Chapter 35

Chapter 35

As I changed out of my costume into party clothes—a long velvet dress with a low V in both the front and the back, snakeskin stilettos gifted to me by a designer following a magazine shoot—I was still vibrating with adrenaline.

Garrett and I were peaking at exactly the right time. Finally, our free dance felt like a cohesive program instead of a series of elements strung together. All we had to do was skate at Nationals the way we’d skated that night, and they’d have no choice but to hand us the title—and our ticket to Torino.

So what if Bella had worn her mother’s old costume and put on a nostalgic show to impress a bunch of people who didn’t know a twizzle from a one-foot turn. It must have taken her and Heath weeks to learn that choreography—time they could have spent perfecting their competition programs. Sheila should have known better. In fact, I was sure she did. She might have put Bella and Heath in the spotlight, but Garrett and I were still the ones to beat.

The elevator car was empty when it arrived; the whistling operator must have taken off for the evening. I stepped inside and started examining the control panel, which had directional arrow buttons in addition to the options for each level.

Then I felt the floor shift as another passenger boarded.

“Going down?” Heath asked.

He’d changed out of his costume too, into a slim-cut black suit and leather brogues. Interesting how content he seemed to let Bella dress him up like a doll, considering how stubbornly he’d held on to his scuffed sneakers and ripped jeans when he was with me.

I mashed a combination of buttons. The elevator didn’t move. Heath stepped closer.

“Here, you just—”

“I’ve got it.” I bumped him out of the way with my hip, trying another sequence.

The elevator started to descend. I yanked the gate closed.

Heath was right behind me. The heat of him radiated across my spine. We stood still like we were waiting for music to start, but the only sound was the whir of the elevator gears.

I spun to face him. Stepped back. My shoulders hit the side of the car, the cool metal bars sending a shiver through me.

There was nowhere to go. And worse, I didn’t want to go anywhere. Heath moved toward me, hands gripping the bars, hips flush against mine, breath on my mouth, and it felt more natural than anything I’d ever done with Garrett Lin.

My body remembered everything I’d tried so hard to forget.

The elevator stopped. We didn’t move. There was no one waiting. No one to see us pressed together through the lattice of the gate.

Our breathing started to sync, his inhales quickening to catch up with mine the way they used to before we took the ice together. His fingertips brushed the shell of my ear, not taming wayward strands into place, but winding my hair around his knuckle, turning it wilder.

I could have reached for the control panel, pressed the number for my floor again. I could have taken him into my room, into my bed, and pretended, for a few hours at least, that the past three and a half years were nothing but a bad dream.

That was what he wanted. For me to forget myself. For me to forget everything I’d worked for.

So I pushed him away. I grappled with the gate, snapping a nail in my rush to get it open.

Heath said my name. Like a prayer, like a promise. Like he used to say it.

Like he still loved me after all.

I gripped the gate so tight the metal rattled. No. I would not turn around. This was another act. A part of the show. And I refused to stay for an encore.

I stumbled out of the elevator, running toward the lobby doors and out into the night air. At the party, I paused only long enough to seize a bottle of champagne from the maw of a half-melted ice sculpture shaped like some kind of sea creature. Then I kept running until my heels sunk into sand.

The hotel was on the west side of the island, facing open ocean rather than the shining lights of downtown San Diego. In the daylight, it had been beautiful, a never-ending sweep of cobalt reflecting the clear winter sky.

Now all I could see was darkness. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, giving off only enough light to make out the jagged crest of the breakwater at the end of the beach. I left my shoes next to an Adirondack chair and wandered toward the sound of the waves, clutching the champagne bottle by the neck. When cold water surged over my feet, soaking the hem of my dress, I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was back home by the lake.

It didn’t work. The sand was too smooth, the wind too warm. The spray tasted of salt.

I opened my eyes. My vision had adjusted now, well enough to see the waves crashing against the breakwater.

Well enough too that I could no longer miss the two figures intertwined in the cove.

Garrett. And Ellis Dean.