“I can do that,” he said, sincerity on his face. “I promise.”
“And no more beer,” I added.
“That’s two things.”
I put my hands on my hips and glared at him.
“Fine.” He sighed. “Wasn’t going to drink any more after this, anyhow. I think I’m scared straight.”
“Good. So we both agree to work our asses off and do whatever it takes to fix our careers?”
Ty nodded at me. “Agreed.”
I spit on my palm and held it out to him. “Shake on it.”
He looked at me like I’d just grown another head. “I’m not touching your hand if you spit on it.”
I jiggled it at him. “You can’t seal a deal otherwise. It won’t work. The juju won’t be there.”
His lip curled as if in disgust, and he stared at me for a moment longer. Was the big MMA fighter squeamish?
I waited, staring at him, hand still extended.
He sighed, spit into his own hand, and then smacked it against mine. “You are a strange chick,” he told me. And then he pulled his hand from mine and washed it off quickly.
I cleaned off my own hand and then dabbed at my nose one more time. It looked awful. I was going to look horrible for the next week on camera. Lucky me.
“All right,” he told me. “Let’s just forget about this and go back to bed.”
As if on cue, my alarm clock began to beep. I gave him a wry look and headed to the side of the bed, clicking off the alarm. “No sleep. It’s time to get up and train.”
He gave me a withering look.
We met fifteen minutes later. I was dressed in my typical leotard and tights (hey, everyone has a work uniform), and my hair was pulled back in my standard bun. I hadn’t bothered with makeup for my nose and swelling eyes. Instead, I’d put a dainty pink bandaid, which matched my leotard, over my nose and pulled on my lucky socks that I’d washed in the sink the night before.
Then, skates in hand, I headed out to the rink to warm up.
To my surprise (and pleasure), Ty was there, lacing up his skates as he sat on the bench. Good. So he was going to take this seriously. I sat next to him and flipped over my skates, mentally assessing all of my luck charms taped to the bottom of my skates as I touched each one in order.
He leaned over and glanced at my skate. “What’s all that shit?”
“They’re for good luck.” I pulled my skate away protectively, and then began to put it on. First the left skate, because that was the lucky one. You never started with your right foot.
Ty grunted. “You superstitious?”
“No more than anyone else,” I told him, tightening the laces on my skate until I was pleased with how it felt. Then, I gave it a wiggle and moved to the other skate. A few minutes later, I was good, and I took off my blade guards, and then headed to the ice. As was my custom, I leaned over the ice and gave it a kiss.
Behind me, Ty snorted. “Did you just kiss the ice?”
“Good luck,” I told him. “We don’t want any bad juju.”
“Uh huh,” he said skeptically. “You should try making your own luck for a change.”
“You should shut your mouth,” I said pleasantly, getting back to my feet and stepping onto the ice. It was like welcoming a lover—not that I’d ever done that, either. I sighed with pure pleasure as my skates glided onto the ice, and I closed my eyes, rolling my shoulders and working out the kinks in my neck. No sign of our cameraman yet, or Imelda. It was just the two of us.
I began to skate slowly around the ice, warming up and shaking out my muscles. As a test, I swung around and popped into a double axel. Smooth and flawless. Nice. I continued to warm up, adding the occasional jump just for fun. Nothing hard, nothing strenuous, just prepping my body for a long workout ahead.
Still, when Ty skated close to me and began to keep pace with my strides, he looked pretty impressed. “You’re good.”
I gave him a funny look. “I know I’m good. That was just warm-ups, though.”
“You were in the Olympics?”
I nodded, and then flipped around to skate backward so I wouldn’t have to answer more questions.
He wouldn’t be deterred, though. Ty followed my lead and turned as well, skating into a tight edge and showing more agility on the ice than I’d given him credit for. He caught up to me and started again. “You get any medals?”
“I don’t want to talk about the Olympics,” I told him.
“Why not? You talk about everything else. Half the time you won’t shut up.”
I skidded to a halt, jamming my toe-pick into the ice. My hands went to my hips. “Have I asked you what it feels like to chew off some guy’s nose?”
He scowled at me, his mood going dark right away.
“Exactly. You don’t ask me about the Olympics, and I won’t ask you about eating some guy’s face.”
“Fine,” he said in a curt voice.
“Fine,” I said, keeping my own tone light. I was going to be nice if it killed me. I dropped into a loose sit spin to end the conversation.
When I was sufficiently warmed up, I skated toward Ty. Hopefully he’d had time to cool down a bit. “So do you want to practice ice waltzing until Imelda gets here?”
He wiped his hands on his sweatpants, and held them out to me. “Sure. Let’s go for it.”
I placed his hand at my waist like we’d been shown and flushed, remembering that I’d woke up that morning with his hand on my breast. Don’t think about that, Zara, I scolded myself. I took his other hand and clasped it in mine, then put my other on his shoulder. I looked into his eyes. Despite all we’d been through in the last two days, our embrace still felt intimate as heck, and my body reacted, my skin tingling as I became aware of him close to me. I needed to get used to a partner, or this was going to make me flustered and nervous every time he touched me. I glanced at him, and he was staring at my face with intensity.
“Damn, you look like hell,” he said, shaking his head. “Your nose is swelled up like a strawberry.”
“Just dance.” I bit the two words out, any attraction I might have felt toward him disappearing in an instant.
We practiced keeping in time with each other. Ty was a big guy, and I was a lot smaller than him, so we spent a lot of time matching our strides. I had to lengthen mine while still seeming graceful, and he had to manage to somehow not mince while keeping in time with me. It wasn’t easy. We were starting to get into a rhythm, though, and by the time it was nine in the morning, we were moving around the ice in a reasonable facsimile of partnership.