Page 12 of Wilder

“Water with lemon. No ice.”

“I’ll be right back with that,” the man said, then he left the table.

Lexi resisted the urge to keep watching Kayleigh and the ski instructor. Instead, she did something far worse. She looked up the results for the first senior figure skating competition of the season.

It had started the night before, but she hadn’t had the nerve to check the results. She wasn’t even sure that Mik and his new partner had qualified. It was possible that they’d been given assignments based on Mik’s previous track record, even though that track record had been with Lexi.

However, he and his new partner weren’t doing all that great. Mik hadn’t found a partner that could elevate him to the status that partnering with Lexi had. That wasn’t her pride talking. It was a fact.

She and Mik had been partners since they were children. They’d learned the art of pairs skating together, so their styles meshed perfectly. And they’d shared a work ethic that included total devotion to the sport.

She’d given up much of her life to become the best skater possible. Her dad had told her that he’d earn the money to pay her bills, she just had to work hard to make it worthwhile.

Other skaters had jobs or went to school, so their focus was split. Their time was split. That hadn’t been the case for her and Mikhail. It was why her career goal had been to coach. After the path she’d chosen to take with Mik, she wouldn’t have had any other skill to fall back on when she retired from competition.

Two years ago, this was one of the competitions she and Mik had won. And if they’d still been skating together and had been assigned to the competition, they’d no doubt have won it again.

Sadly for Mik, he was no longer skating with her. After the short program, he and Amberlyn were sitting in seventh. And there were only eight teams there.

Lexi knew she shouldn’t feel happy about that. But seeing him struggle was a balm to the wounds Mik had inflicted on her after finding out what her father had done.

She was innocent in everything, but that hadn’t mattered to Mik.

It had made her wonder if he’d truly loved her, or if he’d pursued a relationship with her because it was guaranteed to keep them together in a way a partnership might not.

With some distance from everything, she’d come to think that the answer was that he hadn’t loved her. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to say those words to her. He would have stuck by her side while they tried to figure out how to move forward.

The price she’d paid had been her whole career. And now low marks were Mik’s price.

She fitted her earbuds into her ears, then found the video of the performance on YouTube. But then, deciding that she didn’t want to be interrupted, Lexi closed that out and spent the time while she waited for her meal looking over the headlines and her social media.

Hernewsocial media. She’d had to abandon her old accounts because the vitriol thrown her way had been horrific.

Now, she had a generic social media profile where she posted simple pictures of food and flowers. Nothing she was trulypassionate about. However, it allowed her to follow the accounts she was most interested in without revealing who she was.

Among those accounts were figure skating costume designers. She didn’t follow any skaters. She hadn’t done that even before everything went south, and she didn’t plan to do it now.

Many of the other skaters had been friends, or at least friendly, with people they competed against. Some of that was because they trained at the same place or were trained by the same coaches.

Since that wasn’t the case for her and Mik, Lexi hadn’t seen the sense in trying to cultivate friendships with people who stood between her and the top of the podium. She knew she hadn’t been well-liked by her competitors, but they could hate her for all Lexi cared. All she’d cared about was that the judges loved them.

Once she had her salad in front of her, Lexi went back to the video, then tapped the screen to start it. It was definitely a form of self-torture watching Mik and Amberlyn circle the center of the ice before they took their starting positions, Mik’s hand gripping Amberlyn’s hip the way he used to grip Lexi’s.

When the music started, Lexi wrinkled her nose at the very basic classic piece that they’d chosen. It took a bit of effort, but Lexi forced herself to switch out of ex-fiancée/partner mode and into coach mode.

She and Mik had been fairly even in their physicality on the ice, but of this pairing, he was definitely stronger. It showed in Amberlyn’s shaky landings on throws and jumps. Even falling twice. Her positions would be more precise if she was strong enough to hold them. She needed a stronger core.

By the end of the program, Amberlyn’s shoulders were drooping, and the smile she’d sported at the beginning was gone. There were no hugs and high fives as the music faded away. Instead, just murmured conversation as they skated back to the center of the ice.

Lexi felt a pulse of pain as she listened to the applause for them, watching Mik take Amberlyn’s hand as they acknowledged the crowd with bows. He spun her around like he used to do with Lexi.

She missed that moment. When the crowd gathered there to watch them shared their appreciation of the program the skaters had performed—good or bad. There would sometimes be a shower of stuffed animals, and Lexi had always made sure to pick one up and wave appreciatively at the people who’d shown up that day.

Following Mik and Amberlyn’s program, there was nothing but polite applause that ended quickly as the pair made their way to the boards. And there stood her former coaches. The husband and wife team who had worked day in and day out with her and Mik.

They greeted them with hugs, but Lexi could see how displeased they were by the firm set of Irina’s lips and the crease between Lev’s heavy brows.

Mik slumped down on the bench and took the bottle of water offered to him. When Amberlyn sat down beside him, her shoulders were curled forward, and after taking a drink from the bottle of water she’d been handed, she picked at the label while Mik and the coaches held a conversation around her.

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