Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm now apparently making them ice skate.
Anyagal is graciously pre-reading for me.
Retreat & Withdraw
Like every other day, my alarm goes off at four-thirty.
After nearly two months–not one–in Europe, my body is confused, however, and jetlag has me dragging. It's tempting to sleep in, just a little, but I'm not wired that way, and I know if I were to crawl back under those warm flannel sheets, my almost pathological sense of inner guilt wouldn't cooperate.
Plus, I'd never hear the end of it from Katya.
So, with a yawn, I roll out of bed, not bothering to make it up now that there's no one else to see it, and I push through my morning routine. Shoving my hair into an easy ponytail, I throw on the usual uniform of black leggings and a matching fitted top. Like usual, I eat my first breakfast on the way to the complex, vaguely registering the mounds of fresh snow now lining the highways. By six, after a long session of stretches and a warm-up on the treadmill, I pull off my guards and step out onto the ice.
This early, there's only a handful of other people: Angela and Eric at one end, dumbass Jessica Stanley and her bleach-blonde partner Mike at the other, and then a handful of junior singles practicing their jumps on the jump harnesses in the center.
Earbuds in, I do my usual laps, picking up speed and power as I go through a long set of stroking, glides, crossovers, and turns. Before I'm even halfway through, my lungs burn from the weeks spent at lower elevation. That extra boost was the whole point of moving to Colorado Springs to train to begin with. Well, that and Katya, but it's crazy how mere weeks away can start to undo years of conditioning.
Why I'm so worried about conditioning, I have no clue.
After two months, seven failed tryouts, and zero prospects on the horizon, there's no way I'm competing this season.
Next isn't looking much better.
As I race past the familiar beige-gray walls, pinpricks sting my eyes, and a bubble expands inside my chest, pressing against my ribcage and leaving me aching. When I glance up at the proud multi-colored rings hanging on the distant wall, everything bleeds together into a muted watercolor.
My teeth snap together. I suck in a steadying breath, digging deep and forcing back the unwanted surge of emotion. For starters, I hate crying, and I've done more than enough of that these last few months. But more importantly, there's no way in hell I'm giving Jess new material.
With a quick, surreptitious swipe at my eyes, I come out of a loop and throw my body high into the air, death-dropping into a tight, fast sit spin that turns the arena into a rainbow kaleidoscope. When I rise and transition into a layback and finally a scratch, I'm spinning so fast that I'm little more than a streaky blur.
After so many weeks of holding back, it feels good to let loose.
Ignoring the rest of my practice sequence, I switch to one of Jake's and my older routines, swapping the lifts for choreography of my own, along with a few unsanctioned jumps. At this point… who cares. Either way, Chop & Change was one of our more playful programs, quick, punchy, and complicated, and for a while, I get lost in muscle memory and the cool air parting against my skin.
By the time I hit the deep hydroblade at the end, my heart's pounding, and my lungs are screaming. I'm slanting so close to horizontal that my ponytail drags across the ice, and as I finish it off with a dramatic one-knee slide, I finally look up, only to catch Angela's beaming grin.
Eric in tow, she skates over to me right after and knocks into me the second I stand. Throwing her arms around my neck, she laughs and laughs. "Hell yeah, B!"
"Whatever." Shaking my head, I give her a tight squeeze before pulling away so I can breathe and scrub at the sheen of sweat dampening my face. "Just some old stuff."
"Pfft!" Angela rolls her eyes as Eric tugs me into a wordless, one-armed hug. "Your old stuff is still better than anyone else's new stuff." She eyes her partner, who just looks at her with his usual blend of amusement and patient affection. "Well? Am I wrong?"
Eric shoots me a knowing smile as he turns me loose. "Never."
"I'm being serious!" Ang's fist bounces off his rock-hard abdomen, and his smile instantly widens. "Anyway, when did you get back?"
"Last night."
"And you're here?" Angela's eyes boggle. "What's wrong with you?"
"Is that a trick question?" I ask, and when I arch an impassive brow, she freezes like a deer in headlights.
There's a long, pregnant pause, then she lets out an exasperated huff and takes a swipe at me. "Gah! You know what I mean! I wasn't talking about… that!"
Of course, I do, but where's the fun in that?
"Yeah, yeah," I say, laughing as I dodge her second swipe, "sure, you weren't."
"I wasn't!"
A few seconds later, a raven-haired pre-teen accidentally buzzes us, so we skate over to the wall, and I grab a bottle of water. As I turn back, I catch myself in one of the massive wall mirrors. Not counting the flush from my workout and a pair of sorely chapped lips, I'm even paler than I was before I left. My cheeks are drawn. A haunted gray stains the hollows of my eyes. And those look tired and flat, a boring, lifeless brown.
If eyes are the window to the soul, well, there you go.
We spend a couple more minutes catching up. I find out that Eric's older brother is visiting from California, along with his grandma from Tokyo. Angela's youngest sister has finally started working on her triples, and her mom just finished up her last round of chemo.
"How's she doing?" I ask, picturing the sweet, round-faced woman who'd once welcomed me to Colorado with open arms, and who, after my own mom had had enough, had always treated me like the bonus daughter she'd always wanted. At least when I'd let her.
Angela's responding radiant grin tells me everything I need to know. "Her oncologist says they think they got it this time for good."
"Thank, God." Relief courses through my veins, easing a tension I didn't realize I was holding. When I latch onto Angela's slender hand, I register the tiny tremor in hers, and I don't miss the subtle, reassuring grip Eric has on her hip. "Do you think she feels up to me coming by? Or should I wait a little longer?"
"Of course." Angela says it like I'm an idiot. "She's been talking about you non-stop. I swear, she's asked me every day when you were coming back."
Another thread of tension unwinds. "Then I'll swing by tonight. I picked up some of those weird hard candies she likes from the Old Town."
Angela huffs. "You are such a suck-up!"
"So?" I laugh. "Your point is?"
A few moments later, Angela unconsciously leans into her partner. Quieter, she asks me, "So… how was it? You were pretty cagey in your texts."
I slug back a gulp of ice-cold water, flinching when random droplets hit my bare midriff, then shake my head.
"No one?" Her smile falters.
I shake my head again and stare down at the swirling scratch marks in the ice. "There were a couple that were… okay, but…"
"No chemistry," she says, finishing for me. "Not even Marek? Ugh, I thought he would be the one, for sure, especially now that Renata's retiring." When I don't answer, her cheeks puff out like a chipmunk's before slowly deflating. "Shit. What are you going to do?"
I glance up, blinking against those damned pinpricks again. "Honestly? I have no idea."
Because I don't.
Eric clears his throat. "How about singles?"
A bark of a laugh tumbles out before I can stop it. "Seriously? I'm too old to go back at this point. You know that."
His shoulders rise and fall in a casual shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. If anyone could pull it off, it'd be you." Nose crinkling, he adds in a dry scoff. "And you're not old, Swan."
It's a sweet suggestion, offered by one of the two nicest people on the planet, but… "Yeah, it's a thought, but it's been way too long since I did any real jumping." Speaking of, my face splits in two. "Forget me for a minute, did you see Ilia last week? Six quads in a single program – six! Can you hit those, flyboy?"
Eric snorts. "Sure, and break my neck trying."
Angela's fingers thread between his, as natural as breathing. "And then who'd carry me around?"
With a quick peek at the sheer flouncy skirt Angela's sporting over her leggings, Eric wags his brows. "I'm sure you'd find someone. I know a few who'd line up."
As I watch their easy banter, something niggles at my consciousness. It's like an itch that I can't quite scratch. A beat later, a shadow flirts with my periphery. Slowly, I pivot, scanning the perimeter until I spot an unfamiliar figure cut in all black, casually leaning against the wall.
Our eyes lock across the ice.
And for a split second, everything grinds to a screeching halt.
My surroundings fade into the background. The noise from the arena drops to a dull roar.
Like most around here, the guy's tall, limber, and leanly muscled, with a strong jawline, a piercing stare, and a shock of short, messy hair the color of a dirty penny. Based on his body shape and easy posture, I peg him a little older than me, maybe somewhere close to mid-twenties.
He's good-looking, too.
Stupidly so.
Even across the ice, I can tell that much.
Unlike most around here, he's inked, though. Swaths of vibrant color and intricate designs twine his bare forearms. More peeks out from his fitted joggers, littering his calves and shins, and I can't help but wonder what else he might be hiding.
Regardless, as soon as he steps out onto the ice, I realize he's easily the most powerful skater here. Earbuds in, he moves like lightning, with effortless grace, skill, and the kind of innate magnetism that makes my stomach give an involuntary flip.
"Who's that?" I ask, watching the subtle flex in his calves as he does a quick series of crossovers.
Eric tracks my gaze. "New guy."
I roll my eyes. "Really? You don't say."
"Showed up while you were gone, about a month or so ago," Eric says, dry as the desert. "Surprised you didn't hear about him." Cracking a grin, he gives Angela's ponytail a playful tug when she scowls at him. "Apparently, he's the talk of the women's locker room."
Angela sniffs. "Jealous?"
"Of course not." Eric's grin widens, then he nods at the guy as he rounds the upper corner. "Name's Edward Cullen."
My nose scrunches as I wrack my brain. "Cullen… didn't he skate out of Europe at one point?"
"Used to skate pairs with Tanya Voronova," Angela says, nodding almost conspiratorially. "They split a couple of years ago, and he took a year or two off to go ride motorcycles or something."
One brow lifts. "Motorcycles?"
"Something like that, I don't know." Huffing, Angela throws her hands up with dramatic flair. "That's the rumor anyway."
Mid-ice, Cullen shifts into a forward position. Without realizing it, I hold my breath as he launches himself into the air in an explosive delayed axel. His height and distance are incredible.
He looks like he's flying in slow motion.
"So, what's he doing here?"
Angela shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine."
.
.
.