Page 106 of Ice Dance

“Probably.”

“I did tell them my name, so . . .” He looked over. “Do you mind if they know we’re here? We can go, if you like?”

“No. This is nice.”

“Yeah, it is.”

I didn’t ask him about the injury. I should have, but we skated some more, and then when a group of teens decided to pluck up the courage to ask us if we were Hasegawa and Navarro, we performed an easy twizzle for them, and we were both having too much of a good time. He told me about a time he’d been locked in an ice rink by accident and scared himself all night, in the cold. I told him how, when I’d been small, my father had scolded me for eating the ice chips off the rink’s surface. We’d laughed, joked, teased, and it may have been the first time we’d enjoyed each other’s company without the stress of work hanging over us. We’d been just us, just Ren and Cam, drinking hot chocolate and skating at the local open-air ice rink together before Christmas, because we could.

It reminded me of what I was missing, not just from my life, but what I was missing without him.

I couldn’t ruin it, even knowing Dylan had said the talk was necessary. The right moment didn’t present itself, and Camden would tell me if anything were seriously wrong.

I trusted that.

I shouldn’t have.

THIRTY-EIGHT

CAMDEN

The Meridian Cup was in a week. It’s glitz and glamor had taken over Montreal. Sparkling banners hung from streetlights in the city center. The press attention had become relentless. The event was a sellout. Skaters from all over the world converged on Montreal, my back yard.

In a week and one day, it would all be over.

I was feeling good. Skating in costume brought home how close we were to finishing, and everything felt real.

Nine months of preparation. We’d had a rocky start, and probably a rocky middle. All we had to do now was stick the landing.

The prize money would solve a lot of my problems, and I might even get an Olympic call for the Canadian team out of it. All I had to do was not fuck it up . . . and pull off the incredibly difficult quad axel in perfect synchronization with Hasegawa—a maneuver I’d nailed seventy percent of the time I’d tried. Great, but not as good as Hasegawa’s effortless ninety-five percent success rate.

The night out at the open-air rink a couple of days ago had helped clear the air and we were back on form. Hasegawa hadn’t even minded that the tricks I’d joined in on with the guys on the ice had gone viral, and so had the hot-chocolate shots someone had taken of us. At least those were safe pictures. I’d sneaked a view at the comments. Most were encouraging and friendly, commenting on how happy we’d looked, as though the pressure just rolled right off us. Even the press liked it, and had eased off on the whole Hasegawa’s Secret Weapon angle. Suddenly, I was Montreal’s best hope for a local boy win.

Today was costume practice. Hasegawa had left the ice to rehydrate after two hours of hard drilling. I’d follow soon, but I had a few maneuvers left in me. Dylan was a constant encouraging voice of reason. She was pleased, I could tell, although she tried not to reveal it too much. I ran through the surrender on my own, a smooth, less hectic section than the angry middle, and came out of it, glancing over toward Hasegawa. He’d be due back on the ice soon. We would likely go through the tight toe spins again.

But I couldn’t spot him. He wasn’t where he should have been, at the side of the rink.

He wouldn’t have gone far. We had another couple of hours practice left.

I did a few loops, a couple of sequences, skating easy and smooth.

Hasegawa wasn’t back.

I breezed over to the gate. His skates were by the bench, resting by my bag. He’d taken them off? Maybe he’d needed a break? I stepped off the ice onto the rubber matting, my breathing coming down from the workout, and scanned the rinkside.

Dylan skated up behind me. “Did you see where he went?” I asked her.

“No idea. I just came to check.”

I glanced at his skates again. The blade guards were on, as though they were ready to be stowed. My bag lay open beside them, and there, almost hidden but not hidden enough, was the blister pack of pills.

My heart dropped through the fucking ice.

I shoved the pills deeper into the bag, hiding them from Dylan. Why had he opened my bag?! Oh god, he knew. He’d seen the pills and he knew. That was why he’d taken his skates off. I looked around again, searching for him. He hadn’t gone far, not without his gear. I had to find him, and fast.

I dropped to the bench and tore my skates off, yanking at the laces.

Dylan noticed. “Cam?”