Ice Games

by Jessica Clare

  It was perfect if Ty went for it.

  I skated toward him and put my hands on his shoulders, looking up at him. “Do you trust me?”

  “As much as I can trust anyone in this chickenshit outfit,” he said with a grin. “And as long as you don’t dress me as one of the Village People, I’m fine.”

  “Nope,” I said enthusiastically, heading to the edge of the ice and stepping off. I went to my workout bag and pulled out my phone, then searched the internet for a clip. When I found it, I went back to Ty and handed my phone to him, looking for approval.

  He snorted at what I picked, even as the music began to stream out from my phone, tinny and muffled. “Jaws? Cute.”

  “That’s right,” I told him. “It is cute. People will think we’re poking fun at ourselves. They won’t expect it, and it’ll catch their attention. It’ll make you look like you have a sense of humor about the biting thing, and people will talk about it. That’s exactly what we want. It defuses an ugly situation and shows we can laugh at ourselves while having fun.”

  He considered, staring at my phone for so long that I thought he was getting angry. Maybe I’d pushed too far and he’d tell me to fuck off. Maybe Ty didn’t have a sense of humor about the whole biting thing. When I’d asked him before, he’d shrugged me off.

  But as I watched, a slow smile spread across his face. He looked over at me, and chuckled again. “Balls of steel, all right.”

  Relief cut through me sharply, and I laughed. He wasn’t mad at me. Thank goodness. “I figure we can shock them into loving us, or go home anyhow.”

  Ty regarded me. “So how do we skate to that music?”

  I thought for a minute, and then grinned, my mind full of ideas. “We follow the pattern of the song. We can do slow movements at the start, and build up to the crescendo. When the crescendo hits, we can do a lift. You can put me on your shoulders, and I can raise a leg into the air. Oooh!” I clapped my hands. “I know. We can design a costume for me so that when I raise my leg into the air, it looks like a shark fin rising from the water.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ll admit, that’s kind of cool. So what do I wear?”

  “You can dress as the main guy from Jaws. In the black shirt and jeans. Glasses, the works. What was his name?” I snapped my fingers, trying to think.

  “Brody.”

  “That’s it. Something simple and masculine.” I gave him an impish smile. “No sequins.”

  “I could kiss you for that right now.”

  I blushed. Hard. “No kissing necessary.”

  He chuckled. “Spoilsport. So…partner lifts. How do we work those in?”

  I considered for a moment, and then held my hands out in our dancing position. “Let’s try a few different things.”

  ~~ * ~~

  We experimented for a few hours and came up with a loose routine. I made notes and decided to work on the choreography in my spare time. Meanwhile, we set one of the production assistants on getting the music rights to Jaws and some concepts for costumes.

  At least if we went down this time, we’d go down on our own terms.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jaws, of all things. The girl’s a genius, I have to admit. — Ty Randall, Pre-Show Interview for Week Two

  ~~ * ~~

  The next week passed surprisingly quickly, and before I knew it, it was competition night again. I was more nervous this time than last time—Ty had our routine down pat, since a lot of it simply consisted of hefting me into the air and gliding. Even our costumes were awesome, right down to Ty’s black mock turtleneck sweater and tight black pants. He even had a big brown gun-belt, which was in the movie clips and was a great touch that Ty himself had thought of. He wore a pair of wire-rim glasses to complete the look.

  My outfit was a plain, dark blue to about mid-calf, and then it changed to gray. There were ‘wings’ tied to each leg that I was going to release about halfway through our dance, and hopefully they would surprise everyone.

  Ty and I had practiced day and night for this particular routine, and I was so proud of it. We’d even worked with the production and lighting crew to get the look just right.

  This time, we’d drawn the last skate. Jon Jon and Julia Mckillip were up first. I tried to pay attention to the other routines like Ty was, but I was a bundle of nerves. I kept crossing my legs and reaching down to touch my talismans over and over again, rubbing the newest—a sequin from last week’s costume.

  No one fell tonight. I couldn’t watch the TV in the Crash Room—bad luck—but Ty had no such qualms. He’d lean in close every time a couple went on to ice skate, and he would give me a bit of a play by play.

  “Jon Jon and Julia look pretty stiff,” he’d tell me as the strains of ‘Love Story’ echoed in the room.

  Then, “Emma’s cute. They stuck to country again,” he told me. “Nine to Five” played, and I could tell from the clapping of the audience that they were definitely into their theme. Good for Emma.

  “Annamarie went for hotness, clearly,” Ty told me with a chuckle when the next couple went on. I glanced at the TV, unable to help myself despite the bad juju, and rolled my eyes. The theme was clearly Titanic, but Annamarie had taken her own interpretation, her costume showing more skin than was probably legal in that time period, while Serge was dressed as Jack from the movie, complete with suspenders and rolled up white sleeves. I looked away again, quickly, when Annamarie ran her hands down her breasts in a showy motion.

  “Damn,” Ty said. “She’s clearly here to win.”

  “Or to hook up,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Hmm?” Ty asked, leaning in to me.

  “Nothing.” I wouldn’t look at the TV again if it killed me. No sense in psyching myself out.

  Toby and Victoria were next. The familiar strains of “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King filled the speakers. I heard Ty chuckle. “They look cute. They’ll do well.”

  “You’re not helping me,” I told him, and I rubbed the talismans on the bottom of my skate even harder.

  “You two are up,” one of the production assistants called.

  “Let’s do this,” Ty told me. He put an arm around my waist as we headed to the curtained staging area.

  “Thirty seconds,” the assistant whispered to us.

  “You ready?” Ty murmured in my ear. It sent shivers through my body. He raised his fist, and I gave him a fist-bump back, and then we did the motions of his lucky handshake.

  I smiled at him. “Juju is now in place.”

  “We are going to kick ass,” he told me. Then he took my hand, and we skated out onto the center of the ice.

  Our beginning ‘pose’ started with the two of us together. I stood in front of Ty, and his arms were wrapped around mine. As soon as the music began, we began to skate, the low notes soft and deceivingly smooth. No one was making a sound as we danced and skated our way around the ice, preparing for the first lift.

  Then it began. The familiar, haunting chorus of Jaws with the ominous notes. As soon as it started, Ty raised me into the first lift, and I moved over him, my body flat, one of my legs raising into the air. The lights in the stadium had gone dim, and a spotlight shone on our lift.

  The flaps in my pants were now undone, and when I raised my leg into the air, I did so slowly, even as Ty lifted me higher. With the gray of my costume and skate cover, and the surge of our movements, it mimicked the rising of a dorsal fin into the air.

  There were ripples of shock and laughter in the audience, and then cheers.

  The routine continued on. Ty gracefully let me down onto the ice and we clasped hands, moving to the music in a fluid motion that we’d practiced hard to make look so incredibly easy. Then, the crescendo rose again, and we did another “dorsal fin lift.” This time, there were wild cheers from the audience.

  I tilted my leg forward, and did a slow flip down Ty’s front, landing on my skates as we began to dance once more. The hardest parts of the routine were done, and
now we just needed to finish well. I’d added a spin for myself at the end, and Ty raised an arm over my head as I started to spin around like a top. I curved my leg in, whirling faster and faster as Ty continued to skate a wider circle around me. The swing of my specially-made pants flared outward; the dual colors making the spin more visually stunning than it really was.

  The last few notes of our routine hit. I slammed to a stop and dropped into a dramatic dip. As we’d practiced, Ty was there to catch me inches before I smacked onto the ice, his hand behind my shoulders. We froze, waiting for the audience reaction.

  There was a roar of applause.

  Breathing hard, I grinned up at Ty, and we both got to our feet. I put my hand in his, and we waved at the audience. They were standing up. A giddy wave of excitement shot through me, and I gave Ty a triumphant look. See? We didn’t suck after all.

  Once the audience calmed down, Chip skated over to us.

  Ty looped a casual arm around my shoulder, leaning in over my shoulder as I moved in next to the host.

  “Well, that was original,” Chip said with a laugh. “It’s a big change from last week.”

  “We decided to take things into our own hands a bit more,” I said with a smile, glancing over at Ty. “Show off our personalities.”

  “And Jaws does that?” Chip held the microphone out to us, waiting for a response.

  Ty leaned in closer to me, his breath on my neck. “It’s because I like to bite.”

  And he gave my ear a friendly, playful nip.

  My eyes went wide, even as the crowd roared their appreciation. Catcalls filled the air. I hadn’t expected his bite…or their reaction. Immediately, I blushed hard.

  Thank god Chip didn’t see my reaction. He turned away, facing the panel of judges. “Let’s see what our panel thought of Ty and Zara’s interpretation of Jaws!”

  Penelope’s mouth was thin, her arms crossed. She swiveled in her chair for a moment, and then picked up a score card. “Better than last week, but I’m still waiting to be wowed.”

  It was a four.

  I exchanged glances with Ty. Figure skating was full of all kinds of bullshit scoring, but this was getting ridiculous.

  “Well, I loved it,” Irina said. “I thought it was playful and fun and very creative. We should see more routines like that.”

  And she gave us an eight.

  “I agree,” Raul said. “That was exciting and different. I’m impressed.”

  He also gave us an eight.

  I squeezed Ty’s hand excitedly. Our scores didn’t suck this time. It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of the pack as long as we weren’t last and we didn’t hose the popular vote.

  We retreated backstage to the Crash Room. I sat down next to Ty on our bench and resisted the urge to rub my ear. It still tingled from his nip, and I was pretty sure my entire body was vibrating with intensity.

  “That went well,” I said breathlessly. “I think they liked it. The audience, that is. Not the judges. They never like us. Well, at least not Penelope. But the other two gave us good marks,” I babbled.

  He swiped at his face with a towel, and then nodded. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad.” He seemed so casual, as if it were every day that a guy just reached over and bit his partner’s ear on national television.

  “You surprised me,” I blurted after a moment, unable to stand it any longer.

  “Huh? Oh.” Ty chuckled. “Yeah. I figured it’d be good to get the audience on our side as much as possible, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sorry if I freaked you out. I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

  “You didn’t…I wasn’t—”

  But now he was looking at me curiously. “You do know I’d never hurt you, right, Zara? That shit with me…” He rubbed his chin. “That was just heat of the moment in the cage. It’s not really me.”

  I knew about that sort of thing. So I nodded. “No, I get it. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Just for show. Nibbling on my ear, purely for show. Was I impressed with how clever my partner was? Or incredibly disappointed that it wasn’t more personal?

  ~~ * ~~

  The next night, we were the second couple marked as safe.

  “I knew it!” I said to Ty triumphantly as we skated off the ice and into the production area. An assistant was there, holding our blade guards, and we popped them on quickly. “We’re here another week. That’s awesome. I’m so excited!”

  Ty grinned at me. He wasn’t bubbling over with enthusiasm like I was, but he did seem pleased at our success. “We deserved it. You kicked ass.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” I said loftily. We headed to the changing area, and Ty put his hand on the small of my back to guide me through the sea of people moving around us, still moving frantically since the show was still on. At least our part was done. “I think that ear thing was inspired.”

  “So was Jaws,” he told me. “We should go out and celebrate, you know.”

  I felt a flutter of excitement at the thought. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Grab a bite to eat, get away from the whole gig for a few hours. Celebrate our awesomeness for a bit.” He grinned at me, so boyish and gorgeous that I couldn’t help but fall under his spell. “I think we could use some downtime.”

  “That sounds good.” I glanced around the surging backstage area. “Should we invite the others?”

  His brows drew together. “Why?”

  So it didn’t seem like a date? “Oh. Uh, no reason. I was just curious if you wanted to hang with Annamarie or something.”

  “Nah. Let’s just go the two of us. It’ll be easier to sneak out with a small party.”

  “Got it. Let me change.” I headed into the girls’ locker room, feeling a little weird. The flutter had taken up permanent residence in my stomach. Ty wanted to go out with just me? Even after we’d spent the last four weeks with solely each other? Really?

  That was either…really flattering, or just more team building and that I was reading too much into.

  I quickly showered, scrubbed my face off, and dressed. My hair was wet, so I pulled it into another tight bun and changed into my leotard and tights. I’d worn a sloppy plaid tee over the ensemble, and now I wished I’d worn something a bit…sexier. God, why did I suck so hard at being attractive?

  I’d never really had a chance to date much. As in, at all. My teenage years had been spent on the ice, practicing, even after my flameout. I’d been homeschooled and was an only child, so I’d never been around a ton of guys. Later on, the kind of guys I met didn’t understand my dedication to and drive for my ice-skating career, even though it had petered out long ago.

  Plus, it was hard to meet men when you were dressed up as a pink dinosaur.

  Basically, I had a lame dating track record. I could count the number of dates I’d had on one hand, and no one had ever gotten further than second base with me.

  I was pretty sure Ty had a lot more experience than that.

  This isn’t a date, Zara, I reminded myself. We were skating partners, busy repairing our careers. I was reading a lot more into it than I should have been.

  I swung my gear bag over my shoulder and ran into Emma as I left the locker room. “Hey,” I told her. “Who got eliminated?”

  “Jon Jon,” she said with a grimace. “No surprise there, but he’ll be really disappointed. But that partner of his just has no rhythm. Poor guy.”

  “That sucks,” I said sympathetically. But someone had to go, and for tonight, I was glad it wasn’t me.

  She gave me a shrewd look. “That routine you did. That was pretty creative. I liked it.”

  I grinned at her. “Thanks. I figured if we didn’t pull out some flash, we were going home tonight.”

  “You have Imelda, don’t you? I had her last year.” She grimaced. “And I requested not to have her again this year. Still, I’m surprised she came up with something so outrageous for you two.”

  “Had,” I said flatly, hefting my bag. “I fired her
. That routine was all me.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wow. I should ask you to help with my routine next week.”

  I stared at her awkwardly. If I helped her, it’d probably just assist me in getting voted off. “Uh, well…”

  “I’m kidding.” She laughed, and then gave me a wave. “See you on the ice.”

  “Bye.” I escaped before we could have any other weirdly awkward conversations and met Ty outside of the locker room.

  He grinned at me. “You ready to go?”

  “Sure.” I moved into step next to him. “So how are we going to do this? Do you have a car? Call a cab?”

  “Nah.” He put a hand to the small of my back again, guiding me out of the studio. “If I call a cab, that means a cameraman’s going to follow us out, and I don’t want the show tagging along. I called in a favor.” He glanced around, and then gestured to an emergency exit. “Let’s go out that way. Come on.”

  We slipped out a side door and headed out to alley behind the back lot of the studio. There was a black sedan waiting there, and as we approached, a driver got out.

  So did Ty’s manager, Chuck. He pointed at Ty with the cellphone that seemed permanently attached to his jaw most days. “You owe me.”

  “I do,” Ty said easily. “Thanks for calling this in.”

  “If anyone at the network asks, you stopped for ice cream and took a wrong turn,” he told the driver, peeling off a couple of twenties. “Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said with a grin, and then glanced back at us. “Hop in.”

  Ty took my bag from my shoulder and tossed it in the trunk along with his. Then we got into the back seat.

  The car pulled out of the parking lot and I glanced over at Ty. “So where are we going?”

  “Well,” he said, and patted his stomach. “I’m fuckin’ starving, so I thought we’d get something to eat. That ok?”

  “Fine with me.” Like I was going to argue? I was heading out on a partner-not-a-date with Ty Randall, who was growing hotter and hotter with every day that passed. “What are we going to eat?”