Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Yes! Great! Now I want to add something. Can you tick-tock your arm with the beat? Like this.” Zoe swings her arm like a pendulum as she propels herself forward.
“Oh,” he says, watching the way a simple arm movement changes the whole feel of the arabesque. It emphasizes the shadowy heartbeat of the song. When they do that side by side, it’s going to look amazing.
“See?” She does an idle spin and then glides to his side with unconscious ease. “On four.” She counts down, and then they accelerate together. He lifts his tired leg as high as hers and moves his arm to the beat, while Chris Isaak sings about his tortured heart.
Preach, dude. The summer is half over already. Whenever Chase thinks about climbing back into his truck to drive seven states away from Zoe, he feels hollow inside.
“Transition to the camel!” she calls out.
Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he matches her next two strokes and then spins.
“Yes!” she squeaks when they finally come to a stop. “Just like that. We have to try it from the top now, though. It’s the only way to nail down all the transitions.”
He bites back the obvious joke about things that he’d rather nail down. “All right. You’re really good at this, you know? I mean the choreography. Do you always make up your own stuff?”
“Not a chance,” she says. “We work with pros. Sister Walsh doesn’t like my choreography. She says it’s not the kind of stuff that impresses judges.”
“Then the judges are assholes,” he murmurs. And so is Sister Walsh.
Thank God for hockey. Sure, sometimes the ref makes a bad call. But it’s not so precious and subjective. When the puck goes in, it’s just in.
“Okay, now let’s practice the sit spin before Martina gets here.”
“Martina?”
“She’s coming to offer suggestions. I mentioned this at dinner.”
“Sorry, right.” He’s usually a good listener, but tonight at dinner he was watching her eat a minimal salad and fantasizing about taking her out to a nice restaurant instead.
And then straight to bed.
She skates over to him and puts her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes are sparkling. “I know it’s late, Hotshot. Try to keep up.”
He’d like to blame the late hour, but Zoe is always hell on his willpower. That’s probably why he does something stupid next—he kisses her, right there in the middle of the rink, pulling her lithe body into his.
She comes willingly, though, leaning in to be kissed. They’re both such comfortable skaters that they barely notice the way they’re drifting gently across the slick surface, as if propelled by the power of his next fiery kiss. Not two seconds in, she’s clinging to his T-shirt with both hands. And thank God. He needs to know it’s not just him—that he’s not alone in this obsession. He can hardly breathe sometimes when she’s nearby.
God, I need to get you alone, he gritted out last night on the roof when it was almost too much. She moaned, and he almost lost his mind. The sexual frustration is real.
Until the bench door bangs suddenly.
Zoe pushes off his chest so fast it’s almost comical. And Chase immediately bends over, hands on his knees, concealing the tentpole in his sweatpants.
“S-sorry,” Zoe babbles. “We were just…”
“Whatever,” Martina says tersely. “I’m here to see this program you are crafting. It was my idea, yes? So let’s see if it was a good one.”
He exhales. At least it’s not her damn mother. But, God, he’s so stupid. Sister Walsh already looks at him like he’s a cockroach skittering across her kitchen. If she imagined what Chase wanted to do with her baby girl, she’d blow a gasket. He’d be fired by breakfast.
That dark thought is enough to calm his body, if not his mind. But Zoe is noodling with her phone, getting ready to restart the music, and he has to collect his last few brain cells and try to remember her choreography from start to finish.
“From the top,” Zoe says, handing the phone to Martina. “Give us a sec and hit play?”
His heart still thumping, Chase joins her at center ice. Zoe reaches out a hand—palm down—and he takes it. A moment later, the first guitar chord of “Wicked Game” ripples through his chest. And now they’re in motion. Back crossovers, clockwise. Then a held breath as they lunge into an arabesque, while the guitar slides into a new chord. Tick-tock go their arms.
A few beats later, the guitar slides again, and they effortlessly flip positions, their bodies moving like water. Then the vocals come in, and the music settles into his bones. Chase finds that thinking through each transition isn’t actually necessary. He can just feel his way there. His body knows what to do.
Zoe has designed their routine so that she does all the hard work. She weaves like an exotic bird around him, setting up each new visual tableau. As she circles again, Zoe gives him a secretive smile, and he’s glowing inside. A split second later they separate for a toe loop, followed by camel spins. But his heart is airborne as they drop out of the camel spins and join hands again. Like hers was made to fit in his.