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“Fine,” I breathe out uneasily. My shoulders just about moan with relief when I finally give the muscles a rest and let my arms hang naturally at my sides.
“Push off with your left blade,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here behind you.” He gives my side a tiny squeeze, his fingertips briefly pressing into me. Does he have any idea what kind of sparks that tiny motion sets off all over my body?
Sucking in a sharp breath through grit teeth, I do what Hudson says. I push forward with my left blade, sending myself sliding ahead.
“Now do the same with your right blade,” Hudson says.
I do. Then I push off with my left again. Then with my right again. Suddenly, I’m skating, and I actually don’t think I’m going to fall down and die.
“See? You’re a natural.”
I send a sharp look over my shoulder to my fake boyfriend. “Don’t patronize me.”
Hudson’s deep laughter goes right to my core. “Fine,” he concedes. “You’re not totally hopeless. Better?”
“What are you doing?” I gasp when I feel Hudson pull his hands away from my sides.
“You’re fine, Summer. I’ll still be right behind you.”
A low, distressed sound hums from my throat, but Hudson’s right. I am fine. I’m able to keep skating.
“This is kinda fun,” I say once the nervous butterflies flapping around in my stomach settle down a little.
Hudson sidles next to me on his skates. Those butterflies take flight again as I realize that he’s no longer right behind me, his arms waiting to gather me up if I lose my balance.
When he crooks a smile at me and beams a prideful look through his eyes, the nervousness dies down, only to be replaced by a very different kind of fluttering feeling.
“How’s practice going?” Hudson asks as we skate side by side.
“Good,” is my answer, but I deliver it in a flat note that Hudson doesn’t miss.
“What’s wrong?”
I force a laugh. “I said good, didn’t I?”
“That’s not the way the Summer I know says something’s going good when she really means it.” The knowing spark in his eye is the end of my ability to fib.
I let out an honest sigh. “I mean, really, practice is going well. We know the piece like the back of our hands. We have good chemistry as a duo. But it’s just …” Another sigh. “I don’t know if it’s enough. This is a really tough competition, and every time I play, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something, something that it takes to win competitions like that, something that I just don’t know how to channel and tap into. Something that people like … Sean have.”
Wow. That’s a load off my mind. It’s only when I finally let it out that I realize how much weight I’ve been carrying by keeping that feeling bottled up.
“I’ve seen you play, Summer,” Hudson says. “Anything it takes to win any level of competition, you have it, and then some.”
It feels good to hear Hudson say that. Honestly, it feels really good. But does it mean anything?
Hudson might like to listen to a little classical music here and there, but he doesn’t know how judges evaluate competitions like the one Jeremy and I headed to.
When a couple beats pass without me responding, Hudson pushes off on his skates and rounds in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders to stop my forward momentum.
“I mean it,” he says, locking me in with his eyes. “You’re fucking incredible. From the first video of yours I ever saw. I’ve never taken music classes, I can’t play any instrument for shit myself, I don’t know the terminologies or anything like that … but fuck, Summer, there’s something you do with music that makes it not just touch the ears, but the heart. You think Sean has something you don’t?”
Hudson’s sharp features pinch together in distaste as he utters Sean’s name. It’s like he’s spitting out a tiny bug that flew into his mouth.
“Sean’s music barely even touches the ears,” he continues. “It’s all a performance for him. You’d might as well play a song over the speakers and have him just sit in a chair with no piano in front of him, just gesticulating with those weird faces he makes.”
Laughter hurtles out of me. The entire Brumehill music department fawns over Sean so much that you never hear a peep of negativity about his passionate style of playing. I wonder just how many people other than me have Hudson’s exact thoughts rattling around in their brains, too.
“But that’s what judges like these days,” I say after my laughter ebbs. “Drama. Performance. Personality.”
