Chapter 55 The first real kiss

Chapter 55 The first real kiss
Mia's POV

I did not think about it during warm-up.

That was not true. I thought about it the entire warm-up. I thought about it while I ran my edges. I thought about it while I stretched at the boards. I thought about it while Zack laced his skates three feet away and said nothing and did not look at me in any particular way, which told me he was thinking about it too.

Coach Jenna came out of her office with her notebook and her pen and her expression that gave nothing away.

"Full run. From the top."

We took our positions.

The music started. I pushed off.

The opening sequence was clean. Crisper than yesterday. My edges were sharp and my free leg was exactly where it needed to be and Zack matched me the way he always matched me, without thinking, without effort, like breathing. His hand came to my waist for the first transition and I let my body do what it had been trained to do for twelve weeks because my body knew this program even when my brain was somewhere else.

The step sequence. Clean.

The second lift setup. He came in from the left the way we had drilled it. His hands found my hips. I went up. The lift held. Four seconds. Five. I could feel the steadiness in his arms. That particular stillness he had when he was holding something he did not want to drop.

We came down clean.

The closing pose.

I turned in to him the way the choreography required. His right arm came around my back. His left hand took my right. The pose was a held thing. Chin up. Eyes forward. Chest open. Hold it for the count and release.

He did not release.

His left hand let go of mine. His fingers came up to my jaw. Not grabbing. Just there. Tipping my chin up the way you tip something fragile. And then he kissed me.

Once. On the mouth.

No cameras. No Blair Reid. No Glacier Sports event with people watching and a story to sell. No performance. No reason.

Just his mouth on mine for two seconds in the middle of an empty rink with the music still running and Coach Jenna at the boards ten feet away.

Two seconds.

It was unmistakable.

He pulled back. His hand dropped from my jaw. His eyes were on mine and they were not moving. Not checking the room. Not clocking Jenna. Not calculating anything. Just on me. Steady and warm and asking a question he had already asked in my bedroom doorway last night but needed the answer to again in this form.

I stepped back. One step. The ice was cold and the rink was quiet and my pulse was loud.

"That's a yes?" he said.

"That's a yes."

Something moved through his face. Not a smile. Something quieter than a smile. Something that settled.

Coach Jenna was at the boards. She was writing in her notebook. She was writing something with great concentration. Her pen moved across the page. Her eyes were on the page and not on the ice. She had the focused expression of a woman who had not seen a single thing that had just happened and was committed to that position.

Zack looked at me.

"Again," he said.

"Again."

We took our positions.

The music started again from the top. I pushed off. And something was different. Not the choreography. The choreography was the same. But the thing underneath it had shifted. Like the ice had changed temperature. Like the air in the rink had a different weight. I hit the first cue and it was right. I hit the second and it was right. The step sequence flowed the way it sometimes flowed in the best practices, where the body stopped being a body and became the music.

The lift. He came in from the left. His hands found my hips. I went up.

I went up easier than I ever had.

We came down clean. The closing pose. His arm around my back. His hand taking mine. The hold. The count.

He released on the count this time.

Coach Jenna closed her notebook. She capped her pen. She did not say anything for several seconds. She looked at the ice. She looked at her notebook. She looked at us.

"Better," she said.

That was all. She walked back toward her office. Her heels were quiet on the rubber mat. The office door did not close all the way.

Zack skated to the boards for water. I followed. I picked up my bottle. I drank. I set it down. He was looking at the ice with his water bottle in his hand and his expression was the settled one. The decided one. The one I had not seen on him before today.

"Don't overthink it," he said.

"I'm not."

"You are. I can see you doing it from here."

"I'm drinking water."

"You're drinking water and thinking very loud."

I looked at him. "It was two seconds."

"I know what it was."

"It changes things."

"I know that too."

"I don't know if I'm ready for things to change."

He looked at me. He did not argue. He did not press. He just said: "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay, Mia. You just told me yes on the ice. You can tell me where you are off it whenever you're ready. I'm not going anywhere."

I picked up my bag. I pulled my guards on. We walked out together. The lobby was empty. The car park was grey and cold. He unlocked the car. I got in. He got in. He started the engine. He did not turn on music.

We drove.

Three blocks. Four. The heater came on. The city moved past the windows.

My phone buzzed on my lap.

I looked at the screen.

Jade: Luca knows. He saw the practice from the stands. He's gone.