Page 121 of Ice Dance

I leaned on my crutch and smiled down at Lucy. “Sure you can. Because you know where your strength comes from, right?”

“The heart!” they all replied in one big shout.

I smiled at them all. “That’s right.”

The tutor had the kids get back on the ice for their lesson, leaving me sitting on the benches, crutches propped next to me, looking up at Ren’s rigid and austere face. He’d looked like this when he’d come to me nine months ago and asked me to dance the gender open, as his last resort. Maybe he would have been better off without me.

“How’d you know I was here?” I asked, bad leg stretched out, so my hip didn’t flare up.

“I uh . . . I thought you’d come by, and told the staff to call me if they saw you. Then I took a taxi.”

“Huh . . .” I swept my fringe back. “That’s kinda stalkerish behavior, not gonna lie.”

“Well, you weren’t answering my calls or messages,” he said, straight-faced. “So I had little choice.”

I chuckled. “That’s what a stalker would say.”

His mouth softened. No smile yet, but it was there, hiding. He watched the kids through the plexiglass. We hadn’t seen each other since the dance. I didn’t remember much, just that everything had gone dark real fast. After that, and since the hospital, I’d iced him out.

“I assumed you’d gone back to England,” I admitted.

He gathered up the length of his coat and sat on the bench, not too close, but not too far away either. “I was supposed to.”

We faced the lockers, had the rink at our backs. It was quiet today, just a few parents who had stayed to watch the kids’ lessons, the hum of the dehumidifiers, and some pop-song background music on low.

“Why didn’t you?” I asked softly.

He turned his head. That same little curl of dark hair had escaped its styling, like it always did. My mind unhelpfully flashed back to all the footage of him on the podium, looking wrecked and messy. His hair all mussed up and makeup smudged.

“I wasn’t ready,” he said, still maintaining that stoic persona.

Was it me? Had he stayed for me? Was he going to stay now? No, that seemed unlikely. We’d had a good run. It really had been a dream to work with him. I’d never forget what he’d done for me. Never forget how soft Ren Hasegawa truly was inside. The ice prince of ice dance had a marshmallow heart. Who knew. Me, and only me. That was worth a whole lot to me.

“And I wanted to bring you this.” He took an envelope from inside his coat and handed it over. No address, just my name in swirly writing on the front.

“What is it?”

“An envelope.” His lips twitched.

I snorted. “Ha, ha.”

“It came via Dylan, but you weren’t answering her calls either, so I told her I’d drop it off to you.”

“I wasn’t answering your calls because I didn’t want to talk to anyone.” I smiled, like it was a joke, but Ren didn’t laugh.

He twisted on the bench to face me. “Nothing that happened was your fault. None of it. The Meridian Cup didn’t matter. All that mattered was . . . you, that you were alright.”

“Well, I sure could have done with the prize money.” I looked down at the fancy envelope because the honesty on his face was doing complicated things to my heart. In truth, it wasn’t all about the money. I’d wanted to win, for him. To show him I could be the best version of myself, that I wasn’t a waste of his time. I’d figured he’d left because of that, but here he was, back at my side, and no competition keeping us together.

“Well, this—” He pointed at the letter. “You need to see.” He leaned an arm on the boards behind us and nodded for me to open it.

“Do you know what it is?” I jabbed my thumb into its corner and tore it open.

“I have an idea,” he said cryptically.

“How is that fair?”

“It came from Dame Ashborne.”