Tasha lifted her chin and shrugged slightly again. “The sale was unexpected.”
Kristen shoved her free hand into her sweatshirt’s front pocket. “Know what you’re going to do?”
An invisible band around Tasha’s chest tightened, making breathing harder. Her eyelids burned. She blinked.
Do.Not.Cry.
Tears would change nothing, and she didn’t need Mom commenting on Tasha’s red-rimmed eyes. Nope. She had this.
She schooled her features the way Mom had taught Tasha when she had to stand on a stepstool to see the bathroom mirror. They’d practiced expressions until the various faces became second nature. She went for nonchalant. It was a tad more approachable, friendly, than the uncommitted one. “No idea.”
Kristen’s gaze sharpened. “You must hate not knowing.”
Tasha cleared her dry throat. Her voice was harder to control when she got emotional. “I do.”
“This might be a blessing in disguise. You’re too talented for a run-down, twenty-year-old rink. You could coach or choreograph or do something outside of skating.”
Even though Mom and Dad told the staff they sold the rink on advice from their accountant, they also believed working at the rink kept Tasha from reaching her true potential. She’d been too afraid to ask if she’d been a reason for the sale. Afraid her getting too comfortable had cost Wishing Bay its ice rink. “Skating is all I know.”
Kristen started to speak but then pressed her lips together.
“What?” Tasha asked.
“Nothing.”
Tasha half laughed. They might not be friends, but she remembered Kristen’s tells as if nothing had changed. “That’s not true.”
Kristen exhaled slowly. “Skating hasn’t been kind to you.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
But the entire ice world and anyone who followed figure skating knew that. Unfortunately, the hits kept coming, but Tasha hadn’t thought her parents would be the ones firing her this time. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have been surprised. They were just two more in a long line that included Kristen.
Heat rushed through Tasha’s body. “That’s why I’ve spent the last three years managing this ice rink. But you haven’t been kind to me, either.”
There.
Tasha had finally said it. Something she’d wanted to say for years. It wasn’t the day to go all-in with her emotions, but too late. And the weight she’d carried for far too long lifted, floating away like grains of sand in the wind.
Kristen’s features hardened into a frown. “I had my reasons.”
Ones that had nothing to do with Tasha and everything to do with Alek, Mom, and Dad. Yet, she’d been the one to pay the price. “Your reasons didn't make it any easier on me.”
Though she didn’t expect an apology, Tasha found herself wanting one. Too much time had passed, however, and it turned out Alek had made the correct decision for his career by closing the door on his friendship with Kristen, his high school sweetheart.
Maybe Tasha should do the same, given nothing would be the same after the rink’s doors closed for the last time today. She had no reason to remain in Wishing Bay or to stay in touch with anyone beyond a text on birthdays or Christmas. Even then, that might be unnecessary.
Kristen rubbed the back of her neck. “I heard your narcissist ex-skating partner got you fired as the assistant choreographer for the Nutcracker Holiday Ice show in Seattle.”
Subject change, but Tasha had said what she needed to.
“Rumor, but it’s most likely true.” On the twenty-fifth, if anyone was keeping track. The date had been burned on her heart, one more reminder to stay away from the guy. Drew Maddox had disappointed her or broken her heart more times than she cared to remember. But she'd never imagined he wanted to destroy her, especially after so long. They’d broken up more than six years ago. “You told me to watch out for him way back when. I should have listened.”
But the attention of the older, handsome skater who wanted to be Tasha’s partner on and off the ice had filled a need to belong she still couldn’t fully explain. Except everything she’d thought about him had been wrong. He hadn’t filled a thing. Instead, he’d taken everything she had to give. Everything she’d once been.
It was Kristen’s turn to shrug. “Some lessons have to be learned the hard way.”
“I learned them.” And boy, talk about hard.
