CHAPTER 59
Troy
“PROMISE, AS SOON as I get my license, I won’t ask you for another ride again,” my younger brother says.
“So, ten years from now,” I translate.
“Good one, Troy.” Kyle raises a hand to me, while I glare at the road. “Tough crowd,” he mumbles under his breath.
“And what’s your excuse?” I snap at Karl’s friend through the rearview mirror.
“My car’s in the shop,” Kyle defends.
“Again?”
“This time it wasn’t my fault.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“No, I swear. I was driving by a pond, and this swan jumped into the road, so I swerved and my tires ran over a pile of cow shit. Which I didn’t even know the shit was from a cow, but this farmer came up to me right after and said it was one of his cows.
And then when we tried to lift the car off the shit, the left rear tire blew up.
Bro, you couldn’t believe how loud it was, it was like a fart you could hear from space!
So we had to take it to this shop.” He pats my shoulder like the story he just shared was completely normal.
“Anyway, if you need a coupon for milk, now I know a farmer.”
Karl just snorts.
“Karl,” I advise sincerely, “please don’t ever get in a car that Kyle is driving.”
“I already know that.”
“Hey!” Kyle whines from the backseat as I pull into the street of Faerieladle High, blending with the sea of cars in the drop-off area.
The passenger and backseat doors fly open as quickly as they slam close, the rowdy seniors disappearing toward the crowded maze fronting the building that’s stuffed with even more banners of navy blue and silver, signaling Homecoming season’s upon us.
That, and the gigantic fliers, each with reminders of the events, kind of also gave it away.
Cruising through the parking lot to head to the rink, I spot the infamous stall.
Our stall. The one Ana and I would compete ruthlessly over during my senior year.
Leaving skating sessions earlier, pacing toward the lot the second the school bell thundered during our last class of the day, even during the most brutal winter storms where we’d chuck massive snowballs at each other to see who’d make it to the stall first, we fought hard to win the crusty spot that at the moment’s being taken up by a bubblegum pink Mercedes jeep with a rhinestone license plate.
Knowing Ana would puke at the sight of this car lifts my face into a big smile.
Which reminds me, I’m going to need to stop giving any thought to my skating partner. My beautiful, beautiful, frustrating, tempting, partner. After all, that’s all she is: my skating partner.
As if I needed the reminders of last weekend, how damn proud of her I was for giving the most fiery performance, stopping me and the entire buzzing crowd in our tracks, the same pounding adrenaline melting me into an idiot afterward.
You were incredible.
Am I allowed to say that?
Just call me fucking Shakespeare, my God, why did I say any of that? And to her.
Somehow the rejection made it all bearable, at least leveling out my embarrassment.
And what was up with that? Falling at her feet when I don’t get on my knees and beg for anyone (well, not outside of the bedroom), but still, that girl had me a second from throwing everything away, my number one rule of steering clear of a rink hook-up, no, even worse, my skating partner, the one person I’m supposed to never think about unless it involves what we’re doing on the ice.
Ana’s face when she shooed me back to my hotel room stung, but I wasn’t so butthurt as I was mortified that out of the two of us, my willpower cracked first.
It won’t happen again.
I’ve made sure of that, in fact, other than during practice, there’s no need to be in the same room as her until our next competition, which isn’t for another good month from now.
Plenty of distractions are at play currently, and it’s exactly what’s needed, my coaching hours increasing as more skaters sign up at the Wisteria Rink’s new program.
Not gonna lie, the news filled me with the same level of excitement as winning the Nebelhorn Trophy did. Assisting a few young skaters at our own rink is still one of the most rewarding opportunities of my career, but the level of excitement and hunger at the smaller rink is just infectious.
Though it’s a tough call, having more time with the athletes at our academy has also led to some pretty neat moments.
Seeing progress made in real time and then watching their small, joyous faces the first moment they ace an element, it takes you back to why you chose to dedicate your life to your own pair of skates.
Once I reach the rink’s gate in my gear, three of the skaters I train are already seated on the silver bleachers, their mothers beside them leaving shortly after signing in their kids.
Ana’s earlier exam schedule meant today’s coaching duties were moved to the morning as opposed to the typical afternoon hours.
Which meant I’d have my ass kicked before noon this time.
These girls are not playing around, never guessing an eight-year-old (the uber charming Daisy Rossi), seven-year-old (the poised but feisty Stella Sperry), and her four-years-old sister (the very shy Lucia Sperry) all skating at speeds I don’t remember any of us reaching way back when.
But they’re confident and they know they’re good, something I’ve spent as much time as helping them hone their basic technical skills, knowing how much of a difference confidence can make in figure skating.
70% of what we do on the ice, in my opinion, has always been a sport of the mind.
The better you train your thoughts to not revolve around what others think of you, the less power a setback, in its many forms—an injury, criticism, a low competition score—has on you.
Coaching young skaters comes with all kinds of surprises, though the most shocking revelation has been how quick sessions fly by.
Practice already goes by in an instant, but maybe it’s the drive they have, the kind of excitement that only a kid can hold about the things that are dear to them, the kind of happiness that no matter how hard you try to fight on your own lowest days, you thank God that it slips onto you in even the smallest ways.
The way after an hour long skate packed with plenty of twizzles and power pulls this morning, the three bright faces before me are still lifted in warm smiles as their mothers fill the stands again.
Mrs. Rossi quickly leaves with her daughter Daisy, always in a hurry from prior experience.
Mrs. Sperry tags a little while longer, the chill sliding off my neck knowing exactly why, when I spot my older brother approaching the mom of two of my skaters.
Dimitri grins at the younger mom, and Mrs. Sperry is beaming just as wide as she was last Christmas. The two of them got way too close during the two-week winter break holiday when our families, along with Xavier’s, stayed at my uncle’s ski resort in Switzerland.
My dad and his brother Lars have always been close, but I’ve always suspected it’s because of the family business, both of them tightly connected with the ins and outs of the rinks under Team Larsson management.
During the short break, Mrs. Sperry’s husband Patrick spent most of his time on the slopes, snowboarding with my father (and the rest of the old men).
Meanwhile, back at the lodge, Patrick’s wife and my older brother had plenty of spare time to fawn over each other in the resort’s spacious lodge.
Not that I was spying on them or anything, but by the time Xavier and I had returned from our own snowboarding sesh, the two of them were cozied up by the fireplace, separated by just a few inches and two gingerbread-shaped mugs, the same googly-eyed gazes that I see on their faces right now, while Lucia tugs on the edges of her mother’s fuzzy skirt.
Lucia clearly wants to leave, and I completely share the same sentiment.
Stella’s organizing her bag from behind the bleachers, slipping into her white sneakers embellished with gold charms as Mrs. Sperry finally breaks away from their conversation, a smile still at the corner of her lips as she leaves the ice with her daughters.
It doesn’t help that Daniella Sperry’s age isn’t too far from Dimitri’s, their four-year age gap with Daniella being 31.
Between the longing glances they’ve shared in passing at the Hummingbirds’ games, after my training sessions with her daughters, and at the annual hockey banquet my grandfather hosts at Dad’s house every October, it’s a mystery how her husband hasn’t grown suspicious.
Even more a mystery why Dimitri seems so oblivious about the whole thing.
I spot the lingering high over his cheeks and that silly look that a guy only has when he’s into a girl oozing from his eyeballs.
“Be careful,” I warn him.
Dimitri blinks out of his hypnosis, confusion pulling at his brows. “With who, with Dani?”
“Yes.”
“I have a girlfriend,” he says defensively.
“And she has a husband and two kids.”
“Okay, so we’re stating the obvious here…”
“She likes you,” I say bluntly.
“No she doesn’t.” Dimitri shakes his head like the idea sounds absurd. “She’s just friendly.”
“Mrs. Sperry. But you just called her Dani. You don’t think that’s weird?”
“Plenty of people prefer going by their first names.”
“Alright.”
“Troy, she doesn’t like me. She’s just nice to me. Plus, her husband’s an asshole.”
Yeah, that’s another thing. Dimitri’s never liked Patrick, and Dimitri never has a problem with anyone.
I personally don’t know the guy well enough, but Patrick’s also on the Hummingbirds’ roster, so if anyone’s a better judge of his character, it’s my brother, not me.
Steve Sperry, Patrick’s father, was also on the same team as our father back in the day, breaking multiple Stanley Cup and international records together, so it’s not exactly easy to remove the Sperrys from family get-togethers.
“Just be careful,” I remind Dimitri.
He scoffs, frustrated. “This whole conversation is ridiculous. I’ll see you later.” My brother pulls at my shoulder, patting it with his blatant dose of denial.
As soon as he leaves, Ana appears from the tunnel in just black leggings and a matching sports bra, panting frantically.
“Sorry I’m late, our professor showed up twenty minutes late to the exam,” Ana spits out, lacing her skates quickly on the bottom row of the bleachers.
“You’re good,” I say, standing against the plexiglass right in front. “How was it?”
Her long, full waves drop around her like a curtain, flicking her eyes up at me as she finishes tying up her boots.
“It sucked ass,” she groans. “Nothing I studied was on the test.”
“You mean, not a single question was from one of your trillion textbooks?”
“You really want to play with me right now, Larsson?” She lifts to her feet, my back peeling from the glass by reflex, feeling this unexplainable, stupid pull to her.
“I could play with you all day.”
I start to regret the boldness of my words but that’s gone at the sight of her bright blue eyes deepening.
There’s that same beat of silence waiting for one of us to finally crack, underestimating just how stubborn both our blood runs.
The soft flush of pink warming her cheeks has my heart beating at an unusually fast rate, hearing it almost, before the sound of Emi and Haru’s voices fills the rink.
Arguing about a lift all the way until they reach the ice, Ana finally cuts the fog between us. “C’mon, we should start.”
“Lead the way,” I instruct.
She breaks the strong hold from my eyes, ripping the force between us into shreds of radioactive dust.
I feel her loss at the steps she takes to move away from me, but on the ice the closer we get, gliding alongside the other, this intangible matter fuses back together.
Then it nearly explodes when her body dips down for our combo spin, her legs tangling with mine.
And as fast and hard as we’re going around in circles, at every corner of the turn, our eyes are tethered together.
That’s normal, though, looking at your skating partner while you’re skating, (kinda a requirement, actually to avoid having a catastrophic injury and all). But this is different, this feels different.
As our bodies ascend higher and higher during the spin, the focus should be on the next element, but for a second, just this teeny tiny second, her eyes stare at my mouth, and I have an extremely animalistic urge to stop everything and kiss those pouty lips into oblivion.
It's tearing me apart, not knowing what’s going on in that complex mind of hers.
It’s what’s spinning in my head when I go down her body at the peak of the element as her outer leg springs up into the air in a perfect arabesque.
Rotating rapidly, I rise back up to her level, both facing the opposite direction with a leg pointed out at a 90-degree angle.
I wrap an arm around the curve of her waist with my other holding her ankle firmly, feeling her tight body flinch underneath my touch, the same flinch my entire body is pulsing with, anchored with her hold over my lower waist. Her face grazes by my hips, cursing under my breath when a delicate hand snakes around my thigh, gripping it with just as much power as I’m holding onto her.
And I…
I don’t want to let go.