Lexa nodded, at a loss.
Beth smiled reassuringly. “There’s no downside here, kitten. You’ve passed your pairs tests, so whatever else Candace and Boyd may be, they weren’t a waste of time. We’re in a much better position to shop for partners now than we were before. So cheer up! Take a few days off and have fun with your friends. I’m going to fix everything.”
—37—
Lexa’s cross trainers thudded down the unpaved shoulder to the beat of the music in her earbuds. Her tank top was already sweated through and her shorts stuck to her thighs. The August heat had arrived early that morning, giving even the long stretches of shade beneath trees the ambiance of an outdoor oven. In another hour, running wouldn’t even be possible.
More than a week had passed since Beth had fired Candace, and no new partnership had appeared on the horizon. Beth had been on the phone every day, calling in favors and pulling strings, all with zero success. Lexa could only imagine what Candace was saying about her now—probably enough to keep her from skating pairs ever again. Instead of becoming depressed, though, she’d been working out harder than ever, combining grueling runs and swims with weightlifting at a nearby gym. When she did return to the ice, she wanted to be in top form—especially if she returned to singles, as was starting to seem inevitable.
It won’t be that bad, she told herself. It will be awkward at first, but it’s time to patch things up. She missed Blake more than she would have thought possible. It was actually a relief to have an excuse to get back into his life, as well as back into his rink. Bry’s there, and I’ll make up with Jenni. Ian will be around . . .
Lexa could think of worse situations; she’d just bailed out of one. In fact, the more she pondered returning to singles, the better she liked the idea.
Emerging from a patch of shade, she began the long low climb toward the top of the rise. Heat shimmered over the pavement, making her feel dizzy. She pressed on anyway, calling up memories of snow and ice like virtual air conditioning. Nationals was still five months away. If she rededicated herself to singles right now, she might at least skate well enough to earn another bye and set herself up for next season.
Bright spots danced through her vision as Lexa crested the hill. A car swooshed past in the nearest lane, not creating a breeze so much as simply stirring the heat. She squinted against the glare off its windshield as it disappeared down the grade. In the distance another bright spot winked from a turnout: the sun had found her Explorer too. Gravity on her side at last, she pounded down the final slope toward the parked Ford.
The car’s interior was unbearably hot, but the water she’d stashed beneath its backseat was still only lukewarm. She chugged an entire bottle before stripping off the soaked armband holding her iPod. Walking around the SUV, she opened every door, hoping to catch a breeze, then took her phone from the glove box. A text from Beth filled its screen.
Exciting news! You’ll LOVE this! Call me ASAP!
Her heartbeat had begun returning to normal, but now it revved back up. Exciting news? News she was going to love? There was only one thing that message could mean.
She wasn’t going back to singles at Ashtabula Ice.
—38—
“How does that sound? Any questions?” Lexa’s prospective new coach asked.
She shook her head, still unable to believe she was in the presence of Weston Kirk, supposedly retired former coach of Walker and Walker. She and Beth had already been at the rink in Mentor for an hour, during which time she had skated her heart out in short and long program auditions for Weston and seasoned pairs skater Eric Sinclair, but the entire experience still felt unreal. That Eric would consider her as a potential new partner was mind-blowing enough. That a legend like Weston was considering coming out of retirement to coach them . . .
“I have a question,” Eric said. “When can we get started? Because right now works for me.”
Weston smiled and Lexa shook off a feeling of déjà vu. She had only just met the man, but she’d been watching his face on TV screens for her entire life.
“Seriously!” Eric insisted, laughing as he gestured for Lexa to back him up. “I’m free as the wind. Let’s do this!”
He looked as if he’d been caught in a wind. A crazed mop of product-free curls framed his face like the aftereffects of a hurricane, and his old T-shirt was permanently stretched. He was a full head taller than Lexa, though, with muscles that made Boyd’s look puny. Twenty years old with the skating credentials to match, Eric Sinclair had been a senior pairs contender for the past three years. Three near misses had been enough for his partner, though; Katie Lane had just made the last-minute decision to accept fall admittance at Harvard, leaving Eric in need of a replacement and many other, more qualified girls clamoring to be it.
“Wait,” Lexa said, finally finding her voice. “Does that mean . . . Are you choosing me?”
“Do you want me to skate for you first?” he offered.
“No. I— You’re kidding, right?”
“Skate for me,” Weston told him.
Lexa watched from the boards as Eric took the ice. In addition to his own lanky grace, he had all of the speed Boyd had lacked. Eric had presence, power, passion . . . and he knew how to sell every move. Lexa gasped with admiration as he landed an effortless triple Tano lutz, his edges textbook clean.
“Oh, yes, please,” she heard herself say.
Beth laughed. “Works for me. Weston?”
Weston nodded thoughtfully. “Physically, it’s a good match. Their styles are somewhat different, but at this point they always are. My biggest concern is the disparity of experience, but that scale’s off balance in your favor.”
He turned to Lexa. “I see your parents in you when you skate. You have all of their gifts. But will you work as hard as they did? Do you want it as badly? That’s what matters to me.”
“I’ve wanted this all my life,” she said earnestly. “From the moment I first put on skates.”
“You started late.”
“And you know why.”
Weston’s face had aged since the days of her videos, lines deepening into folds, but his blue eyes were still as sharp. He turned them out over the ice, where Eric was skating the end of his program. “I don’t like knowing that Blake is opposed, but he won’t return my calls, so we can’t talk about it.”
“Don’t feel special. I mean,” Lexa amended as his gaze snapped back to hers, “he hardly talks to anyone, especially about pairs. Bad memories. You know.”
Weston smiled sadly. “Blake always was a half-empty kind of guy. Made him a fearsome competitor. But after all this time I’d hoped he’d learned to focus on the good things.”
Lexa stifled a snort just as Eric skated up to stop in front of them. “So what do you think?” he asked eagerly. “My tapes with Katie are probably a better indicator, but—”
“I’ve seen your tapes.” Weston looked back and forth between Eric and Lexa. “I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to pry me out of retirement, especially not during fishing season, but here we are, and I like what I’m seeing. I’m willing to give this a few months’ trial to see if it’s the right move, for all of us. Shall we say till the end of the year?”
“Yes,” Eric agreed instantly.
“Till the end of the season, you mean,” Lexa corrected. “Nationals is in January.”
“As we discussed, Beth,” Weston said.
“It’s too late for this nationals, kitten. You need to focus on training now, give you and Eric a chance to grow as a team.”
Eric nodded. “Next January. Hopefully we can skate some international venues between now and then, but the next time I compete at nationals, I’ll be there to win.”
Lexa twisted the ring on her thumb, missing Boyd for the first time. The Olympics were only two seasons away, and she desperately wanted to make that team. Could they really advance from a nationals debut straight into the Olympics?
Maybe, maybe not, she thought. But I’
ll never have a better shot.
Weston Kirk and Eric Sinclair were a pairs dream team. If anyone could make her wishes come true, they could.
“I’m in,” she said with conviction. “Let’s do this.”
—39—
I should have listened to Bry, Lexa finally admitted to herself. He warned me this would happen.
She stared down at the pale turquoise box in her lap, then back out her windshield at the growing number of cars parked in front of the Kims’ property. She hadn’t been on Jenni’s street since she’d dropped her off after the bonfire, and she still hadn’t ventured close enough to be spotted from the house, parking well down the block instead. In the growing darkness, she wasn’t likely to be seen there, but she still felt conspicuous and unwelcome.
Probably because I am unwelcome.
Jenni’s annual birthday bash was always a major event, and the Kims had gone even bigger this year, for Jenni’s seventeenth. According to Bry there was going to be a live band in the backyard, a volleyball net in the pool, and outdoor catering involving a wood-burning pizza oven, a barbecue grill the size of two vans, and a Hawaiian shave ice station. All of the invitations had been mailed with tiny keys attached, entry tokens into a game that ended with some wildly expensive party favors. This Lexa had learned from Bry as well, because, for the first time in ten years, she hadn’t been invited.
“Show up anyway,” Bry had urged. “Jenni really wants you there. She just doesn’t want to look like the weak one.”
Which made two of them.
Exhaling nervously, Lexa jerked the Explorer’s door open and slid out onto her highest heels. Her tight new minidress rode up, forming bands of wrinkles across her thighs. She smoothed them out as best she could, then grabbed Jenni’s present and started down the street.
Jenni wasn’t an easy girl to shop for. She was trendy, she was picky, and she already had pretty much everything. Lexa had combed the mall for hours, determined to come up with a gift that said all the things she couldn’t: that she wasn’t angry anymore about a fight that had gone on too long, that she missed her best friend, that she desperately wanted to make up and move on. If a silver bracelet in Tiffany’s trademark blue box didn’t get those sentiments across, nothing ever would. At least it gave her a place to start.
A just-arrived group of guests lingered where the Kims’ long front walkway met the street, holding some sort of conversation before continuing up to the house. Lexa made out long bare legs, high shoes, and short skirts, but the girls’ faces were lost in the failing light. She hurried to attach herself to their group anyway. Tagging along in a pack would make her own entrance less noticeable, and while she wasn’t worried about not being let in, the less attention called to her missing invitation, the better.
She was only steps away when one of the girls laughed, tossing her face up into a shaft of light filtering down the path. Everly Brooks. And that was Emmi Wallace next to her, Lexa belatedly realized. Their entire evil clique was there, all with invitations dangling from well-manicured hands.
Turning on the ball of one foot, Lexa walked rapidly back the way she’d just come, face burning from her slamming pulse. Jenni hadn’t sent an invitation to Lexa, her oldest and best friend, but every single member of the slut squad had received one. What if she followed them up to the door and Jenni didn’t let her in, humiliating her in front of these girls she’d once scorned?
There was no way to pretend her pride would ever recover.
Yanking the Ford’s door open again, Lexa threw the Tiffany box inside and climbed up behind it. She’d give it to Jenni someday. Maybe.
But definitely not tonight.
—40—
Halfway through a ballet lesson, Lexa winced at the interruption caused by her chirping phone.
“Busted!” Eric teased. “You bring the coffee tomorrow.”
With apologies to Yvonne, their instructor, Lexa ran to her bag beneath the barre. As she switched off the phone, she peeked at the text on its screen. Ian:
Blake burning thru nicorette. off cigs all week. no fun 2 b around at all! :-)
Her breath caught. Blake had quit smoking now? After all the times she’d asked, no begged—
“Please to rejoin us, Lexa,” Yvonne called, crankiness intensifying her French accent.
“Yes! Sorry!” Lexa ditched the phone and ran back to resume pliés.
“Secret admirer?” Eric teased.
“More of a friend, I guess.” After only a week of skating together, she already trusted Eric enough that she wouldn’t have minded explaining the nature of her ongoing text relationship with Ian, but she didn’t understand it herself. Instead, she concentrated on trying to execute Yvonne’s commands—deeper knees! softer arms!—and wondered what had finally changed Blake’s mind. He’d said a hundred times that he’d stop smoking when he was dead.
Maybe he’s sick. Fear pierced her heart like a shard of ice. Cold spread into her limbs as she imagined him with emphysema. Or heart disease. Or worse.
Lung cancer would probably get him to quit.
For a few beats she found it hard to breathe. Then common sense kicked back in. Ian would have told her if Blake was sick. Bry would have told her.
If they knew.
He couldn’t be hacking up a lung, though. Someone would have noticed. Marginally reassured, she worked to give ballet her full attention.
She’d text Ian back after class, just to make sure.
—41—
Lexa drove the familiar dark streets feeling like a stranger. Everything looked the same, yet it all seemed oddly different. Parking a block away, she tried to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion: She was the thing that had changed.
This is a bad idea, she thought. And it’s still too early. He’s probably not even here yet. But that wasn’t the scenario Lexa feared. The possibility that had her hands sweating as she shoved them into her hoodie pockets was that Blake would be home.
She walked the back route in, following a dirt path between the back edges of the neighbors’ yards and the strip of trees beyond. She’d brought a flashlight but didn’t need it, making her way instead by the light of an early moon. Lexa could see people going about their illuminated lives as she passed their homes, but to them she was part of the night, lost in the blackness beyond their windows.
She stopped at the edge of her unfenced yard. Blake was not only home but in the kitchen, his head bent over some paperwork spread out on the countertop. His hair was much shorter than when she’d left, cropped closer than she’d ever seen it. She crept a few yards nearer and registered another shock: her father was wearing glasses.
When did he get glasses? And what’s with the military haircut? Fear gripped her again, squeezing her heart hard. Chemo makes hair fall out.
With an effort, she reined in her paranoia. Bry and Ian had both assured her that Blake seemed healthier than ever now that he’d quit smoking. And as far as the glasses went—Lexa did some quick math—he had to be thirty-six or -seven now, so maybe reading glasses weren’t that alarming after all.
He’s just getting old. Far from reassuring her, the thought caused another pang. She was almost an adult herself. Blake had obviously adjusted to living without her. If things kept on this way, by the end of the year they’d be strangers.
A gust of wind made Lexa shiver. September temperatures dropped fast at night, but what brought the goose bumps up her neck was the sense of being an observer in her own life. She was like a ghost haunting a lost loved one, aching with the things she should have said when she had the chance.
Just go in there, she told herself. Go in and admit you miss him. Say you’re sorry if you have to.
She was sorry, if not for the decisions she’d made, then for the way she’d carried them out. Leaving home the way she had, allowing Beth to call and speak for her, seemed so immature now. She was ashamed to have been such a coward.
Leaving the counter, Blake walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a
Snapple, draining it as Lexa watched in disbelief. He’s drinking tea now? Seriously? What is going on?
But even after her father exited the kitchen for the darker rooms beyond, she couldn’t find the courage to go inside and ask.
—42—
“Looking good,” Weston called from the boards. “Keep it flowing. Legs aligned . . . Perfect!”
Lexa and Eric completed their spiral sequence then stroked over to join their coach, hockey stopping in a unified flurry of snow. They were already synching their movements even when they weren’t trying, a promising sign of things to come.
“Good progress, you two,” Weston said. “Excellent progress for only two weeks. I’m extremely pleased.”
“Lexa’s like a Ferrari to Katie’s Benz,” Eric said. “No sane person would ever complain about a Benz, but . . . wow!”
Weston gave her a knowing wink. “Speed is oxygen to a Walker. The world was obsessed with your parents’ unison, to the point that their speed got overlooked, and that was a big mistake. Their speed made their unison more exciting.”
Lexa laughed, high on unaccustomed praise. “Will you be able to keep up with me?” she teased Eric.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised, smiling back.
“Let’s break for lunch. You two can continue this love fest over chimichangas.”
Eric sucked in his six-pack. “You told!”
She laughed again. “Not me!” Anyone from the rink could have spotted them indulging their mutual love of chiles, cheese, and sour cream at the packed taco dive down the street.
“I told,” Beth informed them, walking up for the end of the conversation. She’d been at the rink nearly every day, not about to repeat the mistakes she had made with Candace. “And I packed us all a nice healthy lunch today. Will you join us, Weston?”
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