AllFreeNovel
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Hey you got a perfect score. Be proud of yourself. I am.
Brandon might be the only person proud of me.
Coach spent the hour after the event going over every little thing we both could have done better. It didn’t matter to him that the judges saw a perfect routine. There’s no such thing as perfection in his eyes. There’s always room to improve.
Nina and I get back to our room later that day, and I make a beeline for the bathroom and turn on the shower. When I come out to grab my robe, she’s got my phone in her hand.
“What are you doing, Ashlyn? Are you texting with Eric’s teammate?”
I snatch it out of her hand, heat flaming my cheeks. “So what if I am?”
She strips out of her warm-ups and slips on a minidress as she shakes her head at me like I’m stupid.Worse. Like she feels sorry for me. “Don’t be dense, Ashlyn. Guys like that only want sex. And hey, if that’s what you want, go for it. But after tomorrow, you won’t be mingling with frat boys or football players.”
Nina grabs a pair of black heels from the closet, then turns back around. “Fuck that. You don’t need to be wasting your time with that now. Come out with me tonight. Let’s go have fun. Let’s get in some trouble. Come on ... Let’s live a little.”
“Nina... We’re skating again tomorrow night. Your dad will kill us if he finds out we went out tonight. Plus, honestly, I just want to stretch and soak and sleep.” I tuck my phone in my pocket and glare at her. “And back off. I really like Brandon. He’s different.”
“Oh, sweetie... Sure he is.” Then she grabs a strip of condoms from her suitcase, shoves them in her purse, kisses my cheek, and opens the door. “Everything is gonna change tomorrow, Ashlyn. One way or another, we’re gonna burn it all down tomorrow.”
When she shuts the door behind herself, I play her words over in my head.
I’ve never heard Nina say anything like that before.
Everything is gonna change—Yes.
Burn it all down—No.
* * *
Brandon
Iskip my Wednesday afternoon architecture lecture so I can watch Ashlyn skate in real time. I don’t want to wait for the replay tonight. I want to see what my girl does when she does it. Because whether she knows it yet or not, she’s already mine. It didn’t take long to think about her that way either.
Nina skates second to some kind of classical song. She’s good. I can see why everyone thinks she’s got a good shot at the gold, but I still think Ashlyn’s better.
The judges keep talking about this triple-quadruple combination she’s got.
And holy shit.
She pulls off the triple part, but something happens.
Did her skate just get caught?
She falls instead of landing the second jump.
The judges start talking about the technicality of the jump and what just happened. Then they start talking about the fact that she’s not getting up. She’s just sitting on the ice, looking into the crowd. It sounds like they were expecting her to finish her routine. But instead, Nina waits for her song to end, then stands, bows, and skates off the ice, over to where Ashlyn waits with their coach. The camera zooms on Nina saying something to Ashlyn before she spits in her dad’s face and walks away.
Then they zoom in tighter on Ashlyn’s face as they wait for her to take the ice.
What the fuck just happened?
How’s she gonna skate after that?
But she does. She pushes off and skates to the middle of the ice, then waits for her music to start. It’s haunting at first, and I can’t place it until a woman starts to sing where I’m used to hearing Axl Rose. She’s skating to “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”
She’s skating to my favorite song.
And when they tighten up on her face, I can see it.
