Chapter 9 #2
I waited for him to get properly into position so I could get settled, but he kept the distance between us.
He moved closer, but didn’t fully get into position, only touching me ever so gently.
I still needed to support myself. He barely moved his lips as he said, “Don’t think, Hazel. Just go with it.”
He was right, damn it. We both knew it. We could deal with whatever happened off the ice when we were done. Mimicking his volume, I said, “Okay. Now hold me properly.”
He gave me a lopsided smile, one corner of his mouth raised much higher than the other. He held me tighter, so he was supporting my weight, and I relaxed.
The music started. The beat proved as effective as Olga and Mark had hoped.
If I weren’t already moving, I would want to.
The world seemed to fade in the background and I focused on Dom as we pushed off from our positions, keeping our eyes on each other.
We usually had to focus on each other, but in this routine we had been told that we should never look at anything else.
If we were supposed to play up our chemistry and the fact that we were supposed to be into each other, we needed to maintain eye contact.
The side-by-side Lutz jumps went smoothly, without the same problem the jumps in the first program had suffered from.
I was more tired than I would have liked thanks to the back-to-back performances, but we managed to do things well.
We settled on doing a double twist to make things easier, and it went perfectly.
The rest of the routine went as smoothly as I could have hoped.
When we came out of the footwork sequence across the rink and were still in sync, I felt a sense of accomplishment.
That was another required step Olga had really pushed us on. Having done it well was a relief.
We moved onto the dance. The steps were the same as the ones that had made me feel awkward weeks earlier, but after so much practice, they came naturally.
When I stopped moving my hips and turned back to Dom, chest to chest and staring at each other, it felt like things were going as they should.
He twirled me and we were off again, hand in hand to prepare for the next lift.
By the time the last bars of the music met my ears, I knew we were in the clear.
All we had left to do was a spin, similar to one we’d done hundreds of times before.
When the last note played, Dom had one arm around my waist and the other against my upper thigh, while I arched backwards so I was looking upside down.
We held the pose for a moment before he let my leg down so I could support myself.
My cheeks felt like they were burning and my chest was tight over my thumping heart, but I was thrilled.
We had done it. My anxiety had washed away.
We had made it through everything without messing up, even though we were more tired than we would otherwise be going into this skate.
Dom’s hair was tousled and sweaty, but he was beaming.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and spun me around, letting out a whoop. I threw my head back and laughed. “Let me down,” I said, tapping his biceps.
Dom obliged and grinned back. “Only because it's time for us to get dinner. I’m fucking starving.”
My nerves must have been affecting my appetite more than I thought. Beforehand, I hadn’t been hungry at all. My anxiety about what everyone would think had gnawed at my insides too much for me to want food. Now, I felt like I could eat a small horse.
We skated off the ice together. We’d see everyone once we had changed into street clothes and would get the chance to talk then.
The entire process of slipping on my skate guards, grabbing everything from where I’d left it while I stretched, and getting changed went by in a blur.
In the locker room, I checked my makeup in the mirror to make sure that it wasn’t full of smudges and pulled a brush through my hair.
A spray of dry shampoo later, I shoved everything into my bag and headed out.
I’d need to organize it later when I got home, but I didn’t want to keep everyone waiting.
When I made my way down the hall, I could hear everyone before I could see them.
They were all waiting outside the door they had exited the arena from, the sounds of so many conversations jumbled in the empty expanse around them.
Dom was already there, nearest to the locker rooms, talking with his friends.
I walked past them to see my own, but my mother ran over and gave me a giant hug only a few steps from the door.
“Hazel!” she said, squeezing me tighter than necessary. “We’re so proud of you. You must have worked so hard to get your endurance up. And those lifts! Who would have thought that the scrawny teenager we met could spend so much time picking you up with one arm?”
My father hugged me after, much more loosely. “You did great.”
Only then did I see Brandon standing behind them.
He had his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, his expression was hard.
He was still dressed up more than everyone else, having clearly left straight from work without changing.
When my parents moved out of the way, he didn’t come closer.
I had to close the gap between us. “I’m glad you could make it,” I said, reaching out to grab his arm, since his hands were out of reach. “What did you think?”
There was a flashing moment where his eyes gave him away. He was pissed. After a weighty silence, he said, “The first one seemed much better now, with music.”
He was trying to be diplomatic, but it still stung.
The other time he had seen part of that routine before, when he’d shown up unannounced.
He’d also commented on it when I was at the boards, after he’d come down in the middle of the conversation I was having with my friends to say hi.
His decision to talk about that and not the one that was new to him was a very clear message about his view of the short program.
He was not happy when I’d told him about the music choice.
He hadn’t been happy when I’d tried to explain it to him.
And after seeing it, he was angrier than ever.
“What did you think of the short program?” I asked.
It was a risky question. The answer was probably not going to be something I wanted to hear.
But it seemed much safer to ask it now, with people in earshot.
When there wasn’t anybody around later, there would be nothing to encourage him to keep his criticisms constructive.
Finally, he pulled one of his hands out. I went to grab it, but he avoided it and scratched the back of his neck. “I wasn’t expecting it to be quite that… intense.”
I swallowed hard. “I described it the best I could. To, you know, prepare you.”
“There’s hearing it and then there’s seeing it.
Especially those parts when his hands were on you and you were looking at him like…
” His voice trailed off. He was speaking quietly enough that nobody else could hear him.
At least, I fucking hoped nobody could hear him.
His eyes kept darting around to where everyone else was standing.
He probably didn’t want them to hear about his insecurities any more than I did.
I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t figure out what words would make things better.
Another part of me worried that no matter what I said, it would somehow make the entire thing worse.
Thankfully, I was saved from having to answer by my family announcing that we were going to get going to the restaurant.
“Are you going to drive with Brandon or with us?” my father asked. He placed a hand on my shoulder and gently steered me and, by extension, Brandon towards the exit.
I looked up at Brandon. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“It’s okay,” he said, “go with your parents. I know this is their tradition.”
“Thank you, that’s so sweet,” my mother said. The distinctive clicking of her low heels on the floor made it clear she was not far behind us.
Brandon looked uncomfortable. He stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact even when I squeezed his hand and tried to get his attention. I tugged harder and asked, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said. His voice was unforgiving and hard. He dropped my hand as soon as we got outside and shoved his hands back in his pockets. “I’ll catch up with you at the restaurant.”
I shuffled along after my family, hastening to keep up with my brother’s long legs on the way to the car.
Nothing could keep that boy from his food.
As I climbed into the backseat, my mind was still on Brandon.
Maybe he needed the time to himself to cool down and process everything.
It wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to want a bit of time to go over everything without me.
Especially with so many people he didn’t know around, he probably wasn’t comfortable showing how much the skate had bothered him.
He’d known it was coming, so I hoped it wouldn’t take long for him to move past.