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“Mine too.” I laughed.

We skated apart, hands still locked, and bowed again.

We’d given the world a show it would never forget, and we’d danced for us. Nobody else. Just us.

Whatever happened next, wherever we went, together or apart, we’d always have this dance, and the story of the battle we’d survived to win it.

One month later.

I stood outside Saga’s studio, not really knowing why I’d come back. His parents had sold it off a week after his funeral. I didn’t belong here anymore.

A van had parked outside. Removal guys marched back and forth across the cracked sidewalk outside. The new owners were already moving in. They’d probably turn it into residential apartments that the locals couldn’t afford. Saga’s studio may have been a mess, but it had also been a safe space for a lot of people. I’d spent some of my lowest days hiding here, and some of my best too, finding myself in dance.

I watched one of the guys set up a ladder. He climbed up with a drill and began removing Saga’s terrible sign. I couldn’t blame them for taking that down. It still hurt, though.

It had been a month since the Olympics. I had a sports agent now, and sponsor deals to sign. I needed to be thinking about where to go next, not about the past.

Where was there to go after winning gold at the Olympics?

I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and walked the block to the pizza place on the corner, ordered some food, and sat out the back. It wasn’t too cold, and they had the heaters going. I needed to be outside in the weak Montreal sun.

I pulled my phone from my pocket.

they’re taking Saga’s shitty sign down

I sent to Ren.

I wasn’t even sure what time it was in the UK. Morning, maybe?

Are you okay?

He sent back almost instantly. He must have been awake.

Was I okay? I was, it just hurt, but the hurt was inevitable. I wanted Ren, though. Missed him something crazy.

Yeah I’m alright just sad i guess

We’d talked about meeting up, spending a few weeks together somewhere hot and tropical, where the only ice nearby went in cocktails, but I had a crazy work schedule I was about to sign into and hadn’t committed to vacation ideas. We deserved it, I just hadn’t stopped long enough to think about how to make it work. Make us work. I also wasn’t sure what he was doing now. Any time I’d asked over the phone, he’d changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about skating and dance, he’d said. Not yet. But my whole world was skating and dance.

We were half a world away, and the distance was growing.

If I didn’t have work and commitments, I’d have gone to England, camped out on his doorstep, moved onto his couch. But that wasn’t how the real world worked. I had a whole lot of future to think about.

I’d sent money home to my folks, to try and make up for being a teenage nightmare. They’d said they didn’t need it, but Dad had gone out and bought a new car. Their first new car ever.

They kept asking about Ren, about when they could meet him. They’d seen the kiss and our performance, like everyone else. The dirty dancing video had been resurrected from the depths of the internet and was trending again. At least we looked hot in it. All my vague interview denials came back to haunt me in a thousand fan edits. Honestly, the fan edits of us highlighted how stupidly in love we’d been while neither of us had dared to realize it.

Casey had even taken me out for beers and apologized for being a dick about Ren. He hadn’t known what was going on behind the scenes, so it hadn’t all been his fault. And he’d had his heart in the right place, trying to protect me. I told him I definitely did not need him protecting me, then we’d ended up in some seedy karaoke place that saw Jen and Zoe singing Rihanna’s “S&M”—badly.

“Is this seat taken?” Ren said.

I stared up into his sultry eyes and stoic face. “What?”

“This seat,” he said, wrapped up in his gray woolen coat and looking down at me in this backyard pizza place like he shouldn’t be two thousand miles away and texting me from his fancy London kitchen.

I shot from the bench, crashed into him, and flung my arms around him, almost dragging him over the table. He was real and solid and here. Firm and warm, and he smelled so good. My heart swelled. My breath caught. I crushed him close. His arms came around me, so easily, like we’d never been apart.

Then I pulled back and shoved at his chest. “You asshole!” I punched him on the arm. “What the fuck, Ren?!”