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Not that I really wanted to hang around him this much, but I knew there wasn’t a hope in hell of me doing anything for Lou on my own. I wouldn’t even know how to get in touch with her.
Squaring my shoulders, I dropped my bag on one of the benches and retrieved my skates. The ice looked decently smooth, at least. If there was anything that could make me feel better, it was honing my performance.
It’d be nice to get lost in the practice zone just for a little while. And I was going to need that practice to get up to speed with my routines.
By the time I’d laced up, Jasper and Niko had already moved onto the ice. Niko was saying something in a low voice and motioning to one end of the rink.
I wasn’t sure how Jasper was going to get much done without Lou here, but I guessed he could work on his spins and jumps, if not the synchronization piece. It wasn’t any of my business. They hadn’t said a word directly to me since we’d come in—obviously they planned to have their own little practice session separate from me, like I wasn’t even here.
Restraining a sigh, I pushed off across the ice. With each flex of my muscles, I felt how many days it’d been since I’d gotten a proper workout. Strength exercises and cardio routines in the apartment just didn’t cut it.
I closed my eyes, playing the song from my short routine in my head from memory. Niko said something that I ignored until I caught my name.
I blinked and looked over at him. He shot me a wary smile. “How much practice do you expect to do without your partner?”
Jasper muttered something I couldn’t totally make out but might have been along the lines of that I’d better not think I was stealing his. My teeth set on edge, but I answered with cool evenness.
“I didn’t rank high enough to qualify for Nationals in pairs anyway. I’m going back to singles—I can compete based on last year’s ranking.”
Niko’s narrow eyebrows arched slightly. “That could be tricky when you haven’t been practicing your singles routines for most of the season.”
I shrugged. “I’ll manage.”
He had no idea what I was capable of. I’d pulled off plenty of trickier tasks in my life—like getting to this point in my career at all.
The two of them wouldn’t know anything about the kind of struggles that’d taken. Especially Jasper born with that silver spoon up his ass.
I cast off into a brief series of warm-up moves, getting a feel for the ice. Niko went back to ignoring me while Jasper started his own warm-up.
I was just considering where to start my real practice when the door next to Rafael swung open.
A petite but curvy figure appeared with a swish of a familiar dark ponytail. Lou bobbed up to give Rafael a quick kiss and then hustled down the steps to the rink, where Jasper and Niko were already skating over to the boards to greet her.
The sight of her gorgeous face, lit up with the bright smile that stretched wider as she took them in, made my heart skip a beat. And the athletic slopes of her body in her tight long-sleeved tee and leggings… God, that woman was something.
Something that wanted nothing to do with me. She grabbed Jasper and then Niko in an embrace before yanking on her skates, the flush in her cheeks somehow making her even prettier. But as far as I could tell, she didn’t so much as glance my way.
“I don’t think Mom suspected anything,” she told them in a breathless tone that made me want to capture even more of her breath from her lips. “But I can’t stay more than an hour.”
“I’m just glad you could make it at all,” Jasper said in a tone I could have gagged at, especially because Lou responded by giving him an emphatic kiss.
It wasn’t really disgust roiling inside me. Jealousy seared through my chest.
But what had I expected? I’d been a total prick to her and her partner for months, even if her partner at least partly deserved it.
It was going to take time before she realized I could offer something good too.
I turned away and narrowed my thoughts back to my routine. I knew the moves by heart. It shouldn’t be that hard to trigger the muscle memory.
My mind drifted into the comfortable zone of calculation. I knew exactly how many inches I needed to lift my leg with this spin, or to get off the ice in that jump—and how manymoreinches would take me from acceptable to applause-worthy.
As much as I wanted to be at the latter stage immediately, it was better for my body to aim a little lower to start. A strained muscle or tendon could end the whole competition for me.
Piece by piece, I’d build what I could achieve back up.
I pushed off the ice, picturing the exact angle that my body would need to tilt to perfect the first move. My eyes narrowed as I sped forward.
Another powerful push, this time upward. I twisted my body in a perfect pre-rotation, and smiled when I came down under two thirds of a second later. A textbook triple Axel, from my airtime to the position of my body.
