He considered me for a long moment, and then gave a heavy sigh. “As much as I hate to say it, you’re right.”
Part of me was relieved that he wasn’t going to fight me on it. Part of me was also…disappointed. He gave in that easily? “I am?”
“Yeah. You and I are both athletes. We know from past experience how sex can fuck up a competitive angle.”
Well, one of us knew that, at least. “Exactly.”
Ty shifted away from me on the bench, and his mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I’m glad one of us has their head on straight, at least. I get it, Zara. We hang in there and keep things going as they are.”
“Right,” I said, hoping I sounded more convincing to him than to myself. “Staying in the competition and fixing our careers is the most important thing right now.”
He poured another sake shot for both of us, and then lifted his up. “To careers and second chances.”
I clinked mine to his and hoped I hadn’t just made another decision I’d regret for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER TEN
How am I getting along with Zara? Fuckin’ great. She’s pretty awesome. If it weren’t for this ice skating bullshit, I’d say I could hang out with her all the time and not get bored. — Ty Randall, Practice Interview, Ice Dancing with the Stars
~~ * ~~
A horrible buzzing sounded in my ear like a thousand mosquitos were dive-bombing my brain. It throbbed and ached, and I groaned, pulling a pillow over my head and wishing I could somehow stuff it into my cranium. The buzzing continued.
I fished around in the muddle of my blankets, looking for the source of the infernal buzzing that was making my head ache so badly. My fingers located my phone, set to vibrate, and I squinted at the screen, recoiling at how bright it was.
Naomi.
Ugh. Why was she calling so early? I clicked to answer, raising the phone to my ear, and licked my lips. My tongue felt like a paper towel. “Hello?”
“Wow. Did I just wake you up?” She sounded surprised.
“What’s up?” I asked sleepily, wondering why she was talking so loud. Why was everything so damn loud this morning?
“You tell me?” She chuckled, and the noise hurt. I pulled the phone away from my ear an inch, wincing. “I’m on time.”
I frowned into my pillow. “On time?” Something wasn’t registering.
“You know. Our lunchtime call? Check in with each other, see how our bestie is doing?”
I rubbed a hand on my face. “Lunchtime?” Horror set in, and I bolted upright in my bed, immediately regretting it. My head swam and my stomach lurched. I fought nausea and scanned the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was unplugged. Ugh. Had I done that last night? I held my phone away from my ear and hung up the call just to see the time pop up.
12:06 PM.
Shit!
Scrambling out of bed, I surged toward my closet…and immediately staggered to my knees. Oh god. Oh…that was not good. I was going to barf. My stomach heaved, and I curled into a ball, waiting it out.
The phone began to vibrate again, buzzing. It fell off the edge of the bed, and I crawled over to pick it up. Licking my lips, I answered again. “Hello?”
“Dude, you hung up on me! What the hell?”
Naomi again. “Oh. Sorry.” I put a hand to my forehead. “I’m not thinking so clearly right now.”
“Are you sick? Do you want me to call a doctor?”
“Not sick,” I told her. “Hung over.” My first one. Now I saw why I didn’t drink. I never wanted to again, either. I felt awful. And I’d missed a half a day of practice. Ty was going to kill me.
I peered at my shut door. Where was Ty? Why hadn’t he woken me up?
“Hung over? Holy crap, girl. You never drink! Hollywood’s definitely changing you.” Naomi sounded amused.
“No, it’s not. Ty and I went out drinking to celebrate how well we did last night. That’s all.”
“Oooh, a date?”
I thought back to the kiss—the hot, delicious, incredibly sinful kiss—and gave a long, gusty sigh. “Not really. We’re not dating. Can’t. Not during competition.”
“But you’d date him if you weren’t competing? Really? Ty the MMA Biter?” She sounded shocked. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll like, bite your clit off or something if he goes down on you?”
I crossed my legs and winced. “Ow, and no. He’s not like that. He just made a mistake and it fucked him up. You know, like what happened to me.”
“You walked off. You didn’t bite off half of someone’s nose.”
“Yeah, but fighting is different,” I told her. “The other guy was stomping the shit out of him and pulling fouls, so he got mad. I understand getting mad. And he’s totally gentle with me.”
“Just be careful is all I’m saying.” Naomi sighed. “You’re so fragile and all.”
Oh barf. “I’m not fragile, you dingaling. You of all people should know that.”
“You guys did skate super well the other night,” she admitted. “And using Jaws? That was a stroke of genius.”
“Thank you,” I said and smacked my lips. God, I had an awful taste in my mouth. “Listen, Nay, I need to go. I’m late for practice and I’m gross. Can I call you later?”
“Sure, girl,” she said, and she sounded incredibly amused. “I’d say ‘take it easy,’ but we both know you won’t.”
“Bye, Nay.” I hung up the phone and let it drop to the floor, curling up on the carpet for a moment longer. Ugh. I felt so awful. I needed to get up and skate, though. We’d lost half a day already.
Dragging myself to my feet, I swiped at my mouth with the back of my hand. Shower first. Then I’d feel better.
I almost made it to the bathroom before I puked up last night’s sushi.
~~ * ~~
I wandered into our private training rink about an hour later, still feeling wrung out and wobbly. Ty was there already, skating and practicing his outside edge, arms extended. A cameraman was there, filming him.
As the door shut behind me, he looked up and skated to the edge of the ice, eyeing me. “Damn, girl. You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly, clutching an enormous bottle of water to my chest. “I feel like hell, too.” I thumped down heavily on the bench, dropped my water, and began to put on my skates, ignoring that the cameraman had circled back to filming me. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I tried to.” He grinned at me from the ice. “But you were sleeping so heavily that it seemed a shame to wake you up.”
He’d been in my room to check on me? Why had I not noticed this? I jerked on my laces. “We’ve lost half the day, though. We need every minute for training.”
“We’ll make it up,” he told me easily. “We can just work late if we need to.”
I didn’t answer. I focused on my skates instead, lacing them tightly and then touching my talismans on the bottom of my skates. I hadn’t had time to add something from the skate two nights ago, but I did have a scrap of material tucked into the toe of one shoe, so that would have to do. Satisfied, I removed my blade guards and headed toward the ice and knelt to kiss it.
Ty was watching me as I got back to my feet again and skated onto the ice. I didn’t make eye contact, feeling a little weird about last night. He’d asked me to go back to his room, but was that only the sake talking? A post victory high? I felt…weird about the whole situation.
Just imagine how much weirder it’d be if you had slept with him, I told myself, and began to skate the edges of the ice, warming up. Except, that thought didn’t make me feel better. Because if I’d slept with him, at least I’d have something to regret. Right now I had nothing but a bunch of heebie jeebie feelings and a lot of uncertainty.
After I’d warmed up, Ty skated toward me. “This week’s classical music,” he told me. “Classical music and something called a dance lift. You know what that is?”
“Yeah, but those shouldn’t be a problem. You already lift me all the ti
me.” I tapped my chin, thinking. “The classical part will be the tricky part.”
“Cause it’s boring?”
“Pretty much. We’ll have to think of something awesome this week after last week. We can’t go big and then pull back. Audiences hate that.”
Ty put a hand to my waist and pulled me close, holding his hand out for me to grasp. “You should know by now that I never pull back.”
So many dirty ways to take that. I blushed and gave an awkward laugh. “You know what I mean. We have to make them fall in love with us again. Do you have any particular favorite classical music pieces?” I put my hand in his, and we began to skate, our motions easy after weeks of performing together.
He thought for a minute, and then shook his head. “Only stuff I know is that song they always play at weddings.”
“‘Pachelbel’s Canon in D?’” I loved that song. “Great idea.”
“I guess? Whatever it’s called. You know, dun dun dundun,” he said, and then hummed the wedding march.
I laughed, shaking my head. “That’s not Pachelbel.”
But an idea was forming in my mind. We were dancing on the ice. Throw on some Pachelbel. Put Ty in a tux and me in a bridal gown with a veil…I gave him an assessing look. “Would you object if we went ultra romancey with this next one?”
He shrugged. “I guess not. I feel like I already checked my man card at the door.”
“You’re definitely all man,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t. God, that was embarrassing. Me and my big mouth.
He flashed a grin over at me and dipped me low. “Speaking of me being a man and you a woman….we okay after last night?”
I wanted to straighten my clothes after he righted me, but that would require pulling my hand from his tight grasp, and it’d show just how nervous I was at that question. “You and I are fine,” I told him. “We made the right decision.”
We did. We totally did. As long as I kept telling myself that, I figured I’d believe it at some point, too.
“I know,” he agreed. “Last thing we want is sex fucking up a good competitive pairing.”
I said nothing.
“So yeah. Do I think it was the right move? You bet.” A pause, and then, “Can’t say I don’t regret it, though.”
“Me either,” I told him with a shy smile.
“Well, let’s win this thing, then,” he told me. “Cause I’d hate to go through weeks of blue balls for nothing.”
I laughed.
~~ * ~~
I nervously adjusted my short bridal veil and crown of flowers, and then looked over at Ty. He stood at my side in his skates, tall and handsome, the long tails of his tuxedo fluttering as he shifted from foot to foot, He tugged at his bowtie nervously.
You’d think the man was getting married for real.
I grinned and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him toward me so I could adjust the bowtie that he’d just twisted off kilter. “Quit fidgeting.”
“This is just so…freaking girly.” He gave me a sour look. “You realize that every time I get in the cage now, guys are going to give me so much shit for this?”
“Of course it’s girly,” I told him. “Who do you think’s watching this show? And just tell them you got laid a lot after the fact because it made chicks so hot.” I smoothed a hand down the seam of his jacket, admiring the way it hung. The man sure did have nice shoulders.
“You think that’ll happen?”
“Oh yeah,” I teased. “Panties dropping everywhere.”
“Yours are staying up,” he challenged.
“Only because they’re sewn into my dress,” I told him, and gave him a flash of the pale pink undergarment that was, indeed, sewn into the lacy froth of my costume.
We’d realized right away that while a tuxedo would work perfectly for Ty, getting me kitted up into an authentic wedding dress would be less easy. For starters, a real veil would just get in the way, so I’d worked with the prop department to come up with a fake lace veil that sat back on a floral crown and fell in a stiff waterfall to my shoulders. It wouldn’t move and flutter as we skated, and that was the important part. My dress was a bead-crusted bodice at the top, but the skirt was cut away to the thigh at the front and swept to mid-calf in back. I even had a lacy white garter to complete the image, and I noticed Ty kept staring at it, over and over again.
That made me feel good, despite our vow of chastity.
Of course, now that chastity was on the table, it was difficult to put the cat back in the bag, so to speak. Sexual tension was smoldering between us. It was there in every sultry look he sent my way, every teasing laugh, every joking innuendo. Not that I was innocent, either. I found myself holding onto his hands a little longer when we clasped, or when he’d put his hands on my waist, I’d get turned on. We’d added an overhead lift to the routine, and every time Ty held me in the air, I’d get an erotic charge from the fact that his hands were at the vee of my thighs and from noticing how big and strong he was.
Practice had more or less turned into foreplay.
But we had made it through another week. And as Ty murmured the routines of the other teams into my ear (I still refused to look at the TV monitors and watch for myself), I knew that we had a creative routine. The others had gone more traditional, less exciting. Someone had even worn red, which was a bold choice. Everyone knew that red was an unlucky color.
“You’re on in ten seconds,” the assistant murmured to us as we stood in the waiting area.
I looked over at Ty. He held his fist out, and I bumped it, then we went through our lucky handshake, getting our mojo on track.
“Go,” The assistant said and pointed at the curtain.
We emerged, and the crowd began to cheer. I waved as we skated to the center of the ice, and the roar of the crowd grew steadily stronger. They really liked our costumes. Excellent.
When we got to the center of the ice, I turned and faced forward, tucking my arm in Ty’s. He gave my hand a little squeeze and then we bowed our heads, waiting for the music to start.
The beautiful strains of Canon in D began to play, and as it did, we lifted our heads and stepped forward, paused, stepped forward, paused again, and continued to do so in an imitation of going down the aisle at a wedding. When we got to the ‘end’ of our sequence, Ty took my hands in his and we began to skate. We glided through the routine that I’d mapped out. No flash this time, just pure beauty and sweeping movements to go with the song. Over and over, our hands clasped and we turned in time with the music, our edges tight.
Then came the first partner lift. Ty picked me up, and I felt his grip slip a little. I wobbled, but he recovered, and I kept my body plank straight as we did another turn around the edge, though inside, my nerves were twanging. We’d almost messed up.
But he set me down gracefully, and the audience applauded, and we went on with the routine. The second lift? Went off without a hitch.
We finished the routine in a loving embrace, and the lights went down. The crowd went wild, and I hugged Ty happily. We’d done just fine.
“Sorry about that,” he murmured in my ear as we skated forward.
“It’s okay,” I told him with a pat on the stomach, my head tucked under his arm. “I wasn’t perfect either.”
“Please. You’re always perfect,” he told me.
Pleasure rolled through me at his words. Why did such a little, offhand compliment from him make me feel so incredibly good?
Then Chip skated up and gave us both a beaming smile. “Great skate, you two, and interesting choice of themes. I have to ask, though, is there romance blossoming in the air?”
I froze in place, looking up at Ty.
“A gentleman never kisses and tells,” he said into the microphone Chip held out for him.
That brought more cheers from the crowd.
“Zara? What about you? Anything you’d like to divulge?” The microphone was thrust under my chin.
I thought for a moment, and then said, “
Ty is a perfect gentleman.”
A ripple of laughter echoed through the studio, and more clapping.
“Well, with those non-answers, it’s now time to see what our judges thought. Let’s go first to Penelope Marks.” Chip turned to her, and the spotlight shifted from us to the judging table. “What did you think?”
She toyed with her face-down scorecard for a moment. “While I did appreciate the clever twist of the costumes and the pick in music, I found technically that the entire routine was lacking. The lifts weren’t clean, and I’ve seen both of you perform better.”
She held up a three.
Boos chorused from the audience, but Penelope’s face was impassive. No surprise there. She’d hated us in week one, and she still hated us in week three.
The spotlight switched to Irina, and she smiled broadly. “I thought it was a beautiful theme choice, and I love the costumes. The dance was a little shaky, but we all have bad nights.”
Seven.
There was lackluster clapping from the audience, as if they weren’t quite sure how to take a seven. It wasn’t bad enough to boo, but not good enough to cheer.
“Raul?” Chip asked.
He drummed his fingers on the judging table, thinking. “I agree with Irina. I loved the artistry. However, I also agree with Penelope in that the execution was weak.” He sighed heavily, and then slowly turned over his card.
A five.
I clenched Ty’s hand tightly, disappointment crashing through me. 15 out of 30. We were going to have the lowest score of the evening. And it was totally unjustified. We had one wobble; that was it. My jaw clenched, I gave another cheerful wave to the audience as we skated away and stepped off back at the curtained staging area.
“Well,” Ty said, and looked over at me. “That was bullshit.”
“A lot of the time, that’s how figure skating scoring goes,” I said with a heavy sigh. “They have favorites and make sure those rise to the top, and we’re no one’s favorites.”
“No one but the audience,” he agreed. “They fuckin’ loved us.”
I just hoped it’d be enough.
Ice Games Page 11