Page 56 of Off the Edge

Tamsyn shook in my arms, laughing and buzzing from the high.

Now, Cam, I thought. Beat that.

TWENTY-TWO

CAM

I was in the stands, watching Ren and Tamsyn’s performance in plain clothes, so nobody could pick me out and write a headline about it later. Navarro Watches Rival Skate!

Ren and Tamsyn stepped onto the ice, dressed in matching black and purple. Of course they looked fabulous. The whole package had to look amazing. And they sparkled. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and breathed out, feeling the nerves in my gut, even though I wasn’t the one on the ice.

“Hasegawa is always worth watching,” the person beside me said to her buddy.

The music began.

And as the dance unfolded, my neighbor wasn’t wrong.

Ren was poetry on ice. Ward too, but my gaze stayed glued on Ren. His control, his core, the way he glided as though his body, which I knew to be strong, weighed nothing. He flew across the ice, making world-class skating look as easy as crossing a street. The kicks, the steps, the spins. All of it was perfection.

“Difficult entry into a rotational lift, that’s fast,” I said to nobody.

Every element was on point. It was like watching one of those nature documentaries where they show a flower unfolding in slow motion. The flow and artistry were organic. Nothing about them felt forced. My smile grew, watching him. I envied Tamsyn. Dancing with Ren was something else. He always brought out the best in you, even if sometimes it hurt to get there.

Their midline step sequence was a work of art from one end of the rink to the other. Beautifully in time with the music.

My heart was up now, racing with them. I loved this. Loved watching.

“Edges back outside to forward inside. Nice!”

Fuck yes. Look at him. That perfect bastard.

The program rose to its crescendo, and finished with a brilliant spinning lift, where Ren threw Tamsyn up, around his shoulders, and back down in an elegant arch, so she leaned out from his thigh. The pair of them were fixed to the ice on his one, single outside edge. The move defied gravity. And then it was done.

The crowd went crazy around me. I shot to my feet too, and whistled. I couldn’t not love it. The man was a damn genius on the ice.

The big screens showed Ren and Tamsyn bowing, then stepping off the rink.

We all clapped. Thousands of people. Cheering and whistling. Team GB especially.

Ren’s father was there, I saw on the screen. Hard-faced, although he made time to smile at the camera.

The camera had also caught the moment Ren saw him. His eyes had gone cold.

He’d come off that ice alive and buzzing, but the second he’d seen his father, the barriers had slammed down. Then his father said something the mic missed, and Ren smiled. But it was a puppet’s smile. One you wore when you wanted to be anywhere else.

The crowd quietened as the screens cut to the replay of their dance, then the roars came back to life when the score came up.

“Fuck me,” I laughed. In another league didn’t even come close to describing it. Over ninety. Of course it was. It was Ren Hasegawa. It was early in the day, but I doubted many—or any—people would beat that score.

Zoe was going to hate it.

I left the stands, descended the stairs at the back, and made my way to the side rooms where Zoe was waiting.

“Did you watch?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Yeah.” I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring.

“Well? Are you going to tell me? Tell me it was bad.”