Okay, I think.I can do this.
“Lift next,” Brita says. “Elida initiates. Mateo, you catch and hold.”
She skates backward, pulls me toward her by the wrists, and jumps.
My hands lock under her thighs. She wraps her arms around my neck and suddenly she’s above me, looking down, and her face is - I don’t have a word for her face right now. Surprised, maybe. Reassessing.
I can feel the tension she’s keeping in her shoulders and core, ready to correct for mistakes I haven’t made. She’s bracing against me the same way she’s been bracing against me since she first arrived, holding something back.
I don’t say any of that.
I wait.
And slowly, deliberately, she lets go.
Her full weight drops into my hands and something shifts between us in that moment, which has nothing to do with the lift.
Brita runs us through the whole sequence twice. On the second run she’s different - she stops managing the space between us. She skates and I follow her. It feels natural.
I reach over and take her hand, ready for the next element of the routine, and my thumb moves across her knuckles once.
“Last element,” Brita says. “Death spiral. Elida, you know the position. Mateo - you’re the anchor. Don’t let her fall.”
I look at Elida. “I won’t.”
She skates backward, takes my hand, and leans.
Her body goes horizontal. Her hair brushes the ice. Her blade carves a wide perfect circle around me and I’m the fixed point of it - even I can see that her form is both flawless and fearless - and none of it works if I let go.
My arm stays locked. My grip stays firm.
Her eyes are closed. Almost like she’s decided, somewhere in the last hour on this ice, that she doesn’t need to do the math anymore.
She trusts me.
The spiral ends. I pull her up and she doesn’t stumble - she lands softly against my chest, both of us breathing hard. She’s looking up at me and her hands are still on my arms and mine are still at her waist.
“Good,” Brita says, from the laptop. “Very good. I think that’s enough for today.”
ELIDA
I skate over to the boards and flip the laptop toward me. Brita’s face fills the screen.
“Good session. Really good. I’ll send through my notes tonight.”
“Thanks. Talk soon.”
The screen goes dark. I close the laptop, set it on the bench, and turn back to the ice.
Mateo hasn’t moved.
He’s standing at center ice, hands loose at his sides, watching me. And something in his eyes makes me catch my breath.
I skate toward him slowly. He doesn’t move toward me. He lets me come to him.
When I’m close enough to see the cold flush on his cheeks, the way his chest is still moving a little too fast, I stop.
“We should probably-” I start.
