Chapter 18
Nine and a Half Years Ago
Do it again,” Zoe says, concentration making a cute furrow in her forehead. “This section isn’t working for me.”
It’s late, but Chase skates to the blue line anyway. Then he pushes off into the sequence.
It’s been tricky for them to get much ice time together, and he isn’t very quick at learning their new routine. Zoe uses a lot of skating vocabulary that’s foreign to him. When she says she’s adding a bracket turn or a twizzle, he waits for her to demonstrate.
He hears “Wicked Game” in his sleep now.
And that’s not the only kind of wicked dream he’s been having about Zoe.
When he closes his eyes, they’re either skating or naked.
Anyone watching them practice together can probably read it off his face—he’s fallen hard for the energetic girl with the sad brown eyes.
She’s not sad tonight, though. She’s bossy. “Match the angle of my leg, Hotshot. I know you can get there.” Zoe demonstrates by pushing off on one leg and tilting her whole body parallel to the ice.
Chase knows this one. It’s called an arabesque, which is French for very bendy, with perfect balance.
He watches her with more amusement than a guy should be able to feel after, what, sixteen hours or so of physical activity?
He got up at six this morning for a gym workout, then did a full day of skating sessions.
Now it’s ten thirty, and he should be chilling on the roof or asleep in bed.
They’re both out past curfew, even though he’s supposed to be on call in the dorm.
But they got special permission for this practice, and no matter how exhausted he is, they can’t waste it.
And now she’s waiting for him to try the arabesque again. Her arms are crossed; her expression is expectant. Every time he looks at her, his heart shouts, Mine!
“Okay. How’s this?” He pushes off on one leg and raises the other behind him, extending his arm and tilting his body like a teeter-totter on the playground.
“Yes! Great! Now I want to add something. Can you tick-tock your arm with the beat? Like this.” Zoe swings her arm like a pendulum as she propels herself forward.
“Oh,” he says, watching the way a simple arm movement changes the whole feel of the arabesque. It emphasizes the shadowy heartbeat of the song. When they do that side by side, it’s going to look amazing.
“See?” She does an idle spin and then glides to his side with unconscious ease. “On four.” She counts down, and then they accelerate together. He lifts his tired leg as high as hers and moves his arm to the beat, while Chris Isaak sings about his tortured heart.
Preach, dude. The summer is half over already. Whenever Chase thinks about climbing back into his truck to drive seven states away from Zoe, he feels hollow inside.
“Transition to the camel!” she calls out.
Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he matches her next two strokes and then spins.
“Yes!” she squeaks when they finally come to a stop. “Just like that. We have to try it from the top now, though. It’s the only way to nail down all the transitions.”
He bites back the obvious joke about things that he’d rather nail down. “All right. You’re really good at this, you know? I mean the choreography. Do you always make up your own stuff?”
“Not a chance,” she says. “We work with pros. Sister Walsh doesn’t like my choreography. She says it’s not the kind of stuff that impresses judges.”
“Then the judges are assholes,” he murmurs. And so is Sister Walsh.
Thank God for hockey. Sure, sometimes the ref makes a bad call. But it’s not so precious and subjective. When the puck goes in, it’s just in.
“Okay, now let’s practice the sit spin before Martina gets here.”
“Martina?”
“She’s coming to offer suggestions. I mentioned this at dinner.”
“Sorry, right.” He’s usually a good listener, but tonight at dinner he was watching her eat a minimal salad and fantasizing about taking her out to a nice restaurant instead.
And then straight to bed.
She skates over to him and puts her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes are sparkling. “I know it’s late, Hotshot. Try to keep up.”
He’d like to blame the late hour, but Zoe is always hell on his willpower. That’s probably why he does something stupid next—he kisses her, right there in the middle of the rink, pulling her lithe body into his.
She comes willingly, though, leaning in to be kissed.
They’re both such comfortable skaters that they barely notice the way they’re drifting gently across the slick surface, as if propelled by the power of his next fiery kiss.
Not two seconds in, she’s clinging to his T-shirt with both hands.
And thank God. He needs to know it’s not just him—that he’s not alone in this obsession.
He can hardly breathe sometimes when she’s nearby.
God, I need to get you alone, he gritted out last night on the roof when it was almost too much. She moaned, and he almost lost his mind. The sexual frustration is real.
Until the bench door bangs suddenly.
Zoe pushes off his chest so fast it’s almost comical. And Chase immediately bends over, hands on his knees, concealing the tentpole in his sweatpants.
“S-sorry,” Zoe babbles. “We were just…”
“Whatever,” Martina says tersely. “I’m here to see this program you are crafting. It was my idea, yes? So let’s see if it was a good one.”
He exhales. At least it’s not her damn mother. But, God, he’s so stupid. Sister Walsh already looks at him like he’s a cockroach skittering across her kitchen. If she imagined what Chase wanted to do with her baby girl, she’d blow a gasket. He’d be fired by breakfast.
That dark thought is enough to calm his body, if not his mind. But Zoe is noodling with her phone, getting ready to restart the music, and he has to collect his last few brain cells and try to remember her choreography from start to finish.
“From the top,” Zoe says, handing the phone to Martina. “Give us a sec and hit play?”
His heart still thumping, Chase joins her at center ice.
Zoe reaches out a hand—palm down—and he takes it.
A moment later, the first guitar chord of “Wicked Game” ripples through his chest. And now they’re in motion.
Back crossovers, clockwise. Then a held breath as they lunge into an arabesque, while the guitar slides into a new chord. Tick-tock go their arms.
A few beats later, the guitar slides again, and they effortlessly flip positions, their bodies moving like water.
Then the vocals come in, and the music settles into his bones.
Chase finds that thinking through each transition isn’t actually necessary.
He can just feel his way there. His body knows what to do.
Zoe has designed their routine so that she does all the hard work.
She weaves like an exotic bird around him, setting up each new visual tableau.
As she circles again, Zoe gives him a secretive smile, and he’s glowing inside.
A split second later they separate for a toe loop, followed by camel spins.
But his heart is airborne as they drop out of the camel spins and join hands again. Like hers was made to fit in his.
The next spin is the most intricate one. He’s forgotten the real name, calling it the angsty octopus in his head. They’re crouching and holding each other and spinning more times than he can process. While Chris Isaak sings brutal things about his breaking heart.
The lyrics to this song are really damn cynical. That must be why he likes them so much. It’s all desperation and loss, rendered into beauty. It’s more or less his own heart on a good day.
The whole thing is just perfect, and Zoe is a damn genius for creating it.
The spin finished, he fights dizziness. Zoe takes his hand, and they circle the rink, picking up speed. It’s time for the big lift, which means flying across the ice, holding Zoe by the hips in the air.
Here we go. When the proper moment arrives, he scoops her off the ice. With his legs in a powerful lunge, lifting her overhead is a simple thing. He’d never dream of dropping her.
They’re flying together now. Chris Isaak is crooning, the ethereal chords bouncing all around the arena. And Zoe is majestic above him, her lithe body stretching from one impossible pose to the next, until he sets her gently down.
She turns into his arms, and they dance and sway together until the last mournful line, when they pose together.
He realizes he’s gasping for breath as Zoe makes them take a bow, just like in a real performance.
And then his eyes find Martina, who’s skating slowly across the ice, a worried expression on her face.
Uh-oh. Maybe he really sucks at this, and he’s just having too much fun to notice.
“Holy shit,” Martina says when she comes to a stop in front of them. “Zoe, you are a poet.”
Zoe’s sudden smile could power the Eastern Seaboard. “Thank you. It’s moody, right?”
“It’s…” She takes a breath. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen you skate, and that’s because it comes straight from the heart.
Remember this feeling, will you? Next season, when you’re straining every one of your tendons trying to land four triples in under three minutes, remember what it feels like to skate for joy, and not for technical points. ”
Zoe’s eyes grow shiny, and she nods.
Martina turns to him now. “You also impress me,” she says quietly. “Not your technique.”
He laughs immediately.
“No, listen.” She puts a hand on his sweaty arm.
“You could have been a great figure skater if you had studied it, and you are more competent now than seems fair. But it is hard work trying a brand-new thing and baring your soul at the same time. You don’t really know what you’re doing, and still I see you leaving it all on the ice.
You sell it, Mr. Merritt. You will make Zoe look good or die trying, and I admire you. ”
Chase is rarely at a loss for words, except for right now. “Uh, thank you. It’s been an adventure.”
“I see that it has. You two should call it a night now.” She looks from him to Zoe and back again. “Be careful, you two. Don’t get hurt.”
“I’m being careful,” Zoe promises. “My mother will kill me if I injure myself.”
“That is not what I meant,” Martina says softly. Then she turns and skates toward the exit.