Page 56 of Ice Dance

But the views counter was in the hundreds of thousands and rising.

I refilled the plastic cup from the wine bottle without taking my gaze off the screen, and hit play again.

The music, the beat. I hated how perfect we looked.

My phone pinged, a message briefly appearing on screen. From Navarro:

What’s your room number?

I typed fast.

Not telling you that.

The dots bounced, then went silent. Nothing came after that.

Good.

I was three p.m., according to my phone’s time.

He needed to stay away. I needed everyone to stay away. I’d told him that. Why didn’t he ever listen?

I dropped my head back, slumped in the chair, and let my eyes close. The peace lasted less than a minute.

I opened my eyes and hit play again. In the footage, my hand slid down to his hip, and he guided it lower, as though he’d known exactly what he was doing to me. It had been cruel. I hadn’t known he had it in him.

My face . . . There’d been a moment when my breath had caught, when I’d known what the dance was doing to my body. The footage had caught me coming out of that, lips parted, guard down. I’d spent my whole life keeping my face still, keeping it all behind glass. And there it was, the truth. Honest, hungry. Undone. Then I’d lowered my head, and he’d turned his, exposing the curve of his neck, and I’d been so close . . . so close to kissing him.

I flung the phone. It bounced then rattled on the pointless hotel room desk. More wine went down. Half a bottle now. It wasn’t enough to get these thoughts out of my head. It never had been. Focus and work, that’s what pushed it aside. But when my work caused these thoughts? I had no escape.

I scooped up the bottle and the plastic cup, and moved to the bed, fell there, and rolled onto my back.

This wasn’t me, none of this was me. I was control, poise, guarded and professional. I didn’t drink cheap wine from plastic cups. I didn’t spiral in hotel rooms. I didn’t dirty dance with my partners. I didn’t get hard thinking about it in the shower afterward.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I next opened my eyes, the window and the room were dark. My phone on the desk pinged. I stared at it from the bed, not moving. It pinged again.

Dragging myself from the bed, I picked up the phone. Too many messages, too much noise.

I want to say sorry. I won’t stay long.

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What did it matter anyway? He’d say whatever he had to say, then leave. Tomorrow, we’d get back on the ice, but today, I needed this space, this bubble. But that bubble didn’t work if he kept messaging me.

International numbers pinged my phone. Then it rang. Clearly, my number had gotten out there somehow. I snarled and turned my phone off.

The knock came then.

It couldn’t have been Navarro, not so soon. Unless he’d already been at the hotel. How long had he been here? I checked the peephole. He stood in the hallway, his halo of hair a mess, hooded top hanging off him.

“Hasegawa?” He tried to keep his voice down out there. “Hey. So . . . Dylan said to leave you alone, and I get that, but I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in a hotel all day, stuck inside my own head. But then, that’s me, so . . .” He paused, recalibrating.

Honestly, it was painful to listen to.

I opened the door, leaned against the frame, and folded my arms. “What?”

His smile danced but fell off his lips fast. He raised a bottle of wine, as though proud of it. “I brought wine, and if you wanna tell me to fuck off, I will. No pressure. I just wanted to apologize for all of it. I don’t know if you like wine.” He looked at the bottle’s label, studying it for identifiable features. “It’s white.”

I could see that.