Fighting for the Edge (3 page)

I walked through the bedroom to the bathroom and stared at the blue eyes watching me in the mirror. The closer we got to the Olympics, the more anxiety crept into them. After coming so close to winning four years ago, I wanted to turn silver into gold so badly. It was what I thought about every time my legs felt like hundred-pound weights after triple run-throughs, when I had to push through a long and grueling workout in the gym, when my entire body ached from practicing a new jump combination over and over.

I pulled the ponytail holder from my hair and let the dark blonde waves fall over my shoulders. I needed to focus on one challenge at a time, the first being Grand Prix Final. Winning in Tokyo wouldn’t guarantee a gold medal at the Olympics, but I’d feel more confident about our chances. And any competition where Chris and I could defeat our arch rivals Madeline and Damien was a joyous occasion.

A long, hot shower eased some of the tension in my body. Leaving my hair wet to air dry, I put on a T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants and went to find Sergei. He was sitting on the sofa with his computer on his lap, typing amazingly quickly with just his index fingers.

“Any luck with the calls?” I asked as I gathered the playing cards still strewn over the carpet.

He punched one more key and looked up. “Skating Club of Boston is taking us in. I was just emailing all my students the schedule there.”

“Wow, going back to my old rink. Never thought I’d train there again.”

“They were happy to help. Said as soon as we get back from Tokyo, Peter and Natalia and I can bring all our teams.”

“What about the drive? We’ll have to leave before the crack of dawn to get there for the morning session.”

Sergei pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “I was thinking about that. Doesn’t your Uncle Joe have some furnished rental apartments in the city? Maybe there’s a vacant one we can use.”

My heart leapt at the glimmer of hope. “I can call him. I wish he’d have two open so Chris could have a place, too. And then there’s Aubrey and Nick…”

“We’ll have to see what we can find for all of us. Most of my kids won’t have a choice but to make the drive since they’re in school here.”

I packed the deck of cards into their box and gave Sergei a thoughtful look as I moved to the couch. “We could stay with my parents if we need to.”

His eyebrows arched. “For months?”

“You get along great with them. And we can come home on the weekends.”

“Sure, we get along, but living with people is a different situation. Your dad would be easy, but you know how particular your mom is… and how nosy.”

“I’d make sure she respects our space.”

“Don’t forget Liza will be with us for two weeks. She’ll need her own space, too.”

I hadn’t forgotten that it was our year to spend the holidays with Sergei’s eleven-year-old daughter. She lived with her mother Elena, Sergei’s former skating partner, in New York, and we spent as many weekends and holidays with her as possible.

“My mom and dad love Liza. They’d be glad to have her, too. She could use the guest room, and we could sleep in my old room.”

Sergei stared at the laptop screen, not appearing convinced. “Let’s see what your uncle says first.”

****

Aubrey stepped into the townhouse and wrapped her arms around Em. “Can you believe this craziness?”

Em returned her hug with a firm grip. She might be petite, but she had some serious strength.

“It’s totally nuts,” she said.

Chris shut the front door behind him. “So, we’re Team Boston now?”

“We’ll always be Team Cape Cod,” Aubrey said.

She and Chris draped their jackets over the banister, and they all took the steps up to the living room, where Sergei was texting on his phone. Em sat in her favorite oversized chair while Sergei perched on one of the pillowy arms.

“I talked to Uncle Joe,” Em said. “He has one apartment available in Back Bay that he said we can use for free. It has two bedrooms and a sofa bed.”

“You’re thinking we can all live there?” Aubrey asked as she and Chris sat on the couch.

“No way.” Chris shook his head. “Em, I love ya. Sergei, I’d walk through a wall for you, man, but I do not want to be all up in your private business.”

Em laughed. “It’s not like we’ll be doing our private business in the living room.”

Sergei turned to her with a grin. “Well, last night…”

She slapped his thigh, and Aubrey snorted.

Chris held up his hands, palms outward. “Way too much info.”

“I think Chris has a good point,” Aubrey said. “I wouldn’t want to live with Nick. He already got an offer to crash at a friend’s place anyway.”

Chris propped his boot up on his knee. “I just think we should keep some separation. We don’t need to be getting on each other’s nerves at this stage of the game.”

Em leaned her head back against the chair and looked up at Sergei. “I guess we have to go to Plan B then. You and I move in with my parents.”

Sergei could barely hide his grimace. Knowing how overbearing Em’s mom Laura could be, Aubrey didn’t blame him for being less than thrilled.

“So, we get the apartment?” Chris asked.

“If you two don’t mind sharing the space,” Em said.

Aubrey tilted her chin upward and peered at Chris. “You don’t have any weird habits, do you? Like sleepwalking… watching The Weather Channel for entertainment…”

“I’m the most perfect roommate you could ever ask for,” Chris said with his palm pressed to his broad chest.

She laughed. Having Chris’s humor around might be exactly what she needed with the stressful months coming up. And she’d shared a bathroom with her brother growing up, so she was used to messy boys.

“This’ll be good,” she said. “I can monitor your playboy progress. The pool of eligible women will be much larger in Boston.”

Chris pointed at her. “Way to find the upside to all this.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Em said.

Sergei’s eyes were focused on the carpet, and he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to their banter. He rubbed his chin and shifted slightly on the chair.

“Maybe we can find a place to rent that’s not too expensive,” he said to Em.

“Anything short term will be pricey. Why waste money that we can use for a down payment on a house when we can stay with my parents for free?”

Aubrey sensed tension between them and didn’t want to stick around for the potential argument. She rose to her feet.

“I need to get home and take a nap… try to get myself on Tokyo time. You’ll thank Uncle Joe for me?”

Em stood and nodded. “He said the apartment has everything – furniture, kitchen stuff, towels – so when we get back, you can move right in.”

Chris got up and gave Em a quick hug. “Thank him for me too.”

They made their way out to Chris’s truck, and he pumped up the heater. “Good call getting us out of there. There’s nothing more awkward than watching a couple fight.”

Aubrey faced the window. “Yeah, I’ve seen enough of that with my parents.”

Chris paused as he put the truck in reverse, and Aubrey turned and saw concern in his eyes. She hadn’t meant to get all personal, so she hastily said, “Why don’t we drive by the rink and see how it looks.”

Chris’s gaze lingered on her a moment before he curved the steering wheel and shifted into drive. “Sure.”

They traveled down Route Six to South Dennis, noting the signs and trees that had toppled in the storm. When they came upon the turn for the rink parking lot, they were halted by barricades and yellow caution tape. Chris pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the road, and Aubrey slid out the driver’s side behind him since a mountain of snow sat outside her door.

Trees hid the building from view, so they walked around the barricades and down the partially-cleared driveway until they reached the edge of the parking lot. Aubrey gasped and Chris whispered, “Whoa.”

The front part of the building, which housed the skate shop and snack bar, was still intact. But the two-story section behind it had completely collapsed. Roof, walls, everything. It was a heap of tangled wires, mangled beams, and broken glass.

“Our ice is under there,” Aubrey said quietly.

Chris slid his arm around her shoulders, and they stood in silence for a minute, staring at the wreckage. The lot was so quiet, and she imagined how loud the cracking of wood and glass must’ve been when the snow had crashed through the roof.

“I forgot my favorite sneakers in my locker,” Chris said. “I was gonna come and get ‘em today.”

“I think you’ll need to get a new pair,” she said, still gaping at the scene.

They both got quiet again. She looked back and forth from the untouched front exterior to the area that looked like it had been hit with a bomb.

“Twelve years here.” She shook her head as she thought back to her early days as an ice dancer. “I was such a little brat when I first came here to train.”

“You?” Chris spat out a puff of air.

“Hard to believe, I know.”

Chris let his arm drop, and he shoved his hands into his jacket. “I skated longer in Delaware, but it feels like I’ve been at this rink forever. It sucks we won’t be able to finish out our careers here.”

Even though Aubrey was leaning toward retiring at the end of the season, she felt a pang of dread over the impending end of her career. Sure, she and Nick would still have the Ice Champions tour next summer and maybe a few other shows in the future, but for the most part, she’d be out of the skating world. The only world she’d known since she competed in her first event at age seven.

It wasn’t time to say goodbye yet, though. There was still the matter of winning an Olympic medal, and she wasn’t going to let a snowstorm white-out her plans.

Boston, here we come.

****

I listened for the click of the front door shutting and then trained my eyes on Sergei. “Why are you so opposed to this?”

“If we can find something reasonably priced, why not consider it?” he countered.

He hadn’t answered my question, but I had a reply for his. “We’re leaving tomorrow and won’t be back for a week. We don’t really have time to hunt for an apartment.”

“I’ll start now.” He jumped up and dropped onto the sofa, opening his laptop on the coffee table.

A long sigh escaped my lips. When Sergei became fixated on an idea, it was hard to slow him down, but I wasn’t going to let him run away with this.

“If we want our dream house on the water, we’re going to need every last penny we can save. I just don’t want to throw away money we don’t have to.”

Sergei pulled his attention away from the computer. “We have a good amount saved already.”

“It’s not just the money. Think about the convenience. My parents’ house is five minutes from the rink. We don’t know in what part of the city we’ll be able to find an apartment. Or what the place will be like. With my parents it’ll be nice and quiet and easy to go to sleep early and get up early. No noisy neighbors, no driving around looking for a spot to park, no traffic jams.”

Sergei sat back and raked his fingers through hair. Spreading his arm over the top of the big chenille pillows, he said, “Do you remember the weekend last summer we stayed at their house for the Red Sox-Yankees game? Your mom got aggravated when I didn’t clean her blender good enough. And every time we left the house, she asked where we were going and when we’d be back. The only person allowed to ask me that is you.”

“I’ll talk to her and ask her to give us room to breathe.” I slid over to the couch and settled into the crook of Sergei’s shoulder. “We’ll have the whole upstairs to ourselves, and it can be like our own little apartment. We can escape up there and have total privacy.”

I rubbed my hand across his firm stomach and gave him my best wide-eyed, hopeful look. His forehead crinkled as he appeared to ponder my argument for a long minute. Finally, he said, “Laura does make a killer breakfast.”

“I guarantee she will get up extra early to make baked pancetta and egg frittatas for you. You know her favorite thing in the world to do is cook for guests.”

Sergei curled his arm around me. “If that’s where you’ll be most comfortable, then I’ll do it for you.”

“Thank you.” I reached up and kissed him tenderly.

“But if your mom makes one crack about where I’m going, what I’m eating… how I do my laundry… I won’t be responsible for what I might say.”

Chapter Three

Aubrey sipped her sparkling water and scanned the hotel ballroom. The Japanese Skating Union knew how to put on first-class skating events, and they’d outdone themselves for the opening reception of the Grand Prix Final. The skaters, coaches, and officials had been served an elaborate meal of sushi and seafood, and each large round table in the room was decorated with lavish cherry blossom centerpieces. Surrounding the centerpiece on her table were four small American flags.

“The German team needs a major fashion makeover,” Nick said next to her, his gaze focused on a couple two tables to their left. “Sarah’s boots are too casual for that dress, and Kristian’s jacket is ten times too big. I just want to get him to a tailor pronto.”

Aubrey shook her head in amusement and checked out her partner’s own appearance. His black suit fit his lean physique perfectly, and his emerald tie brought out the green flecks in his hazel eyes. Just the right amount of gel spiked his charcoal-colored hair. His suit could be Armani, but she knew it wasn’t. Nick had a knack for making clothes look expensive.

“Your next career should be stylist to the skaters,” she said.

He paused with his lips on the edge of his wine glass. “I would
own
that job.”

He totally would. She’d skated with him for twelve years and had been trying to keep up with him fashion-wise just as long. When they’d teamed up as twelve-year-olds, she’d crushed hard on him until she saw how excited he was over their sparkly costumes. She’d realized then that ship was never going to sail.

“Should we go mingle?” she asked. Most of the other members of the American delegation, including Em and Chris, had started making the rounds. And if she was moving around the room, she could avoid Damien Wakefield more easily.