Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Heath kissed her to hurt me. To twist the knife. That was the only explanation.

Not everything is about you, Kat, Bella’s voice echoed in my head.

They wanted to force me to fall apart. I couldn’t let them.

Heath and Bella exited the rink. Garrett and I were next. The emcee announced our names. The audience applauded. They were waiting.

Something brushed my hand. I assumed it was Garrett, trying to lead me out onto the ice.

I blinked. Garrett was already past the boards, taking off his blade guards. Heath stood beside me. Heath was the one who’d touched me. He looked at me like a cat observing his squirming, wounded prey.

A few feet away, Ellis Dean eyed us over his plate of hors d’oeuvres, popping a miniature puff pastry into his mouth as if it were popcorn.

I shouldered past Heath and joined Garrett without a backward glance. Showtime.

Opening position: facing in opposite directions, the only point of contact Garrett’s hand reaching back to rest on my hip. Cue the music: the groovy, looping bassline of Sade’s “Turn My Back on You.” Garrett spun me around with a quick flick of the wrist that sent my filmy white skirt fluttering like a spiderweb in a storm, and we were off.

I told myself not to think about Heath. I told myself to be in the moment, to be in my body. Feel the fabric slipping over my thighs, the cool breeze off the ocean, the heat of Garrett’s shoulder under my palm. The contrast between the smooth velvet and the scrape of rhinestones.

But I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The kiss. The brush of Heath’s knuckles over mine. The smug, triumphant look on his face.

Despite my distraction, I kept up with Garrett. The first part of the program—with its hip hop–inflected muscle isolations, dynamic footwork, and flirtatious interplay—was easy for both of us, even with the constraints of the compact rink.

Our problems always came in the latter half, when we shifted into the yearning classical guitar and soft piano of “Haunt Me.” No matter how many times we practiced, it felt counterintuitive—all that kinetic energy building, only for us to slam on the brakes for a smooth, restrained midline step sequence to match the slower music.

We came to the transition point. A pause at the center of the rink, a breath with Garrett’s arms around me and my head on his shoulder. Usually I closed my eyes for that moment, centering myself. But that night, I kept them open.

And there was Heath, standing in the front row of the crowd. Our eyes met. My hands clawed, digging into the back of Garrett’s head. He gave a little gasp and flinched.

Heath smiled.

All the months we’d been working on the program, drilling it over and over and over again, I’d had it all wrong. Shoring up all that energy wasn’t counterintuitive. It was the whole damn point. “Turn My Back on You” was a seduction—a push-pull of warring lusts, seeming to give in to Garrett one moment, forcing him to follow me like a lovesick puppy the next.

So once we reached “Haunt Me,” the tension was almost tantric. My mistake before had been trying to tamp down the fire, instead of holding it inside me for as long as possible. Everything I was feeling that night—the rage, the jealousy, the frustration, the desire—all of it was more fuel for the inferno.

Garrett met my sudden intensity spark for spark. Our combination spin had always felt a bit stilted and mechanical; now our bodies curled together like plumes of smoke. He touched my face, and I could feel his longing extending from every fingertip. When we reached the climactic lift, timed to the song’s sultry tenor saxophone solo, I threw myself into his arms. No hesitation, no holding back. We whirled across the ice, my spine arched, hand reaching back to grab my blade, only the strength of Garrett’s interlaced fingers keeping me aloft.

It felt like flying. It felt like victory.

When we finished, the applause seemed to last forever. I didn’t look for Heath in the crowd again. Instead, my eyes sought out Sheila. She stood next to a firepit, wearing a cocktail dress covered in iridescent sequins that caught the reflection of the flames, making her look like a goddess emerging from a pyre.

She wasn’t applauding. Instead, she smiled at us and lowered her chin in a subtle nod of approval. Garrett and I exchanged glances. We both knew what that meant.

We were ready.