Page 46 of Oh, Flutz!

“Yeah, white, I know,” he says, a little curtly.

I hesitate. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. It’s fine. I just get that a lot. My mom grew up here, but her dad was from Mexico. I speak the language, but not well. Mom never really made it important.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, it’s always kind of funny when the guys at work talk trash about the customers or the manager in Spanish and jump out of their skins whenel güeritojumps into the conversation.”

Bryan pulls on my ponytail out of nowhere, and I yelp, but recover quickly, shoving him again, directly on the red-white-and-blue crest of his hoodie. I’m smart enough to not ask what team it represents. I’ve spent enough time around Vanya and his gaggle of rabid brothers to knowneverto ask a boy about his favorite sports team.

“Quit shoving me!” he protests, and I’m shocked at the sound that escapes me in response.

Bryan’s jaw drops, eyes going wide. “Was that—agiggle?”

“No,” I say abruptly.

“I definitely heard it.”

“You’re imagining things.”

Bryan shakes his head. “Nuh uh, you can’t gaslight me, sunshine, I’m immune. The Ice Queen just giggled!”

“Stop it,” I demand, fighting to keep the smile off my face, and when that doesn’t work I turn my head, but Bryan tugs my chin back towards him with his thumb, face absolutely lit up with glee.

“See, Iknewyou could smile.”

“You are so annoying.”

“Yeah, yeah, you hate me, I know. You only tell me every single day of our lives.”

“How else would you remember, with that ant-sized brain of yours?”

He rolls his eyes, dropping his hand from my face. “M-hm. Anyway, MissEkaterina Dmitriyevna Andreyeva, I hate to break it to you, but we’ve still got a whole year to get through. You’re not getting rid of me now.”

I roll my eyes. “Believe me, I’m trying.”

His smile slips.

“What?” I ask. He just clenches his jaw and walks ahead.

“Bryan.” I speed up a little bit, trying to catch up. “What is it?”

“It’s—why do you have tosaythings like that?” he asks, face flushed, and my stomach sinks. I thought we were joking around.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it,” he says abruptly. “Good night.”

It’s—finally—choreo day.

We didn’t even have to come until eleven, but I like being early, and the first thing I see when I walk in is a familiar sandy-blonde head zooming around.

A sliver of dread snakes through me. We didn’t exactly leave things off on a good note yesterday. Maybe that last comment about trying to get rid of him was a little mean, but it was a joke. Surely he knows that. Right?

Bryan has wireless headphones in, tucked in his curls, and his black shirt billows around his body as he speeds across the ice. I stop to watch instinctively, almost without meaning to or even realizing what I’m doing. It hits me now that I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him skate. Not alone, at least, and never outside of our training sessions. All that “research” I did on him was pretty much just looking over his unimpressive senior scores on the World Skating Union’s website, if I’m honest. But those are just numbers. I never looked online for videos of his performances.

He doesn’t seem to be running through a program, more so just improvising to whatever music he’s listening to. Even without being able to hear it, though, it’s still…something. He’s so convincing I can practically imagine the song for myself. He brings the silence to life.

He prepares for a jump, and I hold my breath instinctively—come on, land it, come on—he flings himself up into the air, pounding the ice with his toe pick to send him a good two feet up into the air, spinning four times in the air and landing on a clean edge.

I have to physically shut my mouth after it falls open. This isn’t like his step-outs and over-rotations from practice. This is—well, it’s like mine, to put it that way. He actually landed a perfect quad toe.

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