Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I wasn’t certain how much Heath had overheard. He looked perplexed, but it might have been by the sight of me and my sworn enemy, Bella Lin, treading water in our underwear.

“I was looking for you,” he said.

“She’s been right here with me.” Even soaking wet, Bella managed to seem imperious. “So you couldn’t have been looking that hard.”

His jaw twitched, the same way it had after Garrett lifted me. Well, I was annoyed with Heath too. He’d disappeared to God knows where for who knows how long, and I was fairly certain he’d been drinking. Despite the chlorine and the night-blooming flowers, I could smell it on him. He smelled like Lee.

“Ellis is heading out,” Heath said. “So if we want a ride back…”

“Already?” I’d lost track of the hour while talking to Bella. We had ice time scheduled bright and early in the morning, same as always. Though training would be a shitshow if my partner was hungover.

“Stay,” Bella told me. “Someone else can give you a ride.”

I could tell Heath expected me to jump out of the pool, to go with him without hesitation, despite how he’d treated me all night.

That’s what made my mind up. “I’m gonna stay,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”

He didn’t budge at first. Bella waved at him, flicking water onto his jeans.

“Have a good night. Thanks for coming.”

Heath stalked off into the dark, shoulders bunched tighter than ever.

“Jeez, possessive much?” Bella said. “Is he always like that?”

“He has a hard time with new people,” I replied weakly.

“Well, I’m glad you stayed,” Bella said, “because I actually wanted to ask you something. What are your plans for next season?”

I’d been trying not to think about anything beyond the end of the intensive in August.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’ll go back to Illinois. Keep going to school and training. Hopefully make it to Nationals again.”

We’d be lucky if my brother let us back in the house. We’d be even luckier if he didn’t fly into a drunken rage and break Heath’s legs while I watched, as punishment for running away in the first place. It was possible Nicole would let us stay with her, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. And we still had no money.

“What if you didn’t go back to Illinois?” Bella asked. “What if you stayed here?”

My stomach flipped. She was messing with me. This couldn’t be real.

“Garrett and I have been looking for dedicated training partners for a while,” she continued. “But we haven’t found the right match yet.”

“And you think Heath and I—”

“Like I said, you push me, I’ll push you. I know Heath and Garrett aren’t exactly BFFs, but give Garrett long enough, he can win anyone over.”

I highly doubted he could win over Heath. But maybe it wouldn’t matter. They didn’t have to get along for us to train together. Maybe Heath’s loathing toward the Lins would make him work even harder.

“I don’t know if…” I swallowed. This was humiliating. “It might be tough for us to come up with enough money.”

I didn’t even have a concept of how much a full season of training at the Academy might cost. It would be more than a year before I could access my inheritance, and I didn’t have any more family heirlooms to sell off.

Bella waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about the money. We’ll work something out.”

There was that confidence again. The idea of worrying about something so mundane as money was alien to Bella Lin.

When I was a little girl in messy pigtails, demanding to be watched from the front row, I’d had that sort of unshakable, semi-delusional confidence too. But after years of losses, disappointments, scraping by, holding on tight to Heath because he was all I had, I’d shoved that little girl aside, locked her up in some small box inside of me.

That night in the pool, it felt like Bella was handing me the key.

“I’ll talk to Heath,” I said.

Bella winked, a bead of water sparkling on her eyelashes. “I’m sure you can find some way to convince him.”

—

Bella ended up inviting me to sleep over. We’ve got plenty of room, she said.

A staggering understatement; the Lin house had at least a dozen bedrooms, though some had already been claimed for the night by Sheila’s gold-medal-winning guests from out of town.

I’d tried to imagine it: waking up under the same roof as Sheila Lin. Sitting at the breakfast table with her and her children. Riding with them to the rink. The look on Josie’s and Gemma’s faces when I emerged from the Lins’ chauffeured town car.

Then I had imagined Heath, tossing and turning in his twin bed. More comfortable, certainly, than he’d been in the stable back home. But just as alone. Just as abandoned.

Besides, Bella’s offer was burning in my chest. I had to tell him. I had to make him see what an incredible chance this was. Maybe our only chance, to become the athletes I knew we could be.

I splurged on a cab back to the Academy, but I didn’t go to my room. Instead, I snuck around to the north side of the building.

There wasn’t a drainpipe next to Heath’s window, but there was a small tree, the roots surrounded by concrete. Shoes in hand, I shimmied up the trunk, cringing every time the bark snagged Arielle’s dress. Once I was high enough, I tapped one shoe heel against the glass.

Heath slid the pane up. “Katarina? What the hell are you—”

“You make this look a whole lot easier than it is.” I rucked up my skirt, rustling the branches. “Are you going to let me in?”

“It’s late.” He’d showered and brushed his teeth, so he didn’t smell like alcohol anymore.

It was late. But there was no way I could wait until morning to tell him. The words were buzzing on my tongue, like a whole hive of bees trapped in my mouth.

So I heaved myself up onto the windowsill. Heath relented, gripping my wrists to help me get safely inside—though not without some under-the-breath grumbling.

“Listen,” I started as soon as I was on solid ground. “I was talking to Bella, and—”

His lips twisted. “So you two are friends now?”

“So what if we are?”

“You can’t trust her,” he said.

“You don’t even know her.”

“Neither do you. You thought she hated you, and now all of a suddeny—”

“She wants us to stay.”

“Stay?” Heath took a step back. “What do you mean?”

“Stay here, in Los Angeles. Skate at the Academy. We’d be their training partners.”

I didn’t want to let him get a word in edgewise. I had to get this out, defuse all his arguments before he could make them.

“Bella said the money wouldn’t be a problem, we’d work something out. We wouldn’t have to worry about school, either; we’d be tutored a few hours a day, like she and Garrett are, and the rest of the time we could train.”

Heath opened his mouth. I kept barreling ahead.

“We wouldn’t have to see my brother ever again. We’d be free.”

“I don’t know, Kat.”

I took his hand. I led him toward his unmade bed. I drew him down beside me.

“We could be together,” I told him. “Like we’ve always wanted.”

He stared at me, eyes shining in the glow of the streetlights outside the window.

Bella’s words rang in my head. Convince him.

“Unless…” I leaned closer. One of the flimsy straps of Arielle’s dress slid off my shoulder. “Unless that’s not what you want.”

Heath slid a finger under the strap, like he was going to tug it back into place. Instead, he twisted it around his knuckle.

“Of course I want to be together.” His voice was hoarse, breathing gone ragged. “But—”

I pushed him back onto the bed, straddling his waist like we were about to perform a lift. His eyes widened with surprise when I raised the dress over my head and tossed it onto the floor.

“You’re sure?” he said. “You’re sure this is—”

“Yes.”

I wanted it all. California and gold medals and Bella Lin’s unshakable confidence. I wanted so much skill and fame and money that we’d never have to worry about anything, ever again.

And him. I wanted Heath so much. I was tired of waiting.

I wanted it all, and I would have it.

“I’m sure,” I said. “About everything. But if you…”

I knew Heath wanted me—but did he want the same future I did? I needed to hear him say it, before I could go through with this.

“I realize it’s a lot to ask. Living in California long-term.”

“Katarina.”

“It’s a lot of money, and we’re a long way from home, and—”

“Katarina.”

I fell silent. Heath sat up and pulled me against him, so close I couldn’t tell his heartbeat from my own.

“ You’re my home,” he said.