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Symphony and skater became one. The music built to its familiar crescendo, one that I’d committed completely to memory.
Jasper’s powerful body breezed across the ice, never missing a form, never skidding, never faltering. All the confidence I’d seen in past performances rose to the surface as if it’d never left.
He landed every jump with total grace. Whirled through his spins like the music had him in its grasp. Tears pricked my lashes, my emotions surging in time with the melody and the beautiful image that Jasper had created for me and me alone.
By the time he’d finished the routine, he’d totally stolen my breath away. My hands burned with the force of my clapping.
Jasper skated back to me, his chest heaving with the exertion and an odd mix of pride and puzzlement etched on his face. “I made it through the whole thing with no errors.”
“It’s not the first time.”
“Well, no, I just—” He looked back toward the rink and then shook his head.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” I had to order him. “You looked absolutely spectacular out there. Like, it’s a miracle that I haven’t dissolved into a puddle of awe just from seeing it firsthand.”
I pressed my hands to my face in giddy embarrassment. “Holy crap.”
Jasper blinked at me, but his face had brightened. “What?”
My voice came out in a whisper. “It just hit me again. Somehow I’m skating pairs with Jasper St. Pierre. How the fuck did that happen?”
I pinched myself just to make sure it reallywashappening. Jasper watched and then broke into the first real laugh I could remember hearing from him.
I started giggling too. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how crazy this seems to me. A month ago, I didn’t think anyone was ever going to see me skate other than my long-suffering coach, and now somehow this is my life.”
The memory of the very real suffering Coach Balakin must have gone through in the end cut through my good mood, but I kept the pang of loss off my face.
“And here I thought you were trying to avoid feeding my ego,” Jasper said in an unusually relaxed tone. He paused. “I like watching you skate too, you know. You get across some pretty impressive visuals yourself. It’s not like it’s a hardship skating with you.”
I caught my jaw before it dropped right out of my head. “Sometimes you sure make it sound like it is.”
Jasper ducked his head. “That’s not—that’s not really about you. And I wasn’t sure at first. But you’ve definitely got some moves, Punk.”
The compliment set me aglow. “You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that. Telling some kind of story on the ice with the picture I’m creating—that’s what I’m always striving for. It might sound cheesy, but there’s so much awfulness in the world. I want to be someone who’s bringing more joy and beauty to people.”
“Yeah,” Jasper said, his attention completely focused on me again. He cocked his head. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Can I stop you?” I retorted with a smile to show I was teasing.
Jasper drummed his fingers on the boards. “Did you really not know you were good enough to compete—to tell those stories on the ice—any of it? How could younotknow?”
How could I not have?
The question expanded in my mind, repeating over and over. Ever since Niko’s first assurances of my skill, I’d asked myself that same thing until I could barely think about it anymore.
I could say it was Coach Balakin’s fault—that he’d claimed I was falling short of even the most basic professional standards. But was it really?
He’d been an experienced figure skater. He’d competed for Ukraine decades ago.
Could he really have gotten it so wrong? Or had there been another hand at work, directing his coaching just as it’d orchestrated his murder?
Had he truly seen me as a failure… or had Mom paid him off to lie to me in the hopes of killing the dream she’d always seen as pointless?
I couldn’t explain even a fraction of those possibilities in detail, so I settled for a vague approximation.
“I think it’s mostly about my mother. She didn’t really support my interest in skating—talked like it was a waste of time, like I wasn’t good enough to bother. It’s hard to have a clear idea of what you’re capable of when you’ve got a voice from someone that close to you in your head all the time.”
For the second time in this conversation, Jasper stared at me, momentarily speechless. He swiped his hand across his mouth.
