“Five, six, seven, eight…” We pushed off and started the sequence. It was only about thirty seconds long. As we finished our last crossover, she spun and placed her hands on my shoulders, preparing to go into the lift we had yet to practice. Her touch was soft, but it lingered, her fingers warm against the fabric of my T-shirt. Her breath brushed my ear, fast and shallow. It was just part of the routine, but something about the way she felt in my grasp had my pulse pickingup.
She released me, her lips stretching into a radiant curve as her eyes lit up. She was clearly unaffected by our proximity. “That was so much better,” she said. I nodded, acknowledging the compliment. Her joy was overwhelming sometimes.
“We’ve got two hours left on the ice if we want it. Do you want to take a break for twenty and meet back here?”
“Sure,” I answered as we skated across the rink to the seats where we’d left our bags. Jack’s space was empty, as he was helping out with an incident at his parents’ summer camp.
Stepping off the ice, I unlaced my boots and pulled on my trainers. Matilda was scrolling around on her phone when I exited through the double doors to get a drink from the café. I picked out two bottles of water, an apple, and a brownie for her because she seemed to inhale anything sweet and barely ate when we were practicing.
Muffled voices echoed around the rink as I returned to the studio. I hadn’t realized anyone else was there today.
I searched for where the voices came from, and my jaw clenched.
Matilda was skating backward while holding a woman’s hands, the woman’s male partner watching and mumbling instructions. He said something that caused the woman to stumble, but Matilda stopped her from hitting the ice and kept guiding her. They paused, and Matilda slowly demonstrated how the skate should slide on the ice, picking up on the problem spot for the other woman. They repeated the same sequence until the woman managed to execute it without stumbling.
I watched from the sidelines, counting every minute that passed—minutes we should have spent practicing.
Is she seriously training our opponents? Why the fuck is she helping them?
She said she wanted to win the show, and teaching ourcompetition to skate better seemed like the worst way to ensure that happened. I could have bet my last dollar—or pound—that they wouldn’t be helping us if it were the other way around.
Matilda spotted me, and she smiled. My fingers tightened around my phone.
I dumped the packaged brownie into her bag and met her at the entrance to the rink. I ran my hands through my hair, annoyed.
“Were you helping them?” I asked flatly.
“They’re my friends.”
“They’re also our competition.” I crossed my arms. “Do you honestly think they’d help us if it was the other way around? Why would you want them to get better?”
“Because that’s what people do when others ask for help?” She tilted her head, puzzled. Was she being serious? I felt like someone could hit her with a five-ton monster truck, and she’d still climb out from the wreckage and offer them a smile.
“Helping the competition could be the difference between us and them winning the show.”
“They won’t win the show because I guided them through a small beginner’s sequence, Luca.” She copied my stance and crossed her arms, her smile shrinking by the second.
“It’s a waste of our practice time.”
“I couldn’t not help them,” she whispered, not wanting them to overhear. “They came over from their practice rink to speak to me. What was I supposed to say?”
“How about ‘no’?” I said, meeting her gaze head-on.
Matilda bit her lip and pulled her long blond ponytail over her shoulder. “I get what you mean, but I promise I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it was to our detriment. I need to win the show too.”
“Is it even worth the risk?”
“They’re my colleagues. Why are we even bickering aboutthis?” A hint of frustration trickled into her tone, but then she released a resigned sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve said it won’t affect our chances, and I promise it won’t.”
This woman baffled me. She was knowingly helping people who probably wouldn’t do the same for her, and I couldn’t work outwhy.
It made me want to lash out. “Do you do that a lot?”
“Do what?”
“Jump like an obedient dog when people tell youto?”
Her smile trembled and a wave of unexpected unease washed over me.It didn’t feel good to upset Matilda at all—in fact, it felt fucking awful. I was sure she was going to scream at me for being a despicable asshole.
