Chapter 31
~Hudson~
By the time I get out of the bathroom, Hannah’s doing her best to convince Riley to join the rest of the group at a club downtown. She points at me as I step back into the room. “If Hudson goes, will you go too?”
Having missed the rest of their conversation, I’m not sure if she suspects anything about what we just did, but when I glance at Riley, she avoids my gaze. Alright, we’re keeping this a secret, then. I can play along for now.
“Hudson is going to bed,” I announce to them both. “Competition tomorrow, remember? Have fun on my behalf.”
I give Hannah a kiss on the cheek first so that it won’t seem out of place when I give Riley one too. She walks the few steps with me to the door, slipping into the hallway for a few whispered words out of Hannah’s earshot.
“You don’t mind if I go out?” she asks.
“You can do whatever makes you happy. I trust you. Tomorrow night belongs to me, though.”
She gives me a nod, her eyes brimming with the same anticipation I feel. “Sleep well.”
With the taste of her still on my lips, I sleep the best I have in weeks.
The next day, I get in a workout at the hotel gym and have lunch with my family before heading to the arena. I don’t see Riley, but she sends me a text that makes me smile.
Go for it today. Tonight will be even more fun if we have something to celebrate.
Fuck. Now I won’t be thinking about anything else.
Keaton and I exchange some small talk as we get into our costumes but we’re both focused on our upcoming skates.
He’s in first place and probably going to win this thing, so he has more pressure on him than I do.
I’m feeling pretty loose, but the moment Trevor walks in, the mood in the room shifts.
He sends a death glare in my direction before turning his back on me, and Keaton shoots me a questioning look.
Since there’s nothing I can tell him, I just shrug back.
Twenty minutes later, the six men in the competition all take the ice for our warm-up. Canadian flags fill the stands, and I wave up at the crowd, soaking in as much of the energy as I can. I’m scanning the crowd for Riley when something slams into me, hard, from behind.
My skates slip out from under me, and I tumble forward, only managing at the last second to throw my arms up and stop my head from hitting the ice as I crash onto the hard surface. My lungs heave, and the buzz of the crowd shifts to a horrified gasp.
“Hudson?” From somewhere above me, Keaton’s voice sounds concerned. His warm hand grips my shoulder. “You okay?”
My mouth flaps as I try to answer but my lungs still don’t have any air in them. I manage a short nod instead. I think I’m okay. Tentatively, I move my body, and nothing seems to hurt other than my left arm, which took the brunt of my fall, and my sore chest.
The murmuring crowd grows louder, and I lift my head in time to see my coach and the team doctor running out onto the ice. Two other people are just behind them, and they veer off to deal with another skater also lying on the ice.
Trevor.
Keaton steps back as the doctor kneels next to me, asking me questions about how I feel and what hurts. When I convince her that I’m fine, she and my coach help me to my feet and the crowd applauds in relief.
“Can you still skate or do we need to withdraw?” Rick asks me.
No way am I withdrawing. “I just need to catch my breath and I’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
I nod, glancing over at where Trevor is also now back on his feet. He’s speaking with his coach, no doubt mirroring what I’m saying, that he still wants to skate. “What happened?”
Rick’s lips tighten as he follows my gaze. “He was skating backwards and ran straight into you. He should have been watching where he was going.”
Yeah, he should have, but maybe I should have been paying more attention too.
He couldn’t have done it on purpose, could he?
It would be a stupidly risky thing to do considering he could have hurt himself as well.
I’ve seen some nasty injuries from collisions, but at a competition like this, it’s incredibly rare.
There’s a good chance I’ll be making the sports highlight reels tonight, though not in the way I’d like to.
All the skaters are ushered off the ice, and it’s flooded again since the coaches were out there in their street shoes.
Any stray stone or clump of dirt, no matter how small, could catch a skater’s blade and cause another fall.
It’s not worth taking the chance. With the ice smooth again, we’re allowed back out for another warm-up, and this time, I focus on the ice, not the crowd.
Everyone in the stands cheers to encourage us all, but tension builds inside me, a tension I don’t usually have when I compete.
One thought keeps building in my head: what if he did do it on purpose? It seems like way too much of a coincidence the longer I think about it, and the more convinced I become, the more furious I am that he would be so selfish and reckless.
By the time I leave the ice, I’m seething, and no amount of pacing the hallway seems to help. Trevor skates before me, so I keep my headphones on, drowning out all sound so I won’t hear how he did.
By the time I’m called back out, anger has wiped out any excitement I had about today’s skate.
An extra-loud cheer follows the announcement of my name.
The crowd’s obviously glad to see I’m okay, but I don’t even glance up at them.
My focus is entirely on proving to Trevor that he can’t play dirty and get away with it.
Unfortunately, I skate my best when I’m relaxed, and ‘relaxed’ is nowhere in the building.
I power through my first jump instead of lifting into it, and my quad Salchow turns into a triple.
Determined to get it back on the next jump, I over-rotate my triple Axel and step out of it, unable to add the triple toe loop at the end.
Frustration builds with every mistake, and the harder I try to claw it back, the worse it feels. My program has never felt so long, and when I finally reach the end, I can barely lift my head to acknowledge the crowd.
That’s the worst I’ve skated in a very long time, and though the crowd remains supportive, bitter disappointment fills my mouth.
My family had to suffer through that with me.
Riley had to watch it too, watching me skate as my girlfriend for the first time.
I can’t imagine that she’s feeling very proud of me.
I sure as hell don’t feel proud.
Taking a seat in the kiss ‘n’ cry area to wait for my marks, I do my best to smile at the cameras, waving and saying hi to everyone at Riverbend and my friends and family who aren’t there in person.
The marks are every bit as bad as they should be, and I’m in last place with only Keaton left to skate.
Since I can’t do anything about it now, I shrug at the camera, doing my best to play it off.
“What happened?” Rick asks me as soon as we’re backstage. In my skates, I’m a little taller than him and he looks up at me with concern. “Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride,” I mutter with a heavy sigh. “I got distracted by what happened with McDavis. My heart wasn’t in the right place.”
He gives my shoulder an understanding pat. “It would shake anybody up. We’ll put it behind us and have a better showing next time, right?”
I nod, my disappointment and anger already fading. In the end, it’s just one skate. One failed competition. It sucks, but there’ll be another one, and that one will be better. Things could be a lot worse, and I’ve let it ruin enough of my day already.
“Where did McDavis finish?”
“Fourth, assuming Keaton doesn’t have a meltdown.”
From the roar of the crowd in the stands above us, that doesn’t sound likely. At least Trevor didn’t get a medal either. Whatever he thought he could accomplish by running into me, he failed, and I’ll get the last laugh when I get to spend the evening with Riley.
That thought finally brings the smile back to my face as I go to change and head back to the hotel.