“Don’t two-foot this landing!” Candace called.
They did the lift three more times, and with each repetition Lexa’s confidence grew. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to vault up into Boyd’s hands and pose on her belly, her ankles crossed behind her and her skates higher than her head. Dismounting from the final lift, she descended perfectly. She understood where her body was relative to the ice now; she knew where her feet had to be. Boyd was out of position, though, and the sole of her landing boot hung up on the edge of his. Her blade couldn’t reach the ice, and for an instant it seemed they would both go down hard. Boyd held on tightly, though, and together they muscled it out, Lexa wrenching her skate off his and dropping into a wobbly glide.
“Whew!” she said, laughing as they came to a stop. “That was a close one.”
“Yeah. Watch where you put your feet. I won’t always be able to bail us out of your mistakes.”
“My mistakes! I came down right where—”
“Boyd’s right,” Candace cut in. “If that had happened in competition you’d have been marked down and missed the next element.”
“Yes, but—”
“You need to trust your partner, Lexa. Boyd knows where he’s supposed to be. He knows where you’re supposed to be too.”
Lexa bit back her arguments. Candace always sided with Boyd. Even on side-by-side elements where Lexa’s skills were clearly superior, Candace praised Boyd and criticized her. It didn’t seem fair to preach teamwork and then constantly single her out, but she believed she understood Candace’s motive. It’s not about who’s right or who’s better, she thought, fighting to hang on to her smile. It’s about working together as partners. Boyd was an experienced pairs skater, and she still had everything to learn. Of course Candace took his side.
“That was some pretty fancy wrangling all the way around,” Candace told Boyd. “Hanging on while she found her balance up there, saving that bad landing. . . . All that weightlifting is paying off.”
“I am kind of a stud,” he quipped, preening.
Don’t take it personally, Lexa ordered herself, her smile fading another notch. You’re not as good as he is yet, that’s all.
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders.
You will be, she vowed. And better.
—25—
“A party on the lake? What fun!” Beth’s nostalgic smile suggested she recalled summer bonfires of her own.
“Yeah. We’ll see.” Bry had had to twist Lexa’s arm—and promise that Ian and Blake wouldn’t be there—to get her to say she’d come. She missed the old crowd at Ashtabula Ice, but not enough to risk a run-in with those two.
“Off you go, then. I can handle these dishes.”
It had taken six weeks, but Lexa had finally convinced her grandmother to abandon the formal dining room in favor of the kitchen. Rising from their new bistro table, she carried dinner plates to the sink. The first day of July had been oppressively hot and humid, making grilling outside an easy sell. Not to be outsmarted, though, Beth had filled her impromptu chicken skewers with zucchini, mushrooms, and peppers.
“I’ve got this, kitten,” she insisted, following Lexa to the sink. “Go have some fun.”
Fun, Lexa thought uneasily on her long, solitary drive to the shore. Just a few months before, she would have been thrilled by the prospect of a summer bonfire. Now her anxiety was as relentless as the heat blowing in through her open car windows. Would everyone question her about Candace and Boyd? How much should she say? The last thing she wanted was for details of her new life to leak back to Blake, who could still take it all away.
The sun had just eased below the horizon when Lexa parked on a strip of packed dirt already crowded with cars. The still-warm breeze off Lake Erie lifted the damp hair from her neck and aired her clammy dress as she walked past Jenni’s Lexus and on down the brushy path to the beach. Wooden pallets were stacked high at the end of a sandy spit. Not yet lit, they created a jagged silhouette against the orange sky. Lexa altered course and headed toward the people surrounding them.
Bry ran out of the crowd to intercept her. “You’re here!”
“I said I would be.”
Grabbing her bare arm, he pulled her back the way she’d just come, away from the party.
“Is it my imagination, or are you not glad to see me?”
“No! I’m totally glad to see you. It’s just . . .” He glanced behind them, then lowered his voice. “Ian may show up.”
“Bry! You promised!”
“I didn’t invite him! I get more than enough of his act at the rink.”
“So how? He invited himself?”
Bry shifted uncomfortably. “Jenni might have said something.”
“Jenni! What the—”
“She thought you liked him!” Dropping his gaze, he drew a sneaker through the sand. “I kind of thought you did too, once. That last morning you came to the rink . . . did he piss you off somehow?”
Lexa hadn’t told anyone what was said that morning, and she didn’t intend to start now. “It’s just that things are awkward between me and Blake, and he’s Blake’s favorite so—”
“Got it,” Bry cut her off.
Great. Now I’ve hurt his feelings. Before she could repair the damage Jenni ran up to join them.
“Lexa!” she said, latching onto an arm. “Keg’s this way.”
Bry walked off in the opposite direction, toward some guys at the water’s edge. Irritated and at a loss, Lexa let Jenni pull her along. “Why did you invite Ian to this thing?”
“Me?” Jenni feigned amazement. “Ian who?”
“Yeah, funny. I was just trying to explain why I don’t want Ian here, and now I’ve hurt Bry’s feelings.”
“Bry’s the one who doesn’t want Ian. I thought you did want him. Biblically, even.”
“Will you shut up? I don’t even like the guy!”
Jenni shrugged her bare shoulders. “So much drama,” she said happily. “I think you can relax, though. Everyone else has been here an hour. Looks like Ian’s a no-show.”
The keg was strategically hidden behind the pallet stockpile. There was nothing else to drink. Lexa filled a cup, sipped, and grimaced as beer burned a trail down the back of her throat. Still revolting, she thought. Holding the cup at a distance, she let Jenni drag her to the fire pit.
Aiden and Paul, junior-level skaters coached by Stella Peters, were firing up the first pallet. Orange sparks spewed skyward as Aiden blew into the kindling.
“Hey, Lexa,” said Paul. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” she replied self-consciously. “You?”
“Can’t complain.”
Flames began licking wood. Aiden stood up and brushed sand off his knees. “I heard you’re skating pairs now?”
“Working on it. I still have a long way to go.” Lexa’s hand squeezed her beer as she braced for a negative comment.
Aiden nodded. “That’s cool. I skated pairs for, like, a year, when I was a kid. It’s harder than it looks.”
“It is,” she agreed.
“When we moved to Ohio, I settled on singles, and the rest is history.”
“Yeah, regional history,” Paul gibed. “So what’s the deal, Lexa? You’re not going to nationals?”
“I didn’t say that.” But she couldn’t say she’d be there, either, not this time anyway. “If not, then definitely next season,” she said, hoping that wasn’t still too optimistic.
“You’ll get there again. You’re too good not to make it.”
“Thanks,” she said, gratified by the unexpected support.
Stacy Lott and her best friend, Kayla, walked up to the fire with a couple of girls Lexa didn’t know. All four were wearing bikini tops under open Hawaiian shirts, as if they’d held a vote on that night’s outfit. “Hi, Lexa!” Stacy said. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”
“I’ve been skating over in Cleveland.”
“We heard!” Kayla
said. “Pairs! What a shocker!”
“What about nationals?” Stacy asked. “What about your invitation?”
“I may still get there. Next season for sure,” Lexa said, wishing people would quit asking her about nationals.
“It won’t be the same without you.” Stacy tried to look disappointed, and Lexa had to fight a sudden smile. How could she have believed these casual friends and acquaintances would care about her leaving singles? At worst, it didn’t affect them; at best, a serious competitor had just been cleared out of their way.
“I’ll be there rooting for you guys. For everyone from the rink.”
“Go, Ashtabula!” Kayla shouted, holding up her beer.
Lexa downed a gulp with the rest of them. Jenni drained her cup. “Back in a minute,” she said, taking off for a refill.
The pallet had become engulfed in flames, pushing out heat faster than the night was cooling down. Backing through the crowd, Lexa scanned for Bry. Nearly everyone was standing around the fire now, but there were still a few dark figures at the water’s edge. Lexa was headed toward the stragglers when she spotted a tall shadow walking down from the road.
Ian, she thought, freezing in place.
She glanced back toward the fire, then down to the shore. If she hurried to join Bry, Ian might walk past without seeing her and she could run to her car. She had already put in an appearance—she didn’t need to stay. She started walking then realized that Ian had probably seen her Explorer.
With a groan, she stopped again. If he already knew she was there, was it better just to face him? Slipping out might make him believe she had a guilty conscience. Which she didn’t.
Not very guilty, anyway.
I’ll just say hello, she decided. Show him I’m not ashamed. And then I’ll get out of here.
They met up midway between the fire and the road, far from the rest of the crowd. Lexa was glad for the darkness that shielded their faces. “Hi, Ian.”
“Hey, Lexa. Are you leaving already?”
“I’ve got to. I only stopped by because Bry begged me.”
“I only came because Jenni told me you’d be here. Can we talk a minute?”
“I guess,” she said uneasily.
“You can’t drive with that beer anyway,” he said, prompting the realization that she was still gripping her half-full cup, warm and even nastier now.
“This?” she said, silently cursing her own stupidity. “I wasn’t even drinking this! I mean, I had a few sips, but only because there’s nothing else. I hate beer.”
“Relax. I’m not a cop.”
No, but you might be a narc. Holding the cup at arm’s length, she dumped its contents into the sand.
“So, how’s it going? Over at Cleveland, I mean.”
“Fine.” Part of her wanted to brag about Candace and the facilities and make Ian regret what he’d missed. The part that wanted to keep Blake in the dark won out. “Why?”
“I just thought . . . Let’s go down by the water.” He took off without waiting for her reply. Lexa followed reluctantly, catching up at the shoreline.
A rising moon hung over the lake, silvering the ripples. Ian skipped a stone. “Your dad misses you,” he said.
“What?” she replied, amazed. “Did he send you to say that?”
“Of course not. Do you honestly think he would?”
She could see his features better now that her eyes had adjusted, but she still couldn’t read his expression. “No,” she admitted. “Probably not.”
“He’s not the same guy since you left. He’s never been what I’d call happy, but now he’s just morose. You need to call him. Better yet, go home.”
“He knows where to find me. He has a phone too.”
Ian sighed. “If you’re as stubborn as he is, you’re both in a lot of trouble. You don’t miss him at all?”
Lexa crossed her arms. “I’ve been keeping busy. I’m sure Blake’s busy too.”
“And what’s this ‘Blake’ thing about? Why do you call him that? He’s your dad.”
She snorted impatiently, tired of his assumptions that she was the one in the wrong. “When I was a baby and my mother died, my dad basically abandoned me at my grandmom’s. I was five before he pulled his head out and decided he wanted a daughter again. So he missed a few formative years there, years when things like names get established.”
Ian took that in, then plunked another rock into the lake. Lexa wished she had held her tongue. She rarely spoke of those lost years, mostly to protect Blake. Now she’d made it sound as if she were holding a grudge.
“Look, Ian,” she said, eager to end the conversation. “I’m guessing you mean well, but my family’s complicated.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t everyone’s?”
“You can’t fix us.”
“I just thought you should know.” He threw one last rock, then faced her. “So how are you liking pairs? Is it everything you’d hoped?”
“If I tell you is it going straight back to Blake?”
He looked offended. “I’m not his spy, if that’s what you think. He doesn’t know I’m here. Or that you are. Or anything about that sweet offer you made me.”
“You didn’t tell him I asked you to be my partner?” she asked, almost afraid to hope.
“I said no, so what difference does it make?”
“The difference is Blake’ll flip if he ever finds out.”
Ian smiled. “I might not be smart enough to mind my own business, but I’m not a complete idiot.”
Lexa laughed with relief. “Good to know. And I’m sorry I did that, for what it’s worth. I was so focused on what I wanted that I didn’t think everything through.”
“You did kind of drag me into this,” he said, still grinning. “I mean, in my defense.”
“You don’t need a defense. You like him—I get it. He likes you too, and Blake doesn’t like a lot of people.”
That “Blake” hung in the air between them.
“I thought you had night shift at the gym now,” she said to change the subject. “Is this your day off?”
“No, I came here straight from work. Someone quit, so I’m back on afternoons until they hire a replacement.” He shook his head. “It’s nonstop chaos at that place.”
Someone had cranked up a boom box. Music drifted out to them with smoke from the growing blaze. “So . . . do you want to join the party?”
“They don’t have anything to drink besides beer?”
“Sadly, no.” She crumpled the cup in her hand. “But if nothing else, I need a place to throw this away.”
She couldn’t help comparing their heights again as they walked side by side to the fire, but she held her tongue about pairs. This was the closest she and Ian had ever come to having a moment. She didn’t plan to ruin it by forgetting that they wanted different things.
Bry cut them off at the edge of the crowd. “You need to do something about Jenni,” he told Lexa, barely acknowledging Ian.
“Jenni? Now what’s—” She broke off with a groan as she spotted the problem. “Great. Who invited them?”
“Who do you think?”
Three jocks from Erie Shores High stood beside the fire, holding six beers among them. Lexa recognized the one Jenni was hanging on as Adam Yale, the beefcake basketballer from commencement. Jenni’s not-so-ex, Jacob Larimore, was there too, watching Jenni and Adam with an expression that promised trouble. Lexa didn’t know the third boy, but he was built like a cross between an offensive lineman and a concrete truck. All three towered over the skaters they stood among—and the way Jenni was flirting with Adam, some sort of fight seemed inevitable.
“Is she drunk?” Lexa asked.
Bry’s eyes rolled. “She’s hitting on someone she barely knows in front of a guy who still thinks he’s her boyfriend. I’m guessing she’s not sober.”
Lexa knew she ought to do something, but she had no idea what. “If Jacob wants to take a swing at Adam, It’s not like I can’t stop him.
”
“No, but you can get her out of there before it goes that far.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll try.” Lexa began weaving through the crowd. To her surprise, Ian stuck with her.
“Lexa!” Jenni greeted her, peeling one hand off Adam. Her fingers clamped around Lexa’s elbow and pulled her so close they were touching. “Have you met Adam? Isn’t he cute?”
“Hi,” Lexa mumbled, embarrassed for them all. Jenni had clearly entered the zone where whatever regrets she might have wouldn’t surface until the next morning, and the way Adam was eyeing her suggested he’d like to pile some on.
“What’s up?” he said, still gazing at Jenni. Polishing off the beer in his right hand, he dropped that cup into the fire and started on the drink in his left.
Lexa forced a smile and turned to Jacob. “Hi, Jacob.”
He nodded once, still glowering.
“Did you guys all come here together?”
“I called them,” Jenni said. “Hot night, free keg, single girls . . . can’t beat that.”
“I’m Mick,” the third guy offered. “You one of them ice princesses too?”
“I skate,” Lexa said tightly.
“Wearing those short little dresses?”
Jacob snickered.
“Am I right?” Mick demanded, encouraged. “Best part of the ‘sport.’ ” Four hands filled with beer, he and Jacob settled for bumping elbows.
“Jenni, can I talk to you a minute?” Lexa asked, trying to pry her off Adam.
“What?” she said petulantly. “Tell me here.”
“Yeah, don’t run off,” Mick said, leering. “This must be a nice change for you girls, having some real men around.”
Lexa felt Ian stiffen at her side, but the feelings she cared about most were Bry’s. Her eyes found him where she’d left him, hopefully out of earshot. “Yeah, super awesome.” Anyone with Mick’s lack of subtlety seemed unlikely to grasp sarcasm. “Jenni, I need you alone. It’ll only take a minute.”
“Back in a sec,” Jenni promised, reluctantly releasing her grip on Adam. “Don’t go anywhere.”
As Lexa pulled her through the crowd, Jenni finally noticed Ian. “Ooh!” she said, latching onto him with newly freed hands. “Hello, handsome.”
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