moment of it.”
I squeeze her hand tightly.
My breath is finally starting to even out as the scores come up.
“Les scores, s’il vous pla?t,” the arena announcer calls, and then there’s a pause. I take a deep breath. “Le score d’Adriana Russo et Brayden Elliot dans la danse rythmique est de 75.49!”
I don’t hear it at first, but then my eyes catch our names on the scoreboard and the numbers beside it.
1. RUSSO, A./ELLIOT, B. (USA)
TECHNICAL ELEMENTS: 40.02 PRESENTATION: 35.74
TOTAL SCORE: 75.49
I’ve never seen scores that high. Not for us. Not for juniors.
And then the announcer confirms it.
“Il s’agit d’un nouveau record du monde junior pour la danse rythmique!”
Record du monde. That I understand. A world record. The crowd loses its mind and so do I, nearly launching myself across the few inches that separate me from Brayden, pulling him into the tightest hug I can manage with my hands nearly full of stuffed toys.
For the first time in my life, Camille is speechless when I turn to hug her and then Brayden comes in from behind me and I laugh wildly.
One down. One to go.
A few minutes later we’re back in our changing room and it’s the way we left it despite the world being totally different after that skate.
“Ah! I can’t believe how awesome that was!” I say, collapsing into the same chair I sat in less than a half hour ago to lace my skates.
“It was great,” Brayden says, but his tone is flat, so far from the joy that spilled over in the Kiss and Cry that I feel like I have to be misinterpreting it.
“You were amazing. We’ve never skated like that.”
“No one has,” he says, shrugging lightly. “New world record.”
The tone is familiar, that half-joking, half-serious voice he uses to tease about important things, but his eyes won’t meet mine.
“Are you okay?” I ask, tilting my head at him. “Did you hurt yourself or something?”
He barks out a laugh, harsh and quick. “No, I didn’t hurt myself.”
“Then what?”
“Don’t worry about it, Adriana,” he snaps.
Is he…is he mad at me?
“I don’t understand, we skated the greatest rhythm dance in the history of Junior Worlds and you’re mad at me?”
“Yes! No! I’m not…just go, okay? I’m sure you want to celebrate with O’Connell.”
“What does Freddie have to do with anything?”
“You tell me.”
I still don’t really understand. And I’m starting to feel stupid.
He’s looking at me like I should know the answer to this ridiculous whiplash he’s given me while my head is still spinning with the high of competition.
And then a thought flies to the front of my mind and stays there, like a big red siren flashing, and I remember that moment on the plane and…
had he seen us in the hospital? Now that I’m thinking about it, he must have. Shit.
“Are you jealous?”
“Jealous? What are you talking about? I’m not jealous, Adriana. We had an agreement. We made rules.”
“I definitely haven’t broken any of the rules.”
He raises an eyebrow. “No cheating. I saw you two yesterday and it looked…it looked like something.”
“That wasn’t…Brayden, you’re being ridiculous.”
“So you’re saying you don’t have feelings for him?”
“I’m saying even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. It was just a hug.” The protest sounds weak, even to my own ears. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we didn’t exactly stay besties after we stopped training together. It’s nice that we can be friends again, sort of. Okay?”
Brayden stares at me for a long moment, so long and so intently I start to fidget under his gaze. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” he says finally.
A sharp spike of panic flies through me. “What?”
“This, us, the fake dating thing. Maybe we should just call it.”
“But…” my mind spirals, images of money flying up into the air out of my grasp, a For Sale sign going up outside of Kellynch, my dad’s eyes flashing in disappointment. “Is that what you want?”
He’s quiet for a second, a hand coming up to sift through his blond hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. “No, but, if it’s what you want…”
“It’s not.”
“You’re sure?”
And the For Sale sign is gone and the money is back in our accounts and my dad’s disappointment shifts to pride and relief.
“I’m sure.”