Page 80 of Ice Dance

TWENTY-EIGHT

CAMDEN

I’d slept, but not much. My body was looser than it had any right to be, and much of that had been down to the off-ice “training” Hasegawa and I had been doing late last night.

None of that showed on his face when he arrived at the rink. None of it showed on mine either.

Preview day.

Like selection day, only more difficult. This wasn’t about having a chance to dance in the Meridian; this was about proving to everyone watching that we were professional ice dancers with a high chance of winning this thing.

I rolled my shoulders and winced at the pain. Hasegawa wore black, tightly fitting sports gear to my blue.

I chewed on my nails while Dylan took us into a side room and gave us a last-minute pep talk that boiled down to, “Do not fuck this up and we’re good until December.” I hadn’t been this nervous since my first serious skating competition at eighteen. I’d won that one.

I could do this.

I wasn’t just the local boy who happened to skate well.

I wasn’t the shadow to Hasegawa’s light.

I could damn well do this on my own merit.

His hand came down lightly on my arm as we left the room, and his gaze caught mine, saying all the things he couldn’t say out loud. A startling memory sideswiped me—him, facing me, his dick fucking my thighs, and those stunning eyes burning into mine. I smiled, almost shyly, which was a first for me. Hasegawa’s lips twitched, as though he knew exactly what I was thinking. The memory gave me something else to think about, and the anxiety dissolved.

The music we’d chosen for the piece was “Way Down We Go” by Kaleo. When it played, it started off slow for the distance sequence, the beat deep and dramatic, clearly building to something, then it picked up in its middle, tripling the beat for the technically difficult argument before opening up at the end for the surrender. Today, we were just running the argument.

Just? The surrender sequence was brutal. We had to build up speed and momentum, without the opening, get on the ice and make it sing for us, then cut each other up as though engaged in physical fighting, before spilling out into a dramatic hold, twist, and lift, in full motion across the ice.

We could do it. We’d done it in training. But could we do it when it mattered?

The panel were in their seats. The rest of the rink was empty, closed for previews only.

Hasegawa skated out onto the ice. I followed. And we took our places, bodies primed, skates poised, heads up.

Breathe.

I could do this.

I could ice dance with one of the most talented skaters of this generation and not let him, or myself, down.

I could not fuck this up.

Breathe.

The music began, and everything left my head except for the steps, the motion, the beat, the breathing, and every single place I had to put my body on the ice at every precise moment. We’d practiced so much that I didn’t think about the steps so much as guide my body into each sequence.

Time slowed, seconds stretched.

Hasegawa’s hands on me, precisely where they needed to be. It didn’t just click, it was a fucking symphony of two men who may not know poetry off the ice, but created something beautiful on it. The tempo tripled. Toe spins, backward brackets, Hasegawa always in the corner of my vison, mirroring every move with absolute precision. I knew it was good. I could feel it, like an electric thread connected us, a thread so strong that we couldn’t fail.

We crossed over, and that precision along with hours upon hours of training kept us from colliding. I almost felt his breath on my face, imagined I could hear his heartbeat. Twizzle, drop, spin, tight, up, slower. Step into Hasegawa, who was always there, exactly where he should be. Hands on mine, pushed out, step back. Damn, we had this.

Breathe.

Push into the edge, speed, everything a blur, into reverse step sequence, controlled collision. Hasegawa’s hands on my hips twist, the waist, head bowed, breath on my neck, hand at my back, turn, tilt, strength transfer, lift.

A beat, I curved, shifting my weight into a controlled descent. Something in my hip twinged. Pain shot through the right thigh, down, through my knee. I clamped my teeth together and came off the exit exactly where I needed to be.