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He was as immersed in the emotions of the routine as I was.
I leaned into his hold, letting him swing me across the ice. A chilly wind whipped up as I sped around just inches above the frozen surface.
A touch of cold slipped right into my chest. What if we screwed this up? What if it all came crashing down in the next few seconds?
Wait—why was I even thinking that?
Jasper’s hand was perfectly solid and steady in mine. Jasper had always been there to lift me and catch me when I needed him to.
Maybe I’d still been holding back just a tiny bit, afraid of letting go completely and trusting him to hold my very life in his hands. But when I considered that thought, I could see how ridiculous it was.
I loved him, and I believed in him too. We could pull this off together. I wasn’t alone, and there was no one left in my life who wanted to tie me down.
That last shred of doubt fled my body. Jasper yanked me up, and I soared into his arms like the angel Niko had dubbed me. A shared gasp warbled over the music as Jasper flung me up over his head straight out of the spin.
I could really fly without my mother’s threats bearing down on me. I could launch myself far beyond the cruel world she’d tried to trap me in.
As my foot touched down again, I tensed my calf just before a wobble could creep through it. Then we were gliding across the ice again in perfect synchronization.
We’d done it. Maybe a hair away from a fault, but we’d fulfilled every requirement for full marks.
A laugh of pure delight tumbled from Jasper’s lips, and I couldn’t help echoing it. We swept through the rest of the routine on a rush of pure elation.
Then, hands clasped together, we lifted them high in our ending pose, my body arced against his. The song finished. Silence reigned.
And applause exploded through the arena.
As we skated over to the stands while the next pair took to the ice, I caught Emi chanting our names. More whoops carried out from across the audience. I sank down onto the bench where we’d receive our scores, trembling from the exertion of the routine and my own awed satisfaction.
Jasper slung his arm around my shoulders. “We really fucking did that, Punk.”
I let out another laugh. “We sure did. You know, I feel like I’ve won something whether we get a medal or not.”
“We’d better getsomething,” Jasper muttered under his breath, but he hadn’t stopped smiling.
The English announcer lifted his voice to declare our scores. “Luna Garcia and Jasper St. Pierre have earned in the free skate one hundred and fifty-three point two five.”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t find the will to reel it back in. We’d gotten more than a hundred and fifty points—that had to be close to the record.
Niko cheered and grabbed us in a joint hug. “That’s your best score yet. They saw just how fantastic you were—and how much you risked with the difficulty of those moves.”
I gripped his arm, my mind whirling. “That—that puts us in first place, doesn’t it?”
“You bet!”
“The Russians still have to go,” Jasper reminded me as we moved to our spot in the stands. “They’re up last.”
I took in the grin that stretched from ear to ear across his face and elbowed him. “And you look so worried about it.”
“Hey, I’ll take a silver. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around that score—and that we pulled the whole thing off so well here at Worlds. Holy crap—mydadsaw that.”
I hugged him close. Hopefully his dad would start to realize that Jasper’s talent wasn’t something that should be suppressed, but even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t mean a thing about the man beside me.
We watched the last few pairs compete, but the whole time I felt weirdly detached. I could appreciate the artistry of the movements, but the adrenaline rush had left me in a giddy state that gave the whole experience an unreal quality. Maybe I was actually dreaming?
Then the Russian pair glided onto the rink, and reality came back into sharper focus. I took in the woman’s immaculate bun and their complimentary costumes, not a seam out of place. A lump rose in my throat.
Music drifted down from the speakers, and the pair became a pair of twin bullets, shooting across the length of the arena. The song they chose to accompany their routine was full of energy, a rock song that felt charged with electricity. The drumbeat matched their quick footwork; not once did the pair fall out of rhythm.
