Page 13 of Ice Dance

Dylan clapped her hands and skated back, giving us room in the middle of the rink. “Together, let’s go.”

I led; there wasn’t any question about that.

Navarro came in, and took up Alisha’s pose, on his knees, head bowed, shoulders loose. I stood tall next to him, poised. The music came in, soft and subtle at first, then the vocals. Building.

Opening stillness. Camden rose, I pushed away, Camden outside on the circle, left outside edge, too loose through the shoulder unless I caught him before the first change of hold. Together. First contact. Sudden. Too sharp. Hands locked. Messy. Chest to chest. Eye contact. Closed hold into the first phrase. No rushing. I let him breathe there, even if every instinct told me to lock the shape down.

First beat. Matching edges, three turns, twizzles on the count. He pushed too hard on the exit, overcorrected, we broke apart, and the routine fizzled out.

“Good, very good,” Dylan said, her voice dropped into authority mode. “Brilliant . . . for your first try. Pros, both of you, I’m looking at brilliance, but if you don’t connect, we have nothing. I am not seeing connection. Again.”

The first part of the track looped again.

Camden dropped to his knees. I stood over him.

And we went again.

Camden outside on the circle, left outside edge, too loose through the shoulder again. Contact. Sudden. Hard. Hands locked. Messy. Eye contact. Breath fast.

He lost the beat there, eyes on mine.

“Again,” Dylan said, circling us.

We ran the opening eight more times, with Camden getting messier each time. He knew it too. The thrill I’d seen in his eyes when we’d begun had slipped toward something sharper, harder, and I could feel it in his stance any time we came together. He was tensing, not loosening.

“Stop.” Dylan breathed in, lifted her chin, and said, “Ren, off to one side. Work the middle of the routine. Navarro, to me.” She drew Navarro to the side and took my place in the routine, so while I ran the middle section of the routine alone, she coached him. It was to be expected. The dance was new to him, I was new, the rink was new. Nothing about any of this would be easy.

I watched them from the corner of my eye while skating the twizzles, one of the hardest parts of any ice dance. A continuous spin, while moving forward. Very dramatic, very ice dance. The challenge of it distracted me long enough that Dylan called me over ten minutes later.

“Okay, we go again.” A clap, and we began again.

Three hours in, Navarro’s firm body under my hands began to feel familiar. Almost comfortable. His gaze on mine didn’t land like a landmine each time. And while we weren’t anywhere near competing level, we had something—the something Dylan had seen when we’d danced in the conference center.

Navarro declined any breaks when Dylan offered, and we continued, carving up the ice with building synchronicity. But it was far from perfect. Navarro made sloppy mistakes, and his footwork wasn’t anywhere near as precise as he needed to be for us even to be selected, let alone make a realistic play for the cup.

The more we worked, the more time blurred into a fever of pushing across the ice, holds coming together, physicality and heat. But the routine I’d polished endlessly with Alisha was in tatters.

“We should do the lift,” Navarro said, stopping at the edge of the rink to wipe his face with a towel.

I picked up my own towel. “I’m not doing the lift.”

“We both know it will be a disaster, but it has to happen.”

“I’m not doing a lift with you in this current condition. It’s dangerous.”

“Ren is right,” Dylan said, skating over to join us.

Navarro snorted and took a few gulps from his water bottle. “All of this is dangerous.”

“You don’t do a lift three hours after finding your feet in a new routine,” I told him, as I stepped through the gate onto the rubber matting and opened my bag to reach for the water bottle. “It’s reckless and unnecessary.”

“Like me, you mean.”

I shrugged a shoulder and drank from the bottle. Sweat ran down the back of my neck and soaked into my shirt. My body burned, muscles tight. I would need a break soon. I certainly was not doing a lift. We’d both end up face down on the ice. The last thing we needed was an injury on top of everything else.

He laughed. “Maybe that’s what this routine is missing. A little danger.”

Anger prickled my skin. “After three hours, you’ve decided, have you? Three hours and you’re the expert, compared to my six months making this routine work?”