I cleaned off my own hand and then dabbed at my nose one more time. It looked awful. I was going to look horrible for the next week on camera. Lucky me.
“All right,” he told me. “Let’s just forget about this and go back to bed.”
As if on cue, my alarm clock began to beep. I gave him a wry look and headed to the side of the bed, clicking off the alarm. “No sleep. It’s time to get up and train.”
He gave me a withering look.
~~ * ~~
We met fifteen minutes later. I was dressed in my typical leotard and tights (hey, everyone has a work uniform), and my hair was pulled back in my standard bun. I hadn’t bothered with makeup for my nose and swelling eyes. Instead, I’d put a dainty pink bandaid, which matched my leotard, over my nose and pulled on my lucky socks that I’d washed in the sink the night before.
Then, skates in hand, I headed out to the rink to warm up.
To my surprise (and pleasure), Ty was there, lacing up his skates as he sat on the bench. Good. So he was going to take this seriously. I sat next to him and flipped over my skates, mentally assessing all of my luck charms taped to the bottom of my skates as I touched each one in order.
He leaned over and glanced at my skate. “What’s all that shit?”
“They’re for good luck.” I pulled my skate away protectively, and then began to put it on. First the left skate, because that was the lucky one. You never started with your right foot.
Ty grunted. “You superstitious?”
“No more than anyone else,” I told him, tightening the laces on my skate until I was pleased with how it felt. Then, I gave it a wiggle and moved to the other skate. A few minutes later, I was good, and I took off my blade guards, and then headed to the ice. As was my custom, I leaned over the ice and gave it a kiss.
Behind me, Ty snorted. “Did you just kiss the ice?”
“Good luck,” I told him. “We don’t want any bad juju.”
“Uh huh,” he said skeptically. “You should try making your own luck for a change.”
“You should shut your mouth,” I said pleasantly, getting back to my feet and stepping onto the ice. It was like welcoming a lover—not that I’d ever done that, either. I sighed with pure pleasure as my skates glided onto the ice, and I closed my eyes, rolling my shoulders and working out the kinks in my neck. No sign of our cameraman yet, or Imelda. It was just the two of us.
I began to skate slowly around the ice, warming up and shaking out my muscles. As a test, I swung around and popped into a double axel. Smooth and flawless. Nice. I continued to warm up, adding the occasional jump just for fun. Nothing hard, nothing strenuous, just prepping my body for a long workout ahead.
Still, when Ty skated close to me and began to keep pace with my strides, he looked pretty impressed. “You’re good.”
I gave him a funny look. “I know I’m good. That was just warm-ups, though.”
“You were in the Olympics?”
I nodded, and then flipped around to skate backward so I wouldn’t have to answer more questions.
He wouldn’t be deterred, though. Ty followed my lead and turned as well, skating into a tight edge and showing more agility on the ice than I’d given him credit for. He caught up to me and started again. “You get any medals?”
“I don’t want to talk about the Olympics,” I told him.
“Why not? You talk about everything else. Half the time you won’t shut up.”
I skidded to a halt, jamming my toe-pick into the ice. My hands went to my hips. “Have I asked you what it feels like to chew off some guy’s nose?”
He scowled at me, his mood going dark right away.
“Exactly. You don’t ask me about the Olympics, and I won’t ask you about eating some guy’s face.”
“Fine,” he said in a curt voice.
“Fine,” I said, keeping my own tone light. I was going to be nice if it killed me. I dropped into a loose sit spin to end the conversation.
When I was sufficiently warmed up, I skated toward Ty. Hopefully he’d had time to cool down a bit. “So do you want to practice ice waltzing until Imelda gets here?”
He wiped his hands on his sweatpants, and held them out to me. “Sure. Let’s go for it.”
I placed his hand at my waist like we’d been shown and flushed, remembering that I’d woke up that morning with his hand on my breast. Don’t think about that, Zara, I scolded myself. I took his other hand and clasped it in mine, then put my other on his shoulder. I looked into his eyes. Despite all we’d been through in the last two days, our embrace still felt intimate as heck, and my body reacted, my skin tingling as I became aware of him close to me. I needed to get used to a partner, or this was going to make me flustered and nervous every time he touched me. I glanced at him, and he was staring at my face with intensity.
“Damn, you look like hell,” he said, shaking his head. “Your nose is swelled up like a strawberry.”
“Just dance.” I bit the two words out, any attraction I might have felt toward him disappearing in an instant.
We practiced keeping in time with each other. Ty was a big guy, and I was a lot smaller than him, so we spent a lot of time matching our strides. I had to lengthen mine while still seeming graceful, and he had to manage to somehow not mince while keeping in time with me. It wasn’t easy. We were starting to get into a rhythm, though, and by the time it was nine in the morning, we were moving around the ice in a reasonable facsimile of partnership.
The door to our rink opened, and we both glanced over. Imelda, the camera crew, Ty’s manager, and two other people I didn’t recognize all stood there.
The cavalry had arrived. Fun. And they were all staring at my face with horror. I felt Ty tense up, his hands still clasping me close. He was trying, though, and because he was holding up his end of the deal, I’d hold up mine.
I patted Ty’s arm. “Let me handle this.” I pulled away from him and skated to the edge of the ice. “Morning,” I said in my most cheerful voice. “I was wondering if you guys would ever get here.”
The cameras immediately hovered around me, filming my brutally awful face at every angle. I couldn’t say I blamed them. Imelda moved to the edge of the ice and put her hands on my chin in a motherly way. “Poor Zara. What happened to your face?”
“Oh, that.” I waved a hand casually. “I was practicing late last night, and I guess I was more tired than I thought. I went to stop on my toe pick, but it wasn’t sharp enough and I miscalculated.” I smacked my hands together. “Boom, flat on the ice. Luckily, Ty was there to pick me up. He offered to take me to the emergency room but I figured it was just a little bump.” I touched the pink Band-Aid on my nose innocently. “Does it look bad?”
Imelda was giving Ty a skeptical look. She glanced at him and back at me, and I knew what she was thinking. Did the big, mean MMA fighter beat up on fragile little Zara Pritchard? “He came back to skate last night?” Imelda asked skeptically. At her side, Ty’s coach took one look at me and stalked toward his client, practically vibrating with fury.
“He did,” I said brightly, glancing back at Ty so he could back up my story. “We had a little chat last night, and he wanted to come back out and practice some more, so we did. We’re getting better, too. Did you want to see what we’ve been practicing?”
Ty’s manager looked at my swollen face, then back to Ty. Then back to me. “You said this wasn’t him? You swear?”
I blinked my puffy eyes in what I hoped was an innocent expression and not something hideous. “No. Ty’s been the perfect gentleman. Why would you think he’d hurt me?”
He looked back at Ty. “That wasn’t you?”
Ty crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits. He forced a casual stance, though I could still see him practically vibrating with tension. “It wasn’t me, man. Chill.”
“I told him you’d all say that,” I exclaimed, and gave a fake laugh. “No, it was just me getting too ahead of my own feet. It’ll go aw
ay in time for the show.” And I skated back to Ty’s side as if that settled things and we were bestest buddies.
No one said anything for a long moment, and I pretended to check the laces on my shoes, waiting. Waiting for someone to call bullshit on us. Waiting for someone to tear into Ty.
“Oh. Well, okay then,” Imelda said. “Let’s get your measurements.”
I stood back up, looking at Imelda with a question in my eyes. “Measurements?”
The two strangers moved forward, pulling out measuring tapes and sewing implements. “For this week’s costumes,” one of them said.
“No sequins,” Ty immediately called out.
One of them looked up and wrote that down. “What about you, Miss Pritchard? Sequins?”
“I don’t care. So what are we wearing?” I skated over and tried to get a glimpse at the clipboard that one of the costumers was carrying.
“The theme for this first week is country,” Imelda said.
I made a face and looked back at Ty, hoping he’d share my dismay. “Really? Country? How are we supposed to skate to wailing banjos?”
“I have music picked out,” Imelda said. “And we’re incorporating line dancing, so this should be fun.”
I stared at her, an unpleasant look on my face. Line dancing? Fun? “We’re not dancing to classical?” I’d always been skeptical of skaters who picked trendy music simply to get more of a rise from the audience. After all, in ice skating, the only ones you really had to impress were the judges’ panel, and if you came out to rock and roll, there was always going to be someone that wasn’t a fan. Classical music was safe.
“‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie,’” Imelda announced cheerfully. “The required elements this week are toe step sequences, so it’ll be perfect.”
“Toe step what?” Ty skated to my side and looked over at me. “What’s she talking about? Required elements?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Every time you skate a routine, there are required elements that you have to perform to get a certain number of points. You can’t just go out there and skate whatever you want.”
He rubbed his shaved head. “I thought that was exactly what you did.”
I laughed. “Uh, no. There are all kinds of specifics. And our judges are going to be other figure skaters, so we’ll need to be as precise as possible.”
“Precise as possible to ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie?’”
I shrugged. I’d never even heard the song. “If it’s what the network wants, it’s what the network will get.”
“Great,” Imelda said. “I like to hear that.”
“What size skate do you wear?” one of the costumers asked me, fingers poised over his iPad.
“Doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’m using my skates. They’re all broken in the way I like them.”
He eyed my beaten-up, white leather skates. Then made a note on his iPad. “We’ll make some skate covers attached to your tights.”
“Fine by me.” I stepped off of the ice and moved forward. Immediately, the one costume designer wrapped a tape around my thigh, measuring.
That was…weird. Normally female skaters just wore tights, and they didn’t have to be measured to the extent that she was. “So what’s with the thigh measurements?” I asked casually.
“For your chaps,” the other said.
“Chaps?” Ty repeated. Then a low groan escaped his throat.
I shot him a deadly warning look. “Chaps are fine,” I said, even though I thought they were stupid, especially for a skating costume.
“Chaps are fine,” he repeated in a flat voice, his gaze on the pink Band-Aid on my nose.
I was glad he saw things my way.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chaps. Goddamn chaps. If there’s sequins, I’m leaving. — Ty Randall, to his manager
~~ * ~~
We practiced our “Boot Scootin’” routine daily, and I grew to hate it a little more each time.
To be fair, though, Ty never complained. Perhaps it was the sight of my swollen face that made him close-lipped, or the fact that I never complained about Imelda’s choices (poor choices, if you asked me) of what we would do. It was like he’d drawn up his belt and decided to just endure.
Kind of like me.
The routine was child’s play for me, but it was clear that it was tough for Ty. For starters, he tended to surge while skating instead of gliding gracefully. I suspected that was a holdover from his years of hockey training, and it took us days of simply holding each other in an ice dancing embrace before we started to move together fluidly. Once we did, though, Ty gave me a cocky little grin as if to say “See?”
Of course, then we added the music, and things went to hell all over again.
I hated the song. Hated it. I loved classical music, and this piece was the antithesis of that, all twanging vocals and guitars. Ty seemed to like it, though, and I caught him humming it under his breath, as if the tune were still stuck in his head even when we were off the ice.
Which made sense, seeing as we’ve heard it so many times that I’ve been hearing the song in my dreams.
Ty worked hard, though. I had to give the guy credit. Once he’d decided that he was going to do this, he was as determined as I was. If I was there at six in the morning, so was he. If I stayed and skated until eight at night, so did he. He didn’t get off the ice until I did, and I tended to work long hours. Not only because I wanted to get things just right, but because I truly loved being on the ice and pushing my body to the limit.
Too bad the routine wouldn’t let me. While we practiced the simplistic step sequences over and over so Ty could get them right, I kept feeling the urge to add to the routine, to flick my skate in a showy fashion, or to add little twirls here and there that would make the program more artistic.
I had to constantly remind myself that I was just the mannequin. So I practiced smiling and looking like I was having a blast while I did Imelda’s simplistic—and dare I say, boring—routine. And when we took breaks, I punched things up and added a few jumps just for fun, and just because I could.
Ty was taking a breather off to the side as we finished that day’s practice. He watched me come down from a triple axel that was perfectly timed with the change in the music that led to the chorus, and gave me a funny look, wiping his sweat-covered brow. “That was awesome. Why can’t we add that stuff in the routine?”
I skated back to him, ignoring the endless twang of the music. “I’d love to, but there are two problems.”
“What’s that?”
I shook out my legs, feeling the burn from the hours of practice. I was just as sweaty as he was—and about ready to call it a night. “Well, for one, Imelda would freak out, and she has the network’s ear. I want to be seen as a team player, and changing the routine of the choreographer they selected for us? Not exactly a team-player move.”
He grunted acknowledgment. “So what’s the other problem?”
“The other is that you wouldn’t be able to keep up,” I said with a sly grin on my face. “I can do the hard shit. You can barely keep a clean edge.”
He scowled at me, but I just grinned. We’d formed an easy sort of truce ever since he’d agreed to actually try to work, and we bickered and teased and were generally comfortable with each other. It wasn’t quite friendship, but it wasn’t out-and-out hatred, either.
“I could keep pace with you if I had enough practice,” he told me arrogantly.
“No, you couldn’t,” I said, sauntering away, heading to the edge of the ice. “You’d need a lot of practice to even come close. And anyhow, I’m heading off to take a shower.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Ty said behind me, and I heard him skate closer. “I get the shower first.”
“Nope,” I said, skating a little faster. “You had it first yesterday.” Out of all the money the network had spent, why only one damn shower at the ice rink? We fought over it every day.
“Oh yeah?” Ty’s hands landed on my waist.
He grabbed me and hauled me around, spinning me.
I shrieked with laughter as he spun me around once, and then flung me into the air. Was that supposed to scare me? I landed easily on my blade, with a flourish. “Was that what you call a partner toss? You’d better brush up.”
“Yeah, but now you’re further away from the bathroom,” he told me, hopping off the ice and tossing on his blade guards. He sat down and began to quickly unlace his skates.
Damn it! I skated furiously over to the bench, snapped on my blade guards and then thumped down next to him, undoing my own laces. “You are not getting in there first,” I hissed. “I got on the ice first this morning, so I get to the showers first! Those are the rules!”
“Those are stupid rules,” he told me. “And your rules don’t apply if I get in there first.” He tugged at a knot on his skate.
Ha! I pulled mine off and tossed them aside, and then scooped up my towel and ran into the shower room. Success! It was all mine. I reached in to the shower compartment and turned it on, letting the water heat up. Then, I pulled my sweat-damp hair down from my bun and began to slide out of my leotard.
“Hey, thanks,” Ty said in my ear. “You’re heating up the water for me.”
I gave a little scream and a jump, clutching my leotard to my front. One second later and I would have been topless. I turned away from him and glanced down at my front, making sure everything was covered. “What are you doing in here?”
“Gonna take my shower first, like I told you.”
“I’m getting undressed,” I protested.
“I’m already undressed,” he told me, and a second later, I heard the sound of water splashing.
I turned around just in time to see a pair of beefy, pale buttocks disappear into the hot shower—my shower! My mouth went dry at the sight, though, and I stood there dumbly as he slid the glass enclosure door shut.
Holy shit. Ty Randall had just walked past me, naked, and I’d missed all the good parts.
The shower cracked open a moment later, and Ty stuck his head out, water streaming. “You’re welcome to finish undressing and join me.”