CHAPTER 107
Troy
WHAT IN THE world is she doing?
A foot into the tunnel, and the sound of skates pounding into the ice raises my shoulders.
Catching sight of the missed jump, they grow into a full blown panic when Ana’s face shoots straight up at the rink’s ceiling once she manages to land, hearing her start to spur out a series of profanities into the air.
So I shout the question at her before she tries and attempt another double axel on a bothered mindset.
And she just shouts back, “I don’t know anymore!!”
Shit.
Okay, I can fix this.
Jumping onto the ice, I race after her—many more seconds than typically I’d need to catch up with Ana, but today, the girl’s decided to be fast as hell.
“We can fix this,” I say, once I’ve reached her and we’re skating side by side, hoping to calm her nerves down. “We can just tell everyone they took our routine. Our coaches will back us up on it.”
Ana shoots past me with a shake to her head.
“Everyone’s going to believe Violet because they want to,” she says like she can’t believe I didn’t think of this already.
“It’s how things go, remember? I know you’re well-regarded here, but I’m not, so there’s no way anyone’s buying that it was our routine first. And calling her out is just going to bring me more hate. ”
A scorching kind of pain resurfaces at the mention of Ana’s bullying. How fucking mad I was to learn that people have been messing around with her head convincing her shit that’s fucked and not true.
How I’d never let it happen again.
So I will fix this.
But then she…laughs?
“Fuck.” With a hand clasping over her mouth, Ana’s back begins to shake with humor. Bitter, odd humor. Before she starts bursting into full blown, guttural cackles.
“Why are you laughing?” I ask, my brows pinching together.
“Because this is a fucking joke, right?” she says, her voice growing jittery. “Like it has to be. What kind of simulation is this?”
She starts laughing hysterically, darting her gaze at every corner of the ice like she’s waiting to find the set of hidden cameras.
And it’s kind of starting to freak me the fuck out, so I reach out for her forearm to try and give her some comfort.
“Okay, stay calm,” I reassure, “we’ll figure this out.”
“I am fucking calm! Don’t I look calm?! Ha!”
I flinch when her eyes bulge, the top of her chest expanding wildly.
Turning her to face me, her eyes slump down. “Ana, look at me, hey,” I say. “C’mon, breathe with me.” Her features stretch taut, her lips parted like she’s trying to claw after the oxygen, so I continue to encourage her, “Breathe in. Breathe out.”
“In. Out.”
Her gaze immediately springs to mine, her neck slowly beginning to settle.
“You’re okay, Ana. You’re okay.” Holding onto her shoulders, she gives me this small nod of reassurance like the crash has waned, her cheeks lowering, her mouth softening.
“We can do this. Please, I need you to be here with me and I promise I’ll be there for you.
” Lifting her chin, I say, “We still have a chance. You said you trust me, right?”
She nods again.
“Okay, then trust me.”
A deep sigh escapes from her lips. “But Violet won already,” she tries to reason. “She got everything she wanted. It’s over.”
“No, Ana, it’s not over.”
“Really?” she grits out. “Because we can’t exactly use our new free skate now, so we just need to go with the one everyone’s already seen.”
“Or we could just come up with a new one?” I blurt out without thinking.
Her brows snap together. “What?”
Wondering why I even suggested a solution so unreasonable and borderline dumb with less than a month until the Games and Nationals being this weekend, I spot Coach Yamamoto and Coach Sokolov skating right toward us.
_________
“Absolutely not,” Elena Sokolov shuts down the idea abruptly once we’re all standing in a tight circle on center ice.
Rina Yamamoto stays quiet, her eyes tilted in as much skepticism as Elena’s.
“Just hear me out,” I say, honest to God not sure why I’ve decided to double down on my reckless strategy instead of forgetting I’d ever even said it, but the roads to the idea kind of just hit me like lighting in a bottle so I’ve decided to just go with it.
Ana, Rina, and Elena continue to stare at me like I’m the one who’s lost it—maybe I have—but maybe I’m also on to something.
Maybe.
Shit, I hope.
“Okay,” I begin, “we can combine the elements from our free skate and mix them with the ones we learned in our ice dance.”
Every single one of the gazes glued to my face leap with confusion, Sokolov’s eyes starting to twitch by my absurdity.
But maybe…
“Obviously we can’t take the exact movements from the ice dance for the routine,” I explain, “but we can use the concept of that performance, what, the tango, that’s what it was, right?”
Ana’s face tilts like she’s remembering every single one of our rehearsals with Colette, I swear the smallest grin tugging by the corners of her mouth like I’m finally gaining some support for this mess of a vision.
And that warm motion gives me the confidence—the delusion—to reach the final home stretch.
“We take our own elements from our existing free skate, change a few details here and there, and the sequences between the jumps, throws, and spins, we add the artistry from the ice dance to it.” When three sets of shoulders begin to slump down—including Ana’s—I stand taller, somewhere in my speech realizing the solution isn’t that impossible.
It very much is possible.
We already know the routine.
No one else has seen it.
We can practice at the Wisteria Ice Rink to avoid another potential free skate robbery.
And there’s no rules against debuting a new performance at the actual Games.
So fuck it, I continue, “We can use the same song we did for the ice dance, the one from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie,” Ana’s lips break into a wide grin at the mention of the word pirates—and same—but I ignore the wash of memories from the warm summer months during that routine, focusing on the final few details for now, “We can turn it into a medley just like our short program, and I can ask my brother’s friend Kyle to make us the arrangement. ”
Ana’s eyes widen in shock.
“Kyle’s a bit of a music nerd,” I clarify.
“He’s pretty good at sound editing so I know he’d jump at the idea.
And then our costumes, uh, I didn’t think of that part yet but we can decide what to do for that later,” I add, not wanting to suggest I’d just cover the whole costs because one, I’ve now learned that Ana wouldn’t enjoy someone else taking over her own expenses for her, and two, ordering custom skating costumes takes months of planning and designs from generic ones purchased from the skate shop or elsewhere wouldn’t cut it for the Winter Olympics.
So that’s a bit of an unknown, but it’s the only unknown, which makes the idea pretty darn good, if you ask me.
And just because I’ve grown to really like this idea now and the whole point of what we do is to push limits then dare beyond them, a spunky brunette once told me—the twinkle glazing over that same girl’s eyes like she’s also become fond of it—I say, “And we can add the quad twist lift.”
Go big or go home, right?
_________
Ana
I guess we’re doing a new routine.
Well not entirely new, but it feels completely brand new.
Coach Sokolov—who’s eyes are still narrowed in bitterness as we begin to work on the long program—barely warmed up to Troy’s suggestion for our new revised free skate once we reached the ice.
At the rink in Wisteria.
We moved over our practice for today to the rink miles away from Faerieladle in hopes of keeping the routine a secret until February, convincing both our coaches that we have plenty of rink space to practice on our own afterward—courtesy from The Avalanche.
Coach Yamamoto glides with Troy and me onto the ice, helping us mesh our existing free skate choreography with the footwork from our ice dance.
Her hands tucked behind her, her gaze stays focused on our synchronicity and artistry, making sure each movement feels connected and sets the tone for the rest of the performance.
After a couple of spin combinations and double axels, a few step sequences are changed to better align with the intensity of the new performance, the landing of our triple Salchows revising to mimic two pirates from opposite ends of the shore who are supposed to hate each other while wanting to rip each other’s clothes off, or something like that?
That sounds sort of like what our odd instructor Colette had babbled on about.
I laugh to myself at the strange turn of events, but after hearing how passionate and determined Troy sounded at our own rink, the honest glint in his eyes like we could somehow manage to achieve this, all of it felt reachable.
Coach Sokolov’s deep scowl once Troy suggested the addition of the twist lift that I’d been wanting us to practice for ages was when I knew he was serious.
And that we were somehow going to try and pull this off.
Even with her clear disapproval, Sokolov travels with us around the boards, stepping in temporarily for Yamamoto, her tiny notepad in one hand, her other conducting our pair spins, swooshing it rapidly in the air when we’re a second off beat, then feathering it down when our positioning aces through our death spiral.
When it’s finally time for the quad twist lift, to avoid potential injuries, Sokolov assists me with the use of a jump harness, Troy and I skating backward rapidly.
I try and focus on gaining a strong outside edge of my skating foot, pressing my other toe pick firm into the ice to pick up my momentum, my outer knee driving through the air signaling for Troy.
With his hands tight around my waist, he tosses me into the air with such an impactful force, I feel my heart leap across my chest, rotating in the air so fast that it’s not until I collide right on top of Troy’s stomach, knocking him to the floor, that I realize I only made it to three revolutions.
“Shit,” I mutter, frustrated by my performance, for screwing up the lift when the entry and throw were going close to flawless.
When Troy did his part perfectly and I just fucked it all up.
Twice.
Three times.
Seven times.
Before Yamamoto claps like that’s enough of the element for today.
“Hey,” Troy comforts me, holding the edge of my shoulder with a hand. “We have time. And if it’s not ready, we still have the triple.”
I nod, feeling helpless underneath, knowing the only reason he suggested the complex lift was for me, and now because of me, there’s a chance it might not even happen.
The disappoint begins to cloud my system, turning to Troy, letting him talk me down for a change with a comforting touch to my stomach. I try and hold my weight steady, focusing on each breath, it’s alright.
It’s alright, I tell myself.
If we can’t perfect it in time.
The lift is hard and dangerous, requires a very specific level of core power, control, and timing, the synchronization just one major hurdle to master.
And after every setback and inch of progress made these past several months, this element is the least of our problems, so when Troy gives me a nod for us to resume, moving on from the hurdle, I reach for his hand as we continue to glide through the rest of this challenge together.
_________
With Nationals in just a few days, we have one more session left at the Wisteria rink to work on our secret long program.
Troy and I decided to stop by the huge gym next to The Academy’s rec center before practice. We’ve been going all week to work on strengthening our cores, him adding in some extra sets for his arms.
Which is kind of hilarious because none of his muscles look like they need any improvement, and I mean none of them.
I wouldn’t have been paying attention.
But the room got hot all of a sudden—extremely suddenly—and before I knew it, Troy’s shirt was soaked completely through, peeling it off when it stuck to his pecs.
The same happened to me, which meant he’s shirtless now, and I’m in my sports bra.
Which is also hilarious because I’ve seen him like this—seen all of him—before. Many times.
And you’d think my brain would realize that, except as he lifts his toned forearms to do another rep of curl-ups, the small dumbbells in my wet grip almost slide out my hands and onto my feet.
My lips part at the way his whole torso begins to move.
His smooth, hot stomach clenching on each pull of his arms, every tight ab muscle flexing like his hips are thrusting into the air, meeting each movement.
My legs have started to rub against each other, I now realize, feeling his heat right there, wanting to press my tongue at the very top of his stomach and trail it all the way down, down.
I want to stop but it’s close to impossible when I shut my eyes to the sound of his deep, sexy grunts.
It's a good thing that he’s off in his own world, entirely focused on this crazy goal we’ve set out for ourselves, no longer aware that I’m standing behind him.
Until he drops the workout equipment, folding an arm across his temple to wipe off all that hard work, bumping his slick chest right against mine on accident.
“Oh shit, my bad,” he says, his lips pouty and hot, and wet as he licks over his bottom one.
Flustered, I quickly reply, “Uh, don’t worry about it.”
Really.
He nods, cool, like he’s completely unaware of the meltdown he just gave me from lifting some weights shirtless.
Which is good that things are very normal between us now, I think to myself as Troy travels past me and toward the showers.
Great that it’s not weird at all knowing what the other tastes like and continuing to have to do very physical, very demanding things with them.
Super normal.