Page 66 of Ice Dance

I stopped to watch, stopped everything. And stared.

The music . . . the way it built and how his body moved, curving into the motion. Backward glide, edge work a thing of true perfection, balance as beautiful as I’d seen on any figure skater. He dropped, going down, then splayed, so low he kissed the ice. He made it look effortless. The choreography made his skill shine, and with my heart in my throat, my skin tingling, I knew he was, in that moment, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And it wasn’t just the dance, or the music. It was him. All of him. He was the most beautiful thing in my life.

I watched him build speed, pushing out with his thighs, defying gravity as his blade’s edges cut in, holding him. It was magical. It was everything ice dance was supposed to be. That marriage between the danger of ice skating and the thrill and passion of music.

The track ended suddenly, like it does, leaving the listener bereft. And that was how I felt when he stopped. Bereft. As though he’d taken my heart and put it back inside my chest as a changed thing. I breathed a little heavy as I came back to my senses.

I’d seen him skate a thousand times. Caught him before he fell. Fallen with him. I’d watched him laugh from across a room full of people, had him stop my thoughts dead in the moment with a glance. But I hadn’t known what all of it meant. Not until seeing him for those few minutes alone on the ice, unguarded and free, the rink rushing under him. He didn’t command the ice, he didn’t work against it. He was at peace with it in a way I could never be.

A lump caught in my throat. I looked away, then down at my bag.

Dylan had come up alongside me, and said something about him being the most natural, untapped talent she’d seen, and all I could do was nod along mutely. Because my voice would have betrayed whatever was happening inside my chest, and my face probably did too.

She side-eyed me, taking a second look.

I swallowed, and toyed with the laces on my skates.

She was still looking, about to ask something, when Navarro came off the ice, breathless, severe looking, utterly in the zone. Focused, honed, as sharp as any blade, he said something to me that I didn’t catch. I stared at him as though he’d spoken another language.

“You good?” he laughed. And even that laugh . . .

Seeing him like that, understanding how it felt, how it moved me, and what it meant . . . the impact had sideswiped me off my feet.

“I think Hasegawa needs a few more minutes to warm up,” Dylan said.

I almost laughed, but my body didn’t know what to do with it, because the mess of emotions inside were still tangled, still loose and unruly. I stood, and walked past the lockers, into the warmer hallway that eventually led to the toilets.

I didn’t know where to go. How to feel. How to breathe, or put myself back together. I was coming undone for no reason other than watching him do the same thing he’d done every day for weeks now. The difference was, I’d felt his performance inside me. He’d touched my heart, and all he’d done was warm up. What was I supposed to do? I needed to clear my head, think around what he was doing to me, and get on with being professional.

The door opened, and he came through, skates off but no shoes, just damp socks. Which annoyed me. He should be wearing shoes.

“Are you—” He stopped speaking, cutting himself off, and looked at my face.

We were close now, and alone for the first time in days, weeks maybe, since arriving in London. He breathed hard from the routine, and I breathed hard from . . . I didn’t know what. I almost reached for him, but I didn’t know what to do with that urge either.

“Ren?” Concern wrinkled his forehead.

My name, as a question, like he’d said it in the hotel room.

I stepped in, dipped my head, slid my fingers into his hair. His head tilted, his face came up, as though we were dancing, and then my mouth was on his, the kiss soft, an ask, a question, a step in the dark that could go so spectacularly wrong if our balance was off.

But his lips parted, and the brief moment of resistance fell away. I backed him up to the wall, deepening the kiss, asking for more, asking it harder. Not a demand, because he gave it back. The same energy, the same urgency.

We broke apart, breathing, lingering, chest to chest.

I didn’t know what to say or how to explain any of it.

We couldn’t do this, not here, not at any time. But I was lost in his eyes, lost in him.

I’d only ever wanted dance. It was all I knew. Dance was my life. It was my reason for existing.

And now?

The door opened.

I turned away, acted like I was crossing the corridor.

Just another pair of skaters, bags slung over their shoulders. They passed between us, not noticing us or that they’d interrupted anything of importance.