Page 3 of Off the Edge

That asshole. He could have seen me at any time. A “Hello, Cam” would have done. “Nice to see you’re back on the ice.” Even a nod in my direction would have been enough. Something from him to say, “I see you,” instead of the cold shoulder he’d been giving me for months. But that would have meant being seen with me in public, which was clearly still a big fuck no for him.

I slumped against a wall and stared at our pathetic string of text messages.

It hadn’t started out so bad. We’d texted almost every day to begin with after the Meridian, then it had slowed to every week. But with my recovery and training, regional competitions, and Olympic selection, everything had gotten very loud and busy very quickly. Then he’d canceled on me the one time we were actually going to meet, and after that, I figured we were done.

I mean, we were never really a thing, so you can’t be done if you aren’t a thing. But it had felt like we’d been a thing. For a while. Until I’d taken a dive off the ice before the Meridian finale and landed myself in months-long recovery.

“This guy . . .” I mumbled and sighed hard. “I travel halfway around the world to his back yard, and he can’t even say hi.”

“Hey, Camden, right?” An eager-eyed teen stopped in front of me, wrapped in a big coat. “I saw you out there. What a comeback, man.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“After the Meridian, must have been hard. Hey, can I get you to sign my skate bag?”

“Sure.”

He presented me with his bag and a Sharpie pen, so he’d clearly been building up to this for a while. I scrawled my distinctive Navarro name, and handed both back.

“I follow your Insta. You’re all over socials.”

“Yeah,” I chuckled. “It’s gotten crazy, honestly.” I loved the whole fanbase buzz around me. The federation loved it too, and they’d been using me as the poster boy for driving interest in the sport and the Canadian team. Everyone loved an underdog story, and they didn’t come much more dramatic or controversial than the tattooed LGBTQ+ disaster who collapsed after winning the glitzy Meridian gender open. Not the final, just the gender open category.

“I guess people can relate, you know,” the kid said. “Anyone can skate, but it takes strength to get back up and win, and you showed that.” Color touched his face. “It’s inspiring, you know?”

That actually got me in the chest. It hadn’t been easy. Had almost killed me. I loved ice dance, loved skating, loved the attention, but it had come at a price. I’d done some stupid things, nearly lost it all . . . lost Ren. This random kid coming up to me with stars in his eyes? Yeah. It got to me. But I didn’t have anything inspirational to say, just another, “Thanks, man.”

He went away happy, but now I saw a few more incoming. This had been happening more and more at events. I’d hoped Sheffield would be quieter.

I signed the girls’ shirts, then left the rinkside before the attention could turn into a mob. The new “famous” status was taking some getting used to. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the money the sponsorships had brought in. I mean damn, I hadn’t expected that. But the fans had created a pedestal version of me that I wasn’t sure I deserved. Sure, I got back up after an injury, but skaters did that every day. I wasn’t anything special.

On the way out of the rink, I sent:

u still in town?

No.

Damn, his texting was as cold as his nickname. Part of me knew it was just his way, but there was also a part that took it like an icicle to the heart every time. I knew what this man tasted like on my lips, remembered how he moved against me, skin on skin. After everything we’d been through and shared, I couldn’t turn the feelings off like he could, even after a year and a half.

It was my fault, falling for someone like him. I didn’t blame him, not really. He had his thing, I had mine. We just weren’t compatible. Even though, when we’d been together, I’d never felt anything like it. I told myself it was just the dance, just because we’d been forced to work together for so long. He was clearly a closeted gay, and I’d been available, been something he’d needed at that time. It didn’t mean we were in love.

It still hurt, though.

Your free foot was loose on the twizzle exit.

I stopped walking again, read the text twice, and laughed. “This fucking guy.” He ghosted me for months, then he texts me out of the blue and has the balls to critique my skating.

He was right. My axis had been off, and my free foot had been loose. I wasn’t letting him have the win, though.

it won’t be in Japan

A month until the winter Olympics.

Do you think you can beat me?

And now he was just outright teasing. I could almost see his tight little smirk when he’d typed that. People thought Hasegawa was as cold as he pretended to be. I knew different. Inside, a fire burned. The only place he let it show was on the ice . . . and in bed.

I don’t think it i know it