Dom shoved his hands in his front pockets, shoulders pulled back. “How could we choose to date people who have such boring tastes?”
Against my better judgement, I laughed and gave him a playful shove. “You can’t say that!” I scolded. I looked around, making sure that Emma or Brandon hadn’t snuck up on us and overheard. That would’ve sent the whole day to hell.
“I just did,” he said, grinning back. “Emma is great in a lot of ways, and I’m sure Brandon is too, even though he doesn’t seem like the roller coaster type, but they don’t have your love of flying.”
“To be fair, I wouldn’t describe most of what we were doing today as flying. It was a lot more like falling,” I argued.
“Lots of it was, yes,” he conceded, “but we also went upside down and spun around, both things that you seem to enjoy.”
I couldn’t argue with that. It was a good thing too, because Brandon was back with a beer in each hand. “I got you one too, Hazel,” he said, placing the cold can in my hand.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip before it could spill. Turning back to Dom, I asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to buy something? We could wait here for Emma while you go and then go meet up with you.”
Dom shook his head. “I’m good,” he said, pushing his hair out of his face. “Anyway, there’s Emma right now.”
"What next?" she asked, resting her hand by Dom's elbow.
I bit the inside of my lip. Shit. I'd gotten distracted when he made me laugh. Now the opportunity to bring up the conversation I'd had with Emma was gone for the time being.
“I think we need to finish the beers first,” I said. Come to think of it, that might have been part of Brandon’s plan all along. If we were drinking we’d have to take a break for a while. It also meantI wouldn’t be able to ditch him to go on rides. Not that I’d been planning on doing that, of course, but he may have been worried that I would.
Emma's posture visibly relaxed. “If you guys can find a place to sit, I want to find something to eat.”
Taking a break would dig into the limited time we had left, but if Brandon and Emma would both be happier doing that, I would need to accept it. Anything that would put them more at ease, if it helped to convince them we should all get along. If that meant filling up on food that was as terrible for our bodies as it was tasty and looking into the severely overpriced shops, so be it.
We had time to go on almost all the other rides before Emma had to leave. Dom and I were even able to convince the other two to let us take one more ride on the Titan while they waited off to the side. Every time I looked over, Brandon was standing silently while Emma talked. That made me nervous. I hoped she was just a chatterbox and that he wasn’t being rude. He had been quieter than he normally was all day. I hoped it was because he wasn’t great around new people, not because of simmering anger or jealousy.
By the time we got off the last ride, I was ready to go home, if only to get out of the heat. With the long summer days, it was still as hot as ever at dinnertime. Sitting in the air-conditioned car came as a relief.
Brandon didn’t talk much when we first got in, but I didn’t mind. I was chugging water like nobody’s business. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was while rushing from one place to the next, but once I was sitting still, it was all I could think about. We were already several minutes away from the park when I said, “Thank you for doing this.” I reached over to rest my hand on Brandon’s thigh while he drove. “It means a lot to me that you agreed to hang out with Dom and get to know him. Now that you’ve met him and Emma, are you less worried?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but his knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. Shit. “Do you seriously not see it?”
That was not the answer I’d been expecting. “Not see what?” I asked, confused. I had no idea what he was talking about.
His words were choppy, spoken between gritted teeth. “She looks like you!”
I blinked a few times, stunned. It was so preposterous that it was hard to take him seriously. “What?” I asked. I tried to hold back my laughter, but struggled. It was only going to make him more upset. “She doesn’t look like me at all. First of all, did you see her body? That’s not a trick question.” I couldn’t be mad at him for thinking Emma was hot. She had the sort of figure most women wanted to have. “She is tall and curvy, both things that I don’t have a dream of being. Plus, she is way more pulled together than I ever am.” In my well-loved t-shirt and ponytail, I had felt very plain next to her.
“You’re wearing makeup and short shorts too,” Brandon said, eyes darting to me.
“Now, yeah, because we were going out to do stuff in public. But if you saw me when I went to practice, you would not think that I would get anyone’s attention. I don’t style my hair and I don’t put on makeup. There’s not much point, because I turn into a sweaty mess really quickly. Plus, everybody I work with has seen me at my most awkward. If you don’t believe me, I will show you a picture of me at thirteen." I knew I was rambling, but I couldn't stop. "I was not cute, just scrawny with braces and hair I didn’t know how to control. There is no coming back from looking like that, even if you wanted to.”
Brandon didn’t look convinced. “You also have the same colouring as Emma. Your hair is a similar shade of brown and she had green eyes, too.”
“You are reading into this way too much,” I said. Half of the people in the city had medium brown hair. “I am with you. Domis with Emma. You need to accept that he and I are going to be spending a ton of time together over the next year. I’m going to be travelling with him for competitions. This partnership is a vital part of something I have been working towards my entire life. I need you to accept that and be supportive.”
His expression made it seem like there was a bad taste in his mouth. He was not happy, but he understood the implication of what would happen if he didn’t learn to accept it. His jealousy would not get in the way of my skating. I didn’t expect him to love Dom or for them to become best friends. But I did need Brandon to realize his fears were unfounded. I had never given him a reason not to trust me. It was on him to find acceptance.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Itiedmyhairagain,pulling it into a bun on the top of my head and then wrapping another elastic around it. It would never be secure enough to stay in a competition or even in a proper practice, but for going over footwork off the ice, it would have to work. I didn’t want to take the time to do it properly, but I was desperate to get my sweaty hair off my neck. Even with a cropped tank top and leggings, I was hot. This room needed better airflow.
Mark was scheduled to be coaching one of his men’s skaters for the next hour or so. I had seen Olga working with her teenage prodigy on the ice earlier, the young girl flying through extremely difficult jumps with apparent ease. I had taken a minute to watch her execute a flawless combination quadruple toe loop followed by a double toe loop before going to meet Dom. For now, he and I were on our own. It would never have worked when we were younger and more inexperienced. But now that we were so determined and dedicated, Mark and Olga trusted us to work without supervision.
I stopped most of the way across the room in the middle of what would be a high-value step sequence in competition. “You are going too fast,” I complained to Dom. The sequence was a required element. The judges would be even more finicky than Olga, if that was possible. We needed to be in perfect sync with each other and with the music. “You keep getting faster as we go.”
