Chapter 40 Jade again

Chapter 40 Jade again
Mia's POV

She held the coffee out to him with both hands. Not one. Both. Like she was handing him a gift and wanted him to notice the presentation.

Zack looked at the cup. He looked at Jade. He took it.

"Can I borrow him for ten minutes?" Jade said. She was talking to me but she was looking at him.

"We have practice in fifteen."

She smiled. "Then nine."

I looked at Zack. He could have said no. He could have held up the coffee and said thanks and walked onto the ice with me. He didn't. He tucked his bag against the wall and said "Lead the way" and she did.

She steered him to the far corner of the lobby where the benches were. She sat down first. She crossed her legs. She leaned in. She had her hair down today, which she never did at the rink. That detail was for me to notice.

I noticed it.

I went to the boards. I sat down on the bench and started lacing my left skate. I pulled each lace through its hook and I told myself that whatever my sister was doing in that corner was her business and not mine.

I believed that for about forty seconds.

I looked up through the lobby glass.

Jade was talking. Her hand moved while she spoke. She had a way of making conversation look like a performance. Chin tilted. Eyes wide. The laugh that came half a beat too late, timed so the other person would feel like they had earned it.

Zack was leaning back on the bench with his arms resting on his thighs. Relaxed. Open. The same posture he used with Blair Reid when he wanted someone to think they had his full attention. His face gave me absolutely nothing.

Jade laughed at something. She touched his knee when she laughed. Quick. Light. The kind of touch you could call an accident if anyone called you on it.

Nobody called her on it.

My fingers were still on the laces. I had stopped pulling. I forced myself to look down and finish the knot. I yanked it tight enough to feel it in my ankle and started on the right skate.

I was not jealous. That was the thing I was going to keep telling myself until it became true.

I stood up. I stepped onto the ice. The cold hit my face and my lungs and my hands all at once. I pushed off hard. I went straight into warm-up edges. I did not look back through the glass.

I broke that promise twice.

The second time, Zack was already standing. Jade was still sitting on the bench. She lifted her coffee cup toward him like a toast. He turned away from her and walked toward the rink doors.

He came through without speaking. He sat at the boards and laced his skates. I watched from the center of the ice. He looked up once, caught my eyes, and looked back down. His face was exactly the same as it had been before.

Coach Jenna came out of her office with her notebook already open. "From the top. Full run. No stops."

We took our positions.

The music started. I pushed off.

I hit every cue. Every transition. Every hold. I skated hard because the ice was the one place where my brain could shut the hell up. My body knew this program. My body had been drilling it for weeks. I let it take over.

Zack matched me. He always matched me. He was not a man who followed. He found whatever rhythm I was setting and met me inside it. His hand came to my back for the second lift setup and I did not think about porches or coffees or my sister's hand on his knee.

I thought about all three.

The program ended. Coach Jenna wrote for ten seconds. "Better. Again."

We ran it again. Cleaner this time. Sharper. The third cue hit exactly where it was supposed to and the final hold was steady enough that Jenna closed her notebook without a word. That was how she worked. Silence was praise. Words were corrections.

Zack skated to the boards for water. I followed.

I picked up my bottle. I drank. I set it down.

"What did she want." I finally asked him.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Coffee, apparently."

"Zack."

"What."

"Don't do that."

"Do what."

"The thing where you answer the question without answering the question."

He set his bottle down. He looked at me. Full look square in the face. The one he saved for the moments where I was pushing past the line he kept between professional and personal.

"She wanted to know how serious I am about you."

I stared at him. "How serious you are about me."

"Her words."

"What gave her the right to ask you that?"

"I didn't say she had the right. I said she asked."

"And you sat there and let her."

"I sat there and drank the coffee she brought me. I'm not going to be rude to your sister in your family's rink, Mia."

"You're not going to be rude." I put my bottle down harder than I meant to. "She pulled you into a corner. She touched your knee. She laughed at whatever bullshit line you gave her. And you're worried about being rude."

His jaw tightened. Just a fraction. "You were watching."

"I was lacing my skates."

"You were watching."

I didn't answer that. He didn't need me to.

He picked his towel off the boards and slung it over his shoulder. He was quiet for a beat. Then he said, "She's your sister. Whatever is going on between the two of you, that's not my fight."

"I didn't ask you to fight."

"No. You asked me what she wanted. I'm telling you."

"Then tell me. What did you say to her."

"I didn't say anything to her. She asked me how serious I am about you. I looked at her for about five seconds. Then I said the only honest thing I could say."

"And what did you tell her?"

His eyes held mine. Steady. No flicker. No deflection.

"I told her to ask you."