“We decided to take things into our own hands a bit more,” I said with a smile, glancing over at Ty. “Show off our personalities.”
“And Jaws does that?” Chip held the microphone out to us, waiting for a response.
Ty leaned in closer to me, his breath on my neck. “It’s because I like to bite.”
And he gave my ear a friendly, playful nip.
My eyes went wide, even as the crowd roared their appreciation. Catcalls filled the air. I hadn’t expected his bite…or their reaction. Immediately, I blushed hard.
Thank god Chip didn’t see my reaction. He turned away, facing the panel of judges. “Let’s see what our panel thought of Ty and Zara’s interpretation of Jaws!”
Penelope’s mouth was thin, her arms crossed. She swiveled in her chair for a moment, and then picked up a score card. “Better than last week, but I’m still waiting to be wowed.”
It was a four.
I exchanged glances with Ty. Figure skating was full of all kinds of bullshit scoring, but this was getting ridiculous.
“Well, I loved it,” Irina said. “I thought it was playful and fun and very creative. We should see more routines like that.”
And she gave us an eight.
“I agree,” Raul said. “That was exciting and different. I’m impressed.”
He also gave us an eight.
I squeezed Ty’s hand excitedly. Our scores didn’t suck this time. It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of the pack as long as we weren’t last and we didn’t hose the popular vote.
We retreated backstage to the Crash Room. I sat down next to Ty on our bench and resisted the urge to rub my ear. It still tingled from his nip, and I was pretty sure my entire body was vibrating with intensity.
“That went well,” I said breathlessly. “I think they liked it. The audience, that is. Not the judges. They never like us. Well, at least not Penelope. But the other two gave us good marks,” I babbled.
He swiped at his face with a towel, and then nodded. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad.” He seemed so casual, as if it were every day that a guy just reached over and bit his partner’s ear on national television.
“You surprised me,” I blurted after a moment, unable to stand it any longer.
“Huh? Oh.” Ty chuckled. “Yeah. I figured it’d be good to get the audience on our side as much as possible, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sorry if I freaked you out. I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
“You didn’t…I wasn’t—”
But now he was looking at me curiously. “You do know I’d never hurt you, right, Zara? That shit with me…” He rubbed his chin. “That was just heat of the moment in the cage. It’s not really me.”
I knew about that sort of thing. So I nodded. “No, I get it. Don’t you worry about me.”
Just for show. Nibbling on my ear, purely for show. Was I impressed with how clever my partner was? Or incredibly disappointed that it wasn’t more personal?
The next night, we were the second couple marked as safe.
“I knew it!” I said to Ty triumphantly as we skated off the ice and into the production area. An assistant was there, holding our blade guards, and we popped them on quickly. “We’re here another week. That’s awesome. I’m so excited!”
Ty grinned at me. He wasn’t bubbling over with enthusiasm like I was, but he did seem pleased at our success. “We deserved it. You kicked ass.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself,” I said loftily. We headed to the changing area, and Ty put his hand on the small of my back to guide me through the sea of people moving around us, still moving frantically since the show was still on. At least our part was done. “I think that ear thing was inspired.”
“So was Jaws,” he told me. “We should go out and celebrate, you know.”
I felt a flutter of excitement at the thought. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Grab a bite to eat, get away from the whole gig for a few hours. Celebrate our awesomeness for a bit.” He grinned at me, so boyish and gorgeous that I couldn’t help but fall under his spell. “I think we could use some downtime.”
“That sounds good.” I glanced around the surging backstage area. “Should we invite the others?”
His brows drew together. “Why?”
So it didn’t seem like a date? “Oh. Uh, no reason. I was just curious if you wanted to hang with Annamarie or something.”
“Nah. Let’s just go the two of us. It’ll be easier to sneak out with a small party.”
“Got it. Let me change.” I headed into the girls’ locker room, feeling a little weird. The flutter had taken up permanent residence in my stomach. Ty wanted to go out with just me? Even after we’d spent the last four weeks with solely each other? Really?
That was either…really flattering, or just more team building and that I was reading too much into.
I quickly showered, scrubbed my face off, and dressed. My hair was wet, so I pulled it into another tight bun and changed into my leotard and tights. I’d worn a sloppy plaid tee over the ensemble, and now I wished I’d worn something a bit…sexier. God, why did I suck so hard at being attractive?
I’d never really had a chance to date much. As in, at all. My teenage years had been spent on the ice, practicing, even after my flameout. I’d been homeschooled and was an only child, so I’d never been around a ton of guys. Later on, the kind of guys I met didn’t understand my dedication to and drive for my ice-skating career, even though it had petered out long ago.
Plus, it was hard to meet men when you were dressed up as a pink dinosaur.
Basically, I had a lame dating track record. I could count the number of dates I’d had on one hand, and no one had ever gotten further than second base with me.
I was pretty sure Ty had a lot more experience than that.
This isn’t a date, Zara, I reminded myself. We were skating partners, busy repairing our careers. I was reading a lot more into it than I should have been.
I swung my gear bag over my shoulder and ran into Emma as I left the locker room. “Hey,” I told her. “Who got eliminated?”
“Jon Jon,” she said with a grimace. “No surprise there, but he’ll be really disappointed. But that partner of his just has no rhythm. Poor guy.”