Page 33 of Ice Dance

I took the phone and stopped walking to read the article. We’d stopped beneath the glowing sign of a dépanneaur, and early evening moths fluttered around the light.

The article Saga had found said Alisha had been medically pulled due to an injury, which meant Hasegawa was out too. “Damn.” He was likely only calling me to drag me back into his orbit. I’d been used once. I wasn’t going to be used by him a second time.

“Is that who’s calling you?”

I handed his phone back. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Saga was a terrible gossip. But he also didn’t move in the same circles as me. He wasn’t an ice dancer, his whole thing was Latino and heat, and he couldn’t skate. We’d figured that out during one very drunk, very hilarious night at the local rink. He’d clung to the boards for an hour and vowed never to set foot on ice again.

“He wants to dance with you?” Saga asked, his voice pitched high in disbelief.

I shoved my hands into my pockets as we walked. “It’s complicated.”

“I didn’t think two guys did that in figure skating?”

“They don’t. But the Meridian is new, and it has an open category. It doesn’t matter. I’m not dancing with him.”

We walked on some more. Rue Ontario was busier behind us, but the side streets quickly turned residential. Commercial units made way for old brick apartment blocks with narrow balconies, metal staircases zigzagging up their fronts. A woman on one of the balconies watered her half-dead plants while music thumped from a different open window. A few cars rumbled by. A warm breeze tossed a few dried leaves into the gutter, and French voices drifted out from somewhere above, followed by laughter.

It was pretty quiet, which meant I could think, and I really didn’t want to. I was doing okay. I had my routine, I had the teaching, I had Saga and his studio. All of it was mine and I didn’t need Hasegawa.

“Is he good?” Saga asked.

“The best.” I sighed. “Technically. But he has a stick up his ass. Thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

“Is he better?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Probably.” I kicked a loose bit of sidewalk. The concrete here had been patched so many times it was more repair than sidewalk. “The problem is, he knows it.”

“Ugh. One of those men.”

“He’s rude, shut off, emotionally unavailable, and a nightmare to work with.”

Saga fluttered his lashes. “But he’s hot.”

“Oh my god,” I laughed.

“He has sultry eyes,” Saga purred. “Pretty face.”

“Do you ever stop?”

“Not when they’re that hot, no. Can he dance off the ice?”

I remembered the conference room dance, his hand on my hip, mine on his shoulder. And every time after. We hadn’t done much dancing off the ice. Hadn’t gotten that far. “Yeah. He’s good at everything, on the ice and off it, except being an actual person.”

I’d tried not to think about Hasegawa for weeks, and now I couldn’t get him out of my head. It was a shame he’d been pulled. I knew what the competition meant to him. At least, I’d thought I did. He hadn’t made knowing him easy at all. But he hadn’t been there for the money, that much was obvious. Unless he really was that shallow. Something else drove him, but he hadn’t let me get close enough to find out what, and when I’d started to think I might, he’d slammed the door.

“Maybe he just needs a good fuck against a wall?” Saga said with enthusiasm, and some hand gestures pulling toward his hips.

I shoved him off the sidewalk, after making sure no actual traffic was coming.

“Hey!”

“Stop. He’s straight, so . . . that’s not an option.”

“So, block his number and move on.”

“Yeah.” I should do that. I would do that. Later.