Edge of Glory

by Rachel Spangler

  “You survived, champ,” she said, shaking out her limbs. “You had your first of many ice baths?”

  Corey shuddered and climbed out as well. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

  “I don’t know how you live without them.”

  “I know, right?” Corey said sarcastically, “I lived thirty years without purposely freezing my nipples off until I met you.”

  Elise’s eyes flickered to Corey’s chest, and she saw it. Just a little movement, but enough to make it clear the ice woman had a little heat in her veins after all. Corey didn’t even try to hide her grin as Elise carried on in her professional tone.

  “You’ll notice a difference tomorrow. Especially as we age, it’s important to maximize the rebound process.”

  Images of Tigger and reporters flashed through her mind. “Age?”

  “I may be twenty-five, but I’ve already pushed my body harder than most people do in an entire life. Don’t tell me your joints have had an easy quarter century.”

  She didn’t point out she actually had five solid years of heavy competition on Elise. She didn’t even want to think about the exponential rate at which her body had deteriorated in that time. She certainly wouldn’t admit she’d come in to snag an extra packet of bio-freeze.

  “Trust me. You’ll notice less soreness tomorrow.”

  “What makes you think I had soreness to begin with?” Corey asked, trying to keep the defensiveness from her voice. She started for the stairs, saying, “I got in there for you, remember?”

  Instead of laughing or shooting back in the same tone, Elise stopped her with a soft hand on her arm. “There’s nothing wrong with being a little sore sometimes. You’re an elite athlete in the middle of training for the Olympics. Aches and even minor pains are expected.”

  Corey sighed as the tension slipped from shoulders she’d barely realized were knotted. “An elite athlete? Not a joke?”

  Elise looked away. “Corey, I said some things, and I’m not sure why, but—”

  “But nothing.” Corey shrugged as she settled back on the ledge to let some feeling return to her legs. “I’ve been competing my whole life. I know what other athletes think of boardercross. You’re not the first person to say those things. Hell, it wasn’t even an Olympic sport when I got started.”

  “Really?” Elise asked.

  “Sure, it’s not like your gig. We’re the new kids on the mountain. I never got into the sport with an end game in mind. We didn’t even get invited to the party until I was eighteen.”

  “You trained for years before that, though, right?”

  “Oh sure, I’ve been rubbing elbows with the boys since I was eleven. The tours and championships and the USSA, they’re all Johnny-come-lately.”

  “But what about all your success? I don’t follow snowboarding, but people around here seem impressed with your accomplishments. Surely you had a hand in cultivating the sport into what it is today.”

  She shrugged off the compliment and the weight of responsibility accompanying it. “I got lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I peaked with the sport. There was no precedent to chase. I didn’t even understand what I was getting into in Turin in 2006. The Olympics came into my world more than I came into theirs.”

  “And yet you medaled,” Elise said in the way that she might whisper the name of a lost lover.

  “Yeah, I had a blast. The most fun I’d ever had until that point.”

  “Fun,” Elise repeated, as though the word sounded foreign. “I bet the sponsors came pouring in.”

  “Oh sure,” Corey admitted, her shoulders tensing again, and this time she couldn’t blame the cold. “I did the press junkets, all the morning shows, and the late night shows, too. Even I got sick of me on TV. I’m sure you did, too.”

  “Actually, I don’t remember seeing you on TV ever.”

  “Ouch. Way to knock me down a peg.”

  Elise laughed. “To be fair, I was fourteen and at boarding school. I didn’t watch much TV, and when I did, I focused on obscure ski races, not daytime talk shows.”

  “Fourteen?” Corey made a show of putting some space between them. “I didn’t know I’ve been half naked with a minor all this time.”

  “I was fourteen eleven years ago,” Elise corrected. “I’m not jailbait anymore.”

  “No, now you’re the Ice Princess.”

  “Ah, you’ve heard the rumors?” Elise asked, her facial expression returning to a studiously neutral position. “I don’t apologize for my focus or my demeanor. I’m here to ski, not rush a sorority.”

  “Rumors?” Corey teased. “What? You mean that wasn’t an original nickname?”

  Elise didn’t smile, but her shoulders relaxed. “Original? I’ve heard it every season since I won my first race at age ten. My skiing, my eyes, my . . . stoicism.”

  “Stoicism,” she repeated. Not the word she would’ve chosen, but it fit. “When you were ten? I’ve never even heard of a stoic ten-year-old, much less met one.”

  “I wasn’t some sort of childhood robot. I had fun, too,” she said. “But I had more fun when I won. I’ve never understood what’s so hard to get about that? People always said, ‘go out there and have fun,’ but given the choice between winning a race and coming in last, don’t you think it’s more fun to come across the finish line first?”

  “Sure,” she said, almost dreamy with the memories of seeing her board slide in ahead of all the others. “All the tensions fade away, but the adrenaline is still pumping. It’s the best high in the world.”

  “If I’m supposed to have fun, and winning is the most fun part of my job, why should people act like wanting to win is some sin?”

  “Sound logic,” she agreed, amused and a little surprised no one had ever laid out the argument so concisely for her. “That’s why you’re sneaking into the trainers’ room on a Friday night? You’re doing it all for the fun?”

  Elise scoffed. “Yeah, that’s my excuse. I’m taking cold baths to prepare myself to have more fun than the USSA thinks I’m capable of having on a bum knee.”

  “Damn right. We do squats for the fun. We deadlift for the fun. We drink chalky protein shakes for the fun.”

  “You do chair sits for the fun?” Elise nudged her playfully.

  “Yes. From now on, ‘fun’ will be our code word for everything we do to get to the kicking-all-the-ass part.”

  Elise did finally crack a smile. “No one will know but us.”

  Corey’s chest expanded, a lightness pressing at her ribs until they almost ached. “An unsupervised cold bath and a secret code word. We’re becoming real partners in crime tonight. What would people think if they heard we’d spent time together without wanting to kill each other?”

  Elise didn’t respond, but she continued to smile as she rose and headed for the stairs.

  “What? Do you disagree? Most of the people we know, and pretty much every one we don’t, would be shocked to find us hanging out.”

  “Probably,” Elise finally admitted, grabbing herself a towel and tossing another to Corey. “But I did sort of want to kill you when you first came in.”

  “Okay, well, if we’re being fair, I might’ve been a little torqued off when you tried to lie to me, but now we’ve gone at least fifteen minutes without any murderous fantasies, right?”

  “Oh, at least. I’m sure our trainers would consider this session a real breakthrough, not that either of our trainers can ever know.”

  Corey hopped down and stole one more glance at Elise’s phenomenal form before she wrapped herself in a towel. “It’ll be another one of the secrets we get to share.”

  Chapter 5

  “Explode up, Elise,” Paolo commanded. “More harder, not the toes, the whole leg.”

  She squatted down, gritted her teeth and tried to jump three feet off the ground. She probably could have, too, if not for the added weight Paolo’d piled on today.

  “More harder,” he called enthusiastically, and she crashed back down
to a squat, the weights crashing loudly on either side of her.

  “More harder,” she muttered. “More harder. Why don’t you get a whip and shout, ‘mush, mush’?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he said. “Go again.”

  She braced herself for the fire that would race through her quads, but she didn’t back off. Setting her jaw once more, she pushed up with all the brute force her body could muster, certain this time both feet would leave the ground, only to be disappointed when she barely made it onto her toes before getting yanked down again.

  “She’s phoning this one in, Paolo,” Corey called as she ambled across the gym and slapped him on the back. “You going to let her off easy almost two weeks into August?”

  “Easy?” Elise snapped as she tried to stand up. She liked to tower over Corey, but she couldn’t with the weights anchoring her down.

  “It’s not a real workout until you get off the ground.”

  “Would you like to come a little closer and say that?”

  “What? You couldn’t hear me from here?” Corey laughed. “I could talk louder for you.”

  “You can get loud and obnoxious at the same time? Shocker.”

  “Sassy. I like it.”

  “Get a little closer, see how much you like it,” Elise said.

  “All right.” Corey tossed a water bottle to Paolo and dropped her sweaty towel to the floor. “I’ll climb into the ring.”

  “Corey,” Paolo warned, “it’s not wise to poke the bear.”

  She’d have to punish Paolo for the bear comment later. Right now any predatory instincts she had were focused solely on Corey, who’d wandered dangerously close to being within arms reach. Elise eyed her like a cat ready to pounce. Today Corey wore bright blue track shorts and matching tennis shoes. She’d topped off the outfit with a tight fitting T-shirt featuring a picture of a snowboarder on a ski lift and a caption reading, “Do you even lift, bro?” Corey’s golden mane hung almost to her shoulders, but the few sweat-soaked strands sticking to her forehead and neck suggested she’d already put in a strenuous workout of her own.

  “You can’t get it up, huh?” Corey joked. “I’ve been known to help a woman or two out of that predicament.”

  Elise’s cheeks flamed, but she only shook her head as Corey edged closer, then moved in a circle behind the stabilizer bar Elise had her hands on. One more step, and she’d be able to grab her by the scruff of her silly little T-shirt. She wasn’t sure what she’d do from there, but Corey wouldn’t make another smart-ass remark so quickly next time. But instead of coming closer, Corey started to climb. First, she hopped from the floor to a nearby weight-lifting bench. Then she scrambled onto the weight-lifting apparatus closest to Elise.

  Several people stopped their workouts to watch Corey monkey into position. She was nimble and strong. Elise would grant her that. Corey swung one leg and then the other around to the front of the equipment. She now balanced three feet above ground, braced between two metal uprights with her feet on two of the pegs normally used to hold weights.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Nate called from across the gym. “Get down, Corey. You’ll break a leg.”

  “I’m fine. She’s not going to jump this high,” Corey teased.

  The comment cut through Elise’s confusion and caused her annoyance to boil over once again, only this time she had an audience to contend with. Nearly a week had passed since their covert cold bath, and she’d grown used to seeing Corey across the gym or in yoga class without feeling the grating sensation usually associated with fingernails on a chalkboard. On her more generous days, they’d even managed to make polite conversation in short doses. Paolo had been angling for a group outing with the LaCroix crew that weekend, and she’d almost relented, her only concerns focused more on the distraction from the training schedule rather than a general dislike of her present company. And yet, all her goodwill evaporated as Corey stretched out an arm above her like a chimp swinging between trees and said, “Hey, Elise, gimme a high five.”

  She stood as much as she could under the weighted belt, but even without stretching out her arm, she could tell Corey’s hand hovered about an inch out of reach. She’d have to jump higher than she had yet been able to, which of course Corey knew as well. Hell, the whole gym probably knew. If the other athletes hadn’t watched her workout earlier, they were certainly watching now. Everyone for rows around them stopped to see their local celebrity play the part of lion tamer. Elise didn’t appreciate being cast in the role of lion.

  Of course, she could refuse the part. She could tell Corey to fuck right off. Corey seemed to respond to that kind of language. If she delivered the message in the icy tone she’d worked hard to cultivate, she could freeze her dangling from her perch. Then again, she didn’t want Corey frozen on her perch. She wanted to make her fall. She wanted to jump up there, drag her down and shake her senseless.

  She ran her hands over her sweat-beaded face and blew out a heavy breath before meeting her eyes once more.

  Corey smiled down at her, all golden and charming and oh so cocky. Her hazel eyes flashed with mischief. “Come on, E. Don’t leave me hanging.”

  “You’re going to regret this,” Elise warned.

  “Nah, I’ve made a lot of regrettable decisions with women, but I feel pretty good about this one.”

  “Fine,” Elise mumbled. Go ahead and doubt. Corey wouldn’t be the first or the last person to do so. Every detractor only laid another log on the fire burning inside her. The higher the flame grew, the more it fueled her desire to prove them wrong.

  Settling deep in the crouch, knees bent, back straight, she coiled every muscle in her lower body, then without even a countdown or a word of warning she exploded into the air. Her arms and legs straightened in unison. Both her feet cleared the ground, but she wasn’t worried about her feet. All her attention focused tightly on the end of her outstretched fingers as they rocketed toward Corey’s hand. Not only did they reach their target, she overshot Corey’s palm and wrapped around her wrist as the weights took hold.

  When gravity and cast-iron conspired against her, she refused to relinquish her prize, and holding tight to Corey, dragged her down from her self-selected throne.

  A cheer went up from the onlookers, but she barely heard them. All her focus remained on reeling Corey in. Still grasping her wrist like a winning lottery ticket, once Corey’s feet landed catlike on the padded gym floor, Elise did some pouncing of her own. She caught hold of her other arm and pulled her forward as close as the bars and restraints would allow. Then cupping the back of Corey’s neck, she doubled her over the handrail.

  “Uncle, Uncle,” Corey cried, laughter shaking her shoulders, but Elise had no mercy to offer. All the endorphins of the challenge and ensuing victory still coursed through her, and she had to burn them somehow. Taking Corey into an awkward headlock, she knuckled the top of her scalp and rubbed aggressively, twisting the amber mane as she did.

  “Noogies?” Corey laughed heartily. “I never pegged you for a noogie woman.”

  “Yeah, well”—Elise worked hard to keep from smiling—“I’d rather strangle you, but people are watching.”

  “All right, all right. You made your point.”

  “No, I’m still making it.” She rubbed some more. “I don’t like being teased.”

  “But you responded,” Corey protested, though she did little to try to squirm away.

  “She’s right,” Paolo cut in. “Go easy on her. She got you off the ground.”

  Elise stopped as the comment sank in. She’d gotten off the ground. Weights and all. To grab Corey’s whole wrist, she’d had to jump almost two inches higher than the best she’d been able to muster on her own. Despite all the grit and work and burning muscles and doubling her efforts or adjusting her stance, stupid Corey with her games and her annoying court-jester antics had pushed her to a personal best.

  She released Corey and quietly started to unbuckle her restraint belt. “Let’s call it a day on this
one.”

  “Yes,” said Paolo almost gleefully. “You’re done here. How do your legs feel?”

  Letting the belt fall to the floor, she took a couple of uninhibited knee bends to confirm what she already suspected. “No pain.”

  Paolo looked from her to Corey, who wore her usual excessive grin. “It might be time to try another joint workout. I can live with the bickering better if you two can produce these results together.”

  She shook her head. “No. This wasn’t a shared workout. We didn’t produce anything together. We aren’t training buddies. That’s not what any of this was about.”

  “No,” Corey said, still giggling. “It was about the fun.”

  Elise bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. She didn’t want to give away her pleasure at having Corey recognize how much she enjoyed the allusion to ass-kicking. “No, that wasn’t even about fun. It was me teaching you not to doubt me.”

  Corey stilled her laughter as her expression grew serious. Then leaning close, she clasped Elise on the shoulder, looked her straight in the eye, and whispered, “I never did.”

  • • •

  Corey stepped gingerly through the office wing of the training center complex trying not to garner the attention of anyone working behind some of the open office doors. She didn’t normally come over this way, but upstate New York was experiencing a rare one-hundred-degree day.

  “Thanks global warming,” she muttered, as she turned another corner, trying to cool down inconspicuously. She should’ve been walking on the indoor track, but the gym was packed with all the outdoor athletes who’d moved inside due to the heat, and the old air conditioning units could barely keep up with the weather, much less all the added sweaty bodies. This side of the compound smelled better, too, like clean paper instead of perspiration.