Page 23 of Ice Dance

“Yeah, maybe.” He’d find out eventually, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone without Hasegawa’s approval.

“Hey, Cam,” Jen said. “We keep missing each other.” She tucked her blonde hair back and smiled. I liked Jen. She had a gentle softness that made her easy to speak to. Someone you could meet up with and spend the next few hours easily chatting and getting along.

“Yeah, you know how it is,” I hedged, watching them unpack their gear. “Honestly, after my first night getting into a fight with Hasegawa, I figured I should probably lay off the beers for the rest of selection.”

“I heard,” Jen laughed. “Wish I’d seen that.”

“No, you really don’t.”

“I heard Casey had to drag you off him.”

I cringed. “Thank you, Casey, for the save, and for telling everyone after.”

We chatted some more as they laced up and stretched, getting ready to go out on the ice.

Other dancers were filling the benches now. I scanned the growing crowds, and even the banks of spectator seats.

“Hey, did you hear?” Casey sat and began to adjust his skate’s laces. “Hasegawa’s partner showed up.”

I laughed. I couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”

“Yeah, late last night. Annabel⁠—”

“Alisha?”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

My smile cracked. I clung onto the pieces, somehow keeping it on my face. “She’s back?”

“Yeah, crazy, right? Maybe he sweet-talked her into it. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

Jen tutted. “It’s more like she realized she’d walked away from the chance of a lifetime, dancing with him. So he’s difficult. So is Casey here.”

Casey looked up. “Hey. No I’m not.”

“You are, babe.”

They ribbed each other, but I wasn’t listening. Couldn’t hear them behind the pounding in my ears. Alisha was back. She’d flown back.

I headed for my locker—ignoring Casey calling my name—unlocked it, pulled out my bag, and checked my phone. Five missed calls from Dylan. I’d had my phone on silent. I hadn’t picked up because I’d had my head in the zone all morning. I hadn’t needed my phone. Selection day. Hasegawa. I’d been so focused on that, I hadn’t looked at my damn phone.

My heart sank.

I closed my eyes to stop the bank of lockers from spinning.

Doors slammed. People chatted. Some nudged me, passing by, and apologized.

My insides flipped, the floor suddenly shifting beneath me.

After everything. After four days. After we’d connected, somehow, impossibly . . . Alisha was back.

I clenched my teeth together, willing my heart to slow, and opened my eyes. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe she’d come to support him. Yeah, that was probably it. It would be the right thing to do, support the partner she’d walked out on after six months of training for this day.

“Camden.”

I heard it in Dylan’s voice before I’d even turned my head to look at her. That and the fact she’d used my first name.

I did turn my head, and she stood there, in her coach’s jacket. It didn’t need to be a big secret anymore, I guessed. The A team were back. Her and Hasegawa and Alisha. What had I been, just something to help pass the time? A fucking fluffer in the wings?