Page 15 of Fire on the Ice

And the way she works? Yeah, pretty much everyone here works their asses off—have to to get where they are, although I’ve heard that slalom skier Crash Delaney is basically some sort of walk-on phenom and that bugs the crap out of me—but I feel as if she’s trying to prove that she’s worthy of. . . . . . existing. Which everyone is, but even if she weren’t an incredible skater, she’d still be her. Pretty and smart and funny and can give a hell of a haircut under less than ideal conditions. Not to mention that she’s one of the only people who can match me in bed for more than a couple of days. If she has some kind of demons chasing her, she’s never let on, but why would she? We’re more about the sex, and less about the intimacy. Which is fine. Really.

The short track arena is right next to the one for figure skating, so I hustle on over, hoping I’m not too late. And if I’m not, that I’ll be able to get in. Mostly if you’ve got your athlete pass, people are pretty chill about letting you into spaces, but sometimes they can be super strict, like in places you could potentially sabotage someone. I don’t want to sabotage anyone; I want to see my girl skate.

My temporary girl. My SIG wife. I’ve heard people joking about SIG spouses before, and I’d never paid much attention because as far as I was concerned, I was competing in a second sport at the Games: fucking. If there had, in fact, been medals awarded, I am confident I would’ve taken home gold in Sapporo. This time around? I may be falling down on the job in terms of numbers, but I am racking up the quality and style points for sure.

I flash my badge at the entrance to the arena, and they don’t stop me. I swear, some of the people working the venue wouldn’t be able to tell curling from ice dancing or short track from hockey. Which is frustrating in some ways, but I will absolutely take advantage. Inside, the flash of my badge works as well, and I suspect it’s the hair, too. They might stop someone else for a closer look at their badge, but I’ve made it my business to be unmistakable. I belong here.

Before I duck into the actual rink, though, I yank a hat from my bag and tug it over my head. If she’s in the middle of a workout or practicing her program, I don’t want her to get distracted by me, and my fire-engine hair would be a good way to let her know I’m here.

The light and the ice at the end of the tunnel are bright, and I can hear the strains of music bouncing off the surfaces. I must have missed Maisy, because there’s no way in hell she’d skate to the sounds pouring down the hallway. Loud, brash, and big, it’s more like what I would skate to if I were a figure skater. It sounds like a rock concert and not the classical melodies that usually provide the backdrop for the figure skating performances.

I almost turn around because if it’s not Maisy, what the fuck do I care about who it is, but something compels me forward, maybe wanting to know whodoeshave a program to this music. I’ll be rooting for Maisy to take home gold, obviously, even above my fellow Americans—blasphemy!—but it never hurts to have another horse in the race. Especially if that horse has excellent taste in music. Besides, it’ll only add a few minutes until I can get back to the village and see my SIG wife again . . .

Maisy

No one had the ice right after we finished up our practice, so I’m taking the opportunity to run through my exhibition piece. It’s silly, because thousands, if not millions, of people are going to be watching this in a few days, but until then, I don’t want anyone to see it. I want to keep it to myself, have something that’s for me, that no one else has a claim over, that no one else has anything to say about. The music is for me, the routine is for me, and I don’t give a shit that I’d get disqualified twenty seconds in if I skated this for my long program. That’s the whole point of this, to have fun, and show off. Not please anyone else.

When I perform this for real, the medals will have been awarded, the anthems played, and I’ll be hours, perhaps days away from another four years of obscurity. If I’m lucky. If I’m not so lucky . . .

But what matters now is the music coursing through me, the feel of my blades against the ice, the impact and satisfaction of hitting a jump perfectly. Since this is for fun, it’s more athletic than artistic, and I throw everything I have into as many jumps as I can squeeze into these four minutes. Combinations I might not attempt in a competition, and fuck yeah a triple axel I’ve never tried to land anywhere outside of my own personal ice time. Too much risk, and for what? I’d rather a good, solid, consistent performance where the judges can’t mark off for anything than taking chances on something that could win big, but I could also fuck up and end up on the bottom of the heap, maybe not even qualifying for the free program if I messed it up irreparably in the short. No, thank you. But here, now, with this thing that’s only for me? Yes.

When the music starts spiraling upwards, I do the same, coming into a layback spin. Between the climbing notes, and the increasing speed of my rotation, I feel as though I could take off. Or maybe drill down through the ice to the center of the earth.

As the music comes to a close, I make a dramatic stop with my toe pick and throw my arms up like a gymnast who nailed her dismount. I feel . . . victorious. Along with being flooded with delight. This is what I was built for, this is what I was meant to do, and being able to do it with no censure, no judgment, just letting myself be—it fills my heaving chest.

And I nearly die of shock when there’s a slow clap coming from behind the boards. I have to bite my tongue on a curse as I spin around to see who the fuck is there. At first I don’t see anyone at all, but then I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and, unsurprisingly, a shock of red. Blaze shakes out her hair that must’ve been tucked under the toque in her hand.

“Jesus, Blaze. You scared me half to death. Let a girl know you’re here, why don’t you?”

There’s a charming-as-fuck smile on her face as she puts a hand on her hip. “But then you would’ve stopped, and I wanted to watch you skate.”

“You know not everyone wants to be watched, right?” My grumble is met by a look of such utter confusion that I feel as though I may as well have been speaking Greek. Blaze would probably be okay with having an audience for anything, everything she does. Privacy? Modesty? These are things that people desire? All I can do in the face of her incredulity is shake my head.

“I hate to break it to you, Mais, but you know thousands of people are going to be watching you in this very arena, and probably millions more on TV? I mean, you’ve done this before, so I figured—”

I skate over to where Blaze has parked herself by the boards, forearms crossed and resting atop them, and punch her, right on her biceps. She flinches, but laughs, and then rubs where my knuckles dug in. “Ow. You’re a vicious little thing. And violence outside of a hockey rink doesn’t seem very Canadian.”

Her chastisement earns her a scowl. “I don’t appreciate being mocked.”

“Well, clearly, since I now need to go to the village ER and get an X-ray to make sure you didn’t break me.”

I roll my eyes, because the idea that I could break Blaze is preposterous. “I did not break you. I didn’t even dent you. Besides, how would you be able to tell with the way you get busted up on the track? You’re a monster truck rally in human form.”

“I prefer roller derby bruiser,” she sniffs.

“Fine. Meet the newest jammer for the Blazin’ Hussies, Fire in the Hole! Or maybe Penis Flytrap?”

Oh, that grin. There’s no way she could actually do roller derby while she’s training and competing in short track—people get seriously beat up during bouts, like broken-limb beat up, and Blaze might be reckless, but I don’t think she’s so reckless that she’d jeopardize her career and everything she’s worked so hard for. Because as much as she shrugs it off, I know she busts her ass. Her training schedule is as hardcore as anyone here’s, and she’s a stalwart supporter of her sport. But I bet that after she’s done competing at this level, she’ll be trying out for the first derby league she can, and I have a feeling about what’s going to be on the back of her jersey.

For now, though, her mind’s not on her future as a dominating force on a derby squad, but solely on me. “So, are you busy?”

“You mean now that you’ve disrupted my scant private ice time? No, I suppose not. Why, what did you have in mind?”

It’ll be one of two things with Blaze: watching people go fast, or filthy sex. I know which one I’d vote for.

“Well, I was thinking either the women’s super-G or being knuckle-deep in your cunt.” Her whole face works into this positively mischievous expression. She looks like a pixie. A wicked pixie from hell, bent on finding as much vice as possible while she’s amongst mere mortals. “And I don’t have tickets to the super-G.”

My stomach clenches with the thought of it, because that sounds frigging awesome and I could really do with some of that to keep up this high feeling instead of getting my internal organs all in knots by fretting about the job I have to do.

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