Page 12 of Ice Dance

We were unlikely to get that far, so I didn’t need to think about it. For now, all I had to focus on was the next four days.

Four days with the chaotic Camden Navarro.

“We don’t dance at the international rink,” I said.

“That might be wise, actually,” Dylan said. “If word gets out Hasegawa and Navarro are dancing together, the organizers will likely get involved and you won’t get a choice. We’ll keep it quiet. There’s a local rink twenty minutes away. It’s smaller than the international, but you’ll be less likely to be recognized. I’ll see if I can book some private sessions out of hours. Are you both alright with this?”

“Dancing with him, or dancing on the quiet?” Navarro asked, retrieving his phone. “You book the rink, I’ll be there. I don’t quit.” He strode by us both, then shoved out the doors. “Better check back into your room, Hasegawa,” he called back. The closing door cut off the end of my name.

“It’s going to be alright,” Dylan said, mostly to herself.

We’d get through it. Dylan would have her Hail Mary, and on Saturday I’d probably end up flying back to London where I’d put all of this behind me. Until then, I’d dance with an undisciplined animal of a man and somehow try to survive without more drinks or punches being thrown.

Navarro had spent the last two hours watching Alisha’s and my training footage in Dylan’s room. I’d spent my time on the ice, going through the routine Alisha had abandoned me with, wondering how I was going to adjust my stance to naturally combine with Navarro’s more masculine physicality. I could put aside my assumptions about him. I was professional enough to be able to focus on the dancing. But was he?

Dylan got in touch after lunch to confirm we were moving our training operation to the local rink. I gathered my gear, bagged up my skates, and took a cab to the hobby rink. When I arrived, a number of schoolchildren were on the ice, most of them clinging to the sides in their rented skates. I sat on a bench, skate bag beside me, and watched them laugh and cling to each other. I couldn’t ever remember being allowed to enjoy skating when I was young. Not like they were. I’d grown up on the ice; it was the only time I’d been close to my father.

“You good?” Navarro dropped his bags next to me and stood grinning like one of those kids on the ice. “You look like someone stole your ice cream, Hasegawa.”

I ignored him, rested my head back against the wall, and closed my eyes. Perhaps he’d take the hint to stop talking.

“Nice rink,” he said. “Bit small. They’ve said they’ll send out the resurfacer before we start.”

He was still talking.

He talked about the traffic, rustled around in his bag, pulled out a protein bar, and talked while eating, then talked about a dancer from the Russian team, and another from Scotland who I happened to know personally. He moved, shifted from sitting to standing, then rummaged around in his bag again, removing his skates, checking them over. He talked and moved endlessly, and it didn’t seem to matter that I hadn’t said a single word during this one-sided conversation. He carried it alone. Perhaps it was nerves and he was overwhelmed by our decision to regrettably work together. Hopefully, the energy was temporary, or I’d have to bring ear plugs so I could think around him.

Dylan arrived thirty minutes later in casual clothes. Her coach’s jacket had been stowed away while we were training incognito.

“Alright, let’s get you both on the ice and see what we’ve got to work with.”

The school kids had filed off, leaving the rink mostly quiet besides a few competent skaters who were probably here for the same reason as us—to skate in relative peace, outside of the public gaze. I shrugged off my jacket and stretched to warm up. Navarro had finally quietened down while he focused on gearing up; hopefully he was running the routine in his head. We had three and a half days to make this disaster work, and knowing Dylan, she’d be working us hard as soon as we got started . . . for hours. It was going to be a late one.

By the time we got out there, it was gone eight p.m., and we had the rink to ourselves.

Navarro did loops on the ice, warming up, then pulled off his hooded top and tossed it out the gate. The loose black tank top he wore underneath rippled as he skated up some speed. He had a professional dancer’s physique. Defined muscles. Strength wouldn’t be a problem, but stamina might be. It was unlikely any of his past coaches had put him through the wringer quite like Dylan was about to.

“Let’s warm up, both of you. I want you to freestyle it, get a feel for the ice, the space, and work around each other.”

The music began, “Movement” by Hozier filling the rink and its empty rows of seating. I was interested in Navarro’s take on it. Freestyle was where he excelled. But he also needed to focus on himself, and not what I was doing. I pushed into motion, circling the rink at the opposite end to Navarro, and brought all my mental barriers down. My skates found the ice, weaved across it, thighs working to pick up speed, and the music began to spill into my veins, bringing me to life. On the ice, I was free. On the ice, I had control. The ice was my stage, my expression, a language I couldn’t otherwise speak.

I ran an old routine, one I knew without having to concentrate on, and let the rhythm flow. My body loosened. I stopped being a person altogether, and became something freer, something unweighted, my soul on my outside.

When I was done, I came in to Dylan at the rink’s center, where Navarro was already waiting, breathing hard too. His gaze stayed on me, hands on his hips, shoulders heaving. The heat in his eyes suggested he’d been watching long enough to understand this wasn’t a game for me. It was survival.

“Good, I’m liking everything I’m seeing,” Dylan said. “You both move superbly, of course. That was never in doubt. The challenge will be combining your strengths to make something truly unique, something the judges cannot fail to sit up and notice. I want to set the ice on fire. Are you ready?”

I nodded, eager to see where this went, if it went anywhere at all.

Navarro’s smile grew. “Let’s do this.”

“Navarro, you’ve seen the routine we’ve been working on. How do you feel about taking the first few minutes and running through it with Ren?”

He nodded at Dylan. “I’m ready.”

I doubted that.

Dylan took out her phone, linked it to the speaker system, and switched the music to the first thirty seconds of “Earned It” by the Weeknd. An emotional track, and one Alisha and I had down to perfection on the ice. I knew it so well I could dance it without music, but Navarro was going to need the track initially, to help build up a map of the steps in his mind. Once he had the beat in his body, and had it down without thinking, we wouldn’t need the music to practice. If we got that far.