Page 27 of Ice Dance

“Everyone who wants to win likes things to be reliable.”

Her smile ticked, beginning to fail. The interviewer caught it and made eye contact with me. “Ren, you are often described as one of the most technically exacting dancers in the field. Is that something you take pride in?”

“Technical accuracy is the foundation of ice dance. If your edge isn’t clean, the emotion doesn’t matter. If the timing isn’t shared, the story falls flat. I take pride in giving the performance somewhere solid to stand.”

“Alisha, what does Ren bring out in you as a partner?”

“Discipline,” she answered quickly. “And he uh, makes you aware of every detail. Sometimes before you’re ready to be aware of it.”

“That’s how we improve,” I said. Beads of sweat ran down the back of my neck, into my shirt collar.

“Yes, it is,” she agreed, but the smile was slipping again.

“There were some rumors that selection week was challenging for both of you?”

“Selection week is designed to test dancers,” I said quickly. “It tested us, but we’re still here.”

“That’s true,” Alisha agreed.

The interview rolled on, and then wrapped up with the promise we’d be ready with a winning performance in eight months.

We sat in the private taxi in silence on the way back to Nottingham, miles of motorway rolling by outside.

“Have I done something wrong?” I asked after what felt like hours of silence between us. I could take the quiet, but not when there was something clearly sitting in the middle of it, making it difficult to breathe.

“What?” She looked over, then smiled like she did it to cover anything else that might appear on her face. “Of course not, Ren. You never do anything wrong.”

The taxi dropped me off at my apartment building. I ducked my head against the rain, hurried up the steps, and headed inside. Inside, I flicked on the lights and checked the thermostat. The air felt cold. Or perhaps it was my wet clothes. Press days were always exhausting. Alisha was very good at warming up to people. It was one area I needed to work on, but again, had no idea how. Perhaps I should ask Dylan about media training. The spotlight would be on us more and more as the months progressed. I didn’t want to let us down in the public eye.

I showered, dressed in loose clothes, and checked my phone. Dylan had texted the schedule for the following week. But we had the weekend off. I’d probably still go to the rink tomorrow, though. The apartment rental people had sent a bill for the housekeeping fee. I generally ignored socials, but for some reason, sitting on the sofa with the rain relentlessly hitting the windows again, I opened up Instagram. Dylan had a media manager post for Alisha and me on a joint account. I ignored all of it and searched #CamdenNavarro.

It had been a week since selection day. He’d been busy. I scrolled past photos of him fooling around with the Canadian skating team, who seemed to be the group he stayed with and his friends. Several trio shots of him with someone called Jen and Casey, the man who’d pulled him off me in the hotel bar. That grin . . . it was in every photo.

Shots of him skating at a local rink. Not Montreal, but a town nearby. No name, but he probably didn’t want people showing up to ruin his practice. The photos showed him in motion, taken with a professional camera. His form was good. Blades and body in perfect balance. I had no idea how he skated through that mop of hair without getting blinded. It was impractical.

I scrolled on, passing multiple shots of him in various stages of his routine, and then found one. He was shirtless, the spread of tattoos on display. I’d seen them before, in glimpses, and when he’d baited me with his sensual routine to “Su Casa Mi Casa.” But I’d never seen his entire bare chest. I sat up on the sofa, pinched the screen, and zoomed in. The tattoos were made up mostly of stars. Trails of them scattered up his abs and around his ribs. Another shot showed his turn, and how the trail of stars continued up his back. The comments were filled with thirsty women complimenting his technique. Some men too.

Someone in the comments pointed out a semicolon tattoo low on his hip, almost hidden by the low-riding leggings. The string of comments that followed were full of teary emojis. What did a semicolon tattoo mean?

It didn’t matter.

I swiped IG off and closed my phone.

It was late. I needed to rest, not to be up for hours staring at photos of a shirtless Navarro.

Foolish.

I glanced at the phone, face down on the sofa next to me, and picked it back up.

I got to the dance studio early, deliberately so I didn’t have to interact with anyone. Something wasn’t siting right with me about Alisha, about us, and the routine. I needed to work it out, and I couldn’t do that while training alongside her. I needed to be alone to think. And to do that, I needed to dance in a way that required no thinking at all.

I put “Movement” by Hozier on the studio speakers, stretched at the balance bar, then let my body do what it wanted to unwind. Initially, it didn’t want to do much. My muscles were too tight, my body rigid.

Ballroom dancing, I excelled at. So that’s where I let my body go, falling into step without a partner. But today, the rigid steps left me feeling trapped. I stopped halfway through the song and stared at my reflection. Chest heaving, one hand on a hip, one arm loose at my side, fingers twitching to move.

The ballroom track ended, plunging the studio into silence.

This wasn’t working.