Page 55 of Ice Dance

“Ren,” Dylan tried to say. “That won’t help⁠—”

He was already walking off. “I can’t, Dylan. I just can’t.”

I sat on the bench, going cold all over, and not because of the ice behind me. “How bad is this?” I asked.

Dylan sat next to me, leaned forward, and clasped her hands together. “It’s alright. We’ll manage the press, and I doubt the Meridian organizers will care all that much.”

“And Hasegawa?”

She frowned. “He won’t walk away, but he’ll be difficult.”

I thrust my hands into my hair and looked up at the steel girders holding up the roof of the rink. “Shit.”

“He’s not like you. He doesn’t cope well with personal situations finding their way into his professional life,” Dylan said, softer now. “He’s very regimented. Work doesn’t touch his private life. He’s been like that since I’ve known him.”

“Yeah.” I’d figured that out about him. He made it obvious. No personal stuff. Work was work. I’d trampled all over that. “I didn’t mean . . . Last night was just . . . We danced. It didn’t mean anything.”

Dylan sighed and leaned closer to me. “I don’t care what it was. Like I said to you before, what happens off the ice is none of my business. Unless it becomes my business. We can manage this. It’s not as bad as it clearly feels. Our main problem is making sure Ren doesn’t let this get into his head.”

I looked over at her. “How do I make sure that doesn’t happen?”

“You don’t.” She sighed and stood. “It’s best you don’t do anything. Let him take the day. Hopefully, that’s all he’ll need. None of it changes the fact that you two have a routine to work on and eight months to get it right. Whatever happens next, I need this—” She tapped her phone and paused it on a moment of me and Hasegawa pressed closer than was PG rated. “Not to happen again.”

“Yeah.”

“And we can’t use Saga Studios anymore,” she added. “I suggest you deal with that. Meanwhile, I’ll work on finding somewhere else.”

“Right.” I was going to kill Saga. That bastard. He’d probably thought a hot clip like that would get the studio more social reach, but he’d used me and Hasegawa, and I was not okay with that.

A day.

I had a day to kill while Hasegawa stewed in his hotel room, or whatever he was going to do. “I might get back on the ice. Earphones in. Hood up.”

“Yeah, you do that.” Dylan agreed. “By the end of the week, we’ll have this under control. But whatever happens, the world now knows you two are flavor of the week. I suggest you do not go on social media until I can brief your media manager.”

I watched her go, took ten minutes to settle my head and heart, and removed my skates from their bag again. I’d work it out on the ice, get the day over with, and reset tomorrow.

TWENTY-ONE

REN

I watched the clip on my phone again in my hotel room. The music, the slow grind, my hand very clearly on Navarro’s ass. People were dancing similarly around us. We weren’t the only two dancing provocatively, but whoever had filmed it had focused on us. The footage was indisputably Camden Navarro and Ren Hasegawa.

This was so much worse than the rumors that we’d danced together during selection week.

I watched it again, and sipped cheap wine from a plastic cup.

Outside my hotel room, a door clunked. Voices came closer, then faded away.

Watched it again, and paused it on the turn.

Our form was nothing short of spectacular. We were dancing as one, his back against my chest, my hand moving down his abdominals, his head tipped back and mine bowed, my mouth near his ear. I could feel him again now. I’d lived the moment hours ago, but felt his body roll against mine now, as smooth as a swelling wave. Seeing it was a very different experience.

A deep heated tightness had me shifting uncomfortably in the hotel chair. I’d dealt with my body’s needs last night on returning to the hotel. Once, in the shower. Worked myself to climax, to be done with it. I’d hoped it would be over, that it would be enough.

Then I’d held him on the ice that morning, felt him warm and firm in my arms again, and it hadn’t been enough. Nothing close to it.

I’d told myself last night that nobody would care, nobody would see us. Everyone had been dancing like that.