Page 104 of Off the Edge

My heart stuttered and that damn lump was back in my throat. Out of everyone, he was the one I’d wanted to watch me the most. And he’d been here, he’d seen it. I was choking up again. I had his arms around me, right where they were meant to be. But there was only so long you could hug in front of a camera before it turned heads. We separated, slowly. Ren put me at arm’s length and his lips ticked up. His smile was minimal, but it was there.

“Go wait for your scores,” he said, shooing me off.

“Yeah . . .” I hobbled away on my blades, then turned. “Are you dancing?” I called back.

“Group five,” he said, his smile growing.

I wanted to cheer, but all I could do in front of the cameras was smile back. He and Tamsyn would compete against us. Now it was a real competition. If I’d thought Zoe and I had a clear run, I’d been wrong. The ice prince was back, exactly how it should be.

I sat in the kiss and cry with Zoe to my left and Miles on my right. Cameras pointed at us. The Canadian maple-leaf motif was stamped everywhere. Sponsors plastered on banners. Flowers framing us. It was all a blur, a heady rush of adrenalin and the comedown, and seeing Ren and knowing he’d watched, he hadn’t left, he was going to dance. And my dance, my performance . . . fuck, it had been the best I’d ever done. And he’d seen it!

This was it. There was nothing else we could do. Whatever the scores, we’d given it our all. The results were out of our control.

But they damn well better be good ones.

“Is Hasegawa dancing?” Zoe whispered through her camera-smile.

“Yeah . . .”

“Oh god.”

“We’re gonna be fine. Trust us.” I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

A resounding cheer filled the arena.

Then the scores came up on our screen.

130.85

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Don’t say holy shit out loud.

Zoe sobbed. Her hands went to her face. I was right there with her, disbelieving, shocked, reeling. Holy shit. I got my arms around her and hugged her tight as she shook. Holding her kept me steady, kept my face from crumbling and my whole body from falling apart. Miles was clapping. The arena thundered with applause.

I’m not even sure what happened after that. Stunned interviews. I couldn’t feel my face through all of it. Just my smile, from ear to ear.

The score was podium worthy, and medal winning.

But as we’d been in the first group out, there were hours left of dancers trying to beat us, and we just didn’t know which medal, especially now Hasegawa was back in the Games.

With the rounds of interviews over and my head and heart coming back down to earth, I packed my skates away, taking a minute to calm myself during the ritual of drying them off.

“Where was he?” I heard myself say, thinking aloud.

Zoe stood next to me, zipping up her Team Canada jacket over her costume. “Yesterday?” She didn’t need to ask who. “In disciplinary all day, Jen said.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah, his dad’s a real piece of work. Turns out Goro Hasegawa didn’t actually do anything against regulations, but his meddling was enough to get him quietly removed from Team GB’s consultancy position.”

Good. It should have been worse, but if it had been, he may have dragged Ren down with him.

“Ren’s competing, so I guess he got his wrists slapped and they sent him on his way,” I said, thinking it through. He’d spent a whole day with the panel, going back and forth, probably while they determined if he’d actually done anything serious enough to be taken out of the Games. He’d come back from the airport to that scrutiny. It must have been awful, and he hadn’t said a damn word to me. He probably didn’t want to distract me from today’s dance. That damn idiot.

“C’mon, you’re glad he’s back.” I grinned at Zoe. “You always would have wondered if you could have beaten them, if Ward and Hasegawa weren’t competing.”

“Yeah, I would have,” she admitted.

“Now we’ll know.”