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“All right.” I eye her again. As I move away her gaze stays pinned to the wall behind where I once stood. So maybe she’s just a little weirdo and not a pervert. She’s so still that it makes me pause, watching to make sure she’s okay.
A man in a crisp navy suit steps past me toward her, arms crossed as he hovers over her small frame. She’s much shorter than me, and I’m a solid five-foot-five.
“Are you finished?”
She responds with the same humming sound she made at me and shakes her head a little, like drawing herself out of a daydream. He sighs, a frustrated, exhausted noise.
“And where is everything? Your schedule? Papers? Did he not give you anything?”
“Oh—” She sprints back to the door she busted out of earlier.
I turn and head out, tucking my own papers into my backpack as I walk the mostly empty hallway.
• • •
My first day with the pair skating team is easy enough. Coach Moreau is a nice, albeit loud, French coach who mostly has me observe. I take notes when she speaks to me, but mostly I watch Luc Laroux with his new partner.
He’s the only one on the pairs team I know, because when Sadie and I were friends, we often partied with him. He’d blow insane money on overly expensive alcohol, hook up with some girl, and then cry in the bathroom or disassociate in the rideshare back to the dorms with us.
We got along great.
As they finish up, Luc skates right over to me with a wink.
“Since when did we get a hot new coach?” he asks with the same infuriatingly handsome smirk. People call him the Ice King, and he’s got the jet-black hair, pale skin, and icy blue eyes to make the nickname fit. And the annoyingly arrogant attitude to match.
Just as I open my mouth to respond, my eyes snag on a different vignette.
“Ah yes, the lovers,” Luc sighs beneath his breath, sitting on the bench next to me as we watch Rhys Koteskiy in his practice uniform, sans skates, lean over the other bench and kiss his little figure skater girlfriend.
Sadie smiles softly—something I’ve rarely seen from her—and lets him tuck a strand of hair back from her face. They’re intimate and warm in their bubble of bliss.
“Nauseating,” I sneer to Luc. He laughs and continues sliding on his guards before bidding me a quick goodbye on his way back to the locker rooms.
Sadie finally leaves the bench and heads over to our side to exit the ice. She stops by me, grabbing her own sparkly black guards and cloth, drying the blades carefully before sliding each one on.
“Got something to say?” She finally cracks, eyebrow arched.
“Seems like you’re doing great,” I say, my sarcasm a little heavy-handed. Sadie smiles, like I’ve told her I missed her and not tossed a sarcastic comment her way.
“Great to see you as always, Paloma.” She rolls her gray cat-like eyes. But then looks me over again more intentionally, and my stomach rolls with nausea. “How are you?”
Her question is genuine. I feel like a frayed nerve.
“I’d be doing better if you stayed out of my business.”
She smirks and shakes her head, standing next to where I’m still sitting on the bench—her only chance to be taller than me.
“Got it. Excuse me for even attempting to be nice to you,” she snips. There’s a niggle of regret clawing at my throat, but I manage to suffocate it back down into my usual numbness and anger.
• • •
“You can’t be serious.”
“She is,” my roommate smarts off, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe by her side of the apartment-style dorms. They’re the smallest ones on campus: a tiny room each with a shared bathroom and tiny living space. I’ve gone the random roommate route every year—and this year turned out worse than usual.
Taylor is about my height, but thin and objectively beautiful. She’s active on campus and nice to everyone, usually. But her annoying boyfriend has “accidentally” walked in on me in the bathroom multiple times. Enough that I keep my showers short and at odd hours.
“Felicity—”
