Page 63 of Ice Dance

Dylan nodded. “As soon as possible. We don’t have a day to spare, frankly. We need to get your preliminary routine up to scratch or all of this is moot anyway. London will be hard, Camden. Training under me is not fun.”

“Yeah, okay.”

She nodded. “Alright, I’ll make the calls, get it organized.”

I watched her leave and sat alone with Hasegawa in the empty bar. I was already up to my ears in debt. I’d have to take out another loan. I rubbed my face and dropped back in the chair.

“Are you alright?” Hasegawa asked. He’d been so quiet, and I’d been so lost in thought I’d almost forgotten he was with me. He sat in the chair, rigid but put together. I envied that poise. Everything washed right off him. Nothing touched him. I’d meant what I’d said. All the noise around us would go away for him, but not for me. Privileged people were forgiven a lot quicker than tattooed dropouts like me. Or maybe that was the anger left over from the reporter talking. He wouldn’t have asked those questions of Hasegawa if I hadn’t been there.

“Sure.” I wasn’t okay, but he didn’t need to know that. He already thought I was a mess. I didn’t need to prove it.

It hadn’t even been a whole day yet since we’d gotten hot and heavy in his hotel room above the bar somewhere, but it felt like another time, with two other versions of us. I’d seen some of his ease come back on the ice, when he’d held me up the times we hadn’t fallen on our asses.

“It doesn’t get easier from here,” Hasegawa said, reading the doubt on my face.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t be there with him and not be with him, when I was feeling ragged inside. I’d need someone to listen, and I wasn’t going to get it from him. He’d tell me it was all necessary and to dance through it. The thing was, I knew all that, but I just didn’t want to feel it.

“Text me when Dylan has flights.” I left him there, alone in the hotel bar, and caught a cab straight to Saga’s studio, bypassing my apartment and a shower. I hadn’t yet confronted Saga over the shitshow he’d created, and now seemed like as good a time as any, before I disappeared across the Atlantic for a month.

Hasegawa and I could dance the routine in four weeks. Possibly. When we got our heads together, we were good. It wasn’t even that, that had gotten under my skin. It was my life getting in the way of everything. Saga had exposed Hasegawa. And it hadn’t been so bad when I’d thought he was straight. If he’d been straight, he could have just denied it and moved on. But he definitely wasn’t straight, and he clearly was not okay with his sexuality, which made that uploaded clip even worse. He’d been publicly outed against his will, and that was not okay.

The reporter had brought that home. I’d almost hit that guy. I’d wanted to. The phone toss had been the next best thing. But I’d seen Dylan and Hasegawa’s disappointed expression right after. There he goes again, Camden Navarro, being impulsive and unprofessional.

I didn’t deserve Hasegawa. I wasn’t sure anyone did, now I knew the monumental weight of what he’d been carrying alongside a whole lifetime of expectation from a sport that wasn’t kind to its best.

He’d been skating since he was six. His whole life, his Olympic-gold-winning father, all of it, was ice skating.

What right did I have to come in and piss all over that? I’d started at sixteen because I wanted to show off to some guy, and hey, I’d been good at it. Good enough for people to notice. I’d won a few competitions, gotten better, but with good came pressure, and then I’d ended up being in my own head for too long, and gone off the rails like I usually did when life got difficult. The bad boy of ice dance. The skating mess. Look over here, but don’t take him seriously. He’s just a joke.

I walked into Saga Studios and went straight to the stash of alcohol he kept in the mini fridge out the back. I was three beers down by the time Saga showed up, probably because someone had told him I was fast emptying his fridge.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, by way of hello, when he came into the room.

He wore loose joggers and a baggy top, like he’d thrown the clothes on to get here. He held up his hands and came closer. “The clip wasn’t me.”

“Bullshit. It was your account that posted it.” I set my beer down and got to my feet. “Why’d you do it? Were you jealous? Huh?”

“Jealous? Mon beau, you said there wasn’t anything between you.”

“You saw me with him, didn’t like it? Was that it?”

“You’re angry, Cam, but not really at me.”

“Fuck off. You started this.” I shoved him in the chest, rocking him back. “If you hadn’t posted that video, the press wouldn’t be hounding us, everything would be fine, and I wouldn’t have to leave to go someplace I don’t know, to skate a preliminary routine in front of a panel who has probably already made up their mind that we’re a joke. Worse, you fuckin’ outed him, Saga.”

Saga laughed. “Babe, his dancing did that.”

I punched him. Knocking him back. My knuckles stung, but not as much as Saga’s cheek must have. I’d split his skin. A dribble of blood ran down his face. Not much, but enough that he didn’t like it.

“You want to go there, bitch? Fine.” He lunged, tackled my middle and picked me up, then flung me down. My back hit the dance mat, head smacked, teeth jarred.

“You’re the one person I rely on,” I growled, then flipped us over and dug my knee between his. He clawed at my face, trying to shove me off. I slapped his hand back. He slapped me. The sting burned through my face. It was scrappy, and stupid, then Saga’s mouth smacked into mine, and it turned into something else.

I pulled back, taking the kiss from him, breathing fast.

He grinned and flopped back. Then his hand came up my back, stroking in a way that was definitely not fighting. “C’mon, lover. Let’s work it out.”

His leg hooked around mine, holding me down.