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And he aimed it right at me.
A whoop I knew was Niko’s carried from the boards. A pang ran through my heart at the connection I felt to both of these men who’d come together to build my dream with me.
With the last note of the song fading, a moment of silence gripped the arena. My pulse only had the chance to stutter with concern once before a thunder of applause broke out through the stands.
I looked up at them, watching rows of spectators stand as they brought their hands together. So many more smiles beamed down at me. One old man in the front hastily wiped away a tear with the back of his glove.
My grin stretched even wider, happiness surging up inside me as if it would carry me all the way to the ceiling.
Was the sicko who’d been harassing me watching up there too? Let him.
I was a force to be reckoned with. I hadn’t let my mother destroy my life, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let any psycho stranger do it either.
And this was only the beginning.
TWO
Luciana
Waitingfor our scores felt like the longest few minutes of my life. We’d gone last, so the number the judges were calculating would determine exactly where we placed in the rankings.
The thing was done. We could sit back and celebrate the fact that we’d made it through the routine so flawlessly, no matter how we did in the actual competition itself. Nerves or not, I wanted to savor this moment for all it was worth.
And it was worth the world to me.
My hands wound tightly together as I rested them in my lap, my butt freezing from the chilled metal bench. Beside me, Jasper’s knee jiggled up and down in his anxiety.
Niko, though, was as still as a cat who had spotted a mouse, his bright brown eyes on the judges as they marked down our scores. My eyes flicked over to the announcer as another employee handed him a sheet of paper.
Oh, Lord. Here it comes.
My stomach lifted as though I were about to go hurtling down a roller coaster’s steep first drop. The announcer adjusted his glasses and squinted down at whatever was written there.
“And the score for our final pair is… fifty-two point three-nine! That puts them in first place.”
First place.
Those two words beat around in my skull, echoing like a shout into a cave. Jasper and Niko let out a joint cheer.
The crowd was whooping and clapping, but I could barely even hear them. I was frozen, stunned by what we’d just accomplished.
With this being our first routine as a pair and there not being much time to prepare for the small local competition, we hadn’t included the most complex moves that could have made an even higher score possible. I’d already calculated the maximum we could possibly achieve with the jumps and lifts we were going to perform, and we’d come just a couple of points shy of total perfection.
A grin broke across my face, and I spun toward Jasper to wrap my arms around him. He laughed and hugged me back.
This was real. We’d not just competed butwon.
As I let go of Jasper, Niko grabbed me in an embrace of his own. “I hope that puts all those doubts your old coach gave you out of your head.”
A choked giggle sputtered out of me. “I guess it has to.”
Had Coach Balakin ever imagined I’d be capable of this? Would he have been surprised or sad because he’d always known he was holding me back under my mother’s orders?
Niko pulled back and beamed at the two of us. “I only wish you could have seen your routine from the stands. It was breathtaking. Just stunning. I got it on video, but that won’t compare at all to the experience you just gave these people. Congratulations!”
“Congratulations to you, too,” Jasper said, nudging Niko’s shoe with his. His smile was sunnier than I’d ever seen it. “You’re the one that got us here.”
“We won.” I breathed out in a giddy rush. “We… we really did it!”
