Page 13 of Pivot Point

And really, what else would he be doing here? He definitely wasn’t old enough to be coaching.

Jasper’s shoulders tensed as he turned to meet the stranger’s piercing blue eyes. This guy obviously wasn’t a stranger tohim.

“You’re training here too?” he said with an unmistakable edge in his voice.

The new guy shrugged and straightened up, pulling at his gloves. “It’s the best option in town. Or maybe you forgot after all that time away. How long has it been since you last showed your face at a rink? A decade or so?”

His arrogant tone had me bristling in an instant. If any of the guys back home had talked to me or someone I cared about like that, they’d have been getting a knuckle sandwich.

But this wasn’t back home; this was a professional skating venue. I had to deal with the jerks here a little more politely.

Something about his looks struck a chord of recognition in me: hard-edged but handsome with his smooth, pale skin broken by a faint scar that ran up his chin to his lower lip. I probablyshouldknow this guy.

Jasper glowered at him. “I needed a break.”

The other guy guffawed. “Sure. A break from knowing your time in the spotlight was limited with all the new talent coming up. The nerves could get to anyone.”

I stepped forward, narrowing my eyes. “Funny, I’m not seeing a whole lot of talent from you so far—other than for shooting your mouth off. Maybe you’re talking about yourself.”

The blond guy’s gaze darted from Jasper to me, startled and then sparking with vicious amusement. “Who the hell are you? Jasper’s coach brought on some fresh meat so he’d look better in comparison?”

My teeth gritted, but Jasper touched my shoulder in a gesture that felt like a warning. He fixed the jerk with a glare.

“This is Lou, mypartner.And you wouldn’t be talking shit like that if you’d seen her.” He turned to me. “Quentin Wolfe. Sorry you had to meet him.”

His terse but dry tone got a laugh out of me.

Quentin Wolfe—I did recognize that name. He’d made his mark in the Juniors competitions that I’d sometimes watched when there wasn’t enough new higher profile stuff to study. He’d gotten onto the national team last year, though he’d been one of the less prominent members.

Quentin let out a low chuckle of his own. “Your partner? You’re skatingpairs, St. Pierre? I guess you figured that way you wouldn’t have to go head-to-head with me.”

“Hard as it may be for you to believe, I haven’t given you much thought at all,” Jasper retorted, but his jaw was tight.

“You’re going to find it hard to ignore me now. I look forward to watching you crash and burn all over again, old-timer.”

Quentin tossed aside his skate guards and pushed off across the ice without giving either of us a chance to respond.

I rolled my eyes at his retreating back. “Old-timer? Who inflated his head so big?”

When I turned back to Jasper, my partner was scowling. “He’s a fucking prick. Better to ignore him.”

I took in the storm clouds that’d gathered in Jasper’s gray-green eyes, and my stomach knotted. “Is he like that with everyone?”

“Probably. But he’s worse with me.” Jasper sighed. “When he first transitioned from Juniors, the media liked to pit us against each other in their coverage because we were close in age and our styles are so different. He took that as his cue to make my life hell. It figures he’d be training here.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Niko piped up. “The last time you were competing against Quentin, you made it to the international circuit and he was stuck at home.”

“Yeah, but last year he made it to Worlds. Which obviously inflated his ego even more.” Jasper let out another breath and shook his head. “Whatever. It’s true that I don’t have to go up against him directly while we’re competing in pairs. It’s all just hot air anyway.”

He didn’t sound like he totally believed that, though.

Frowning, I glanced over to where Quentin was going through his initial on-ice warm-up.

It was easy to see the contrast between him and Jasper, even in the basic spins and jumps he was working through right now. My partner was all fluid motion, wrapping you up in the story of his movements.

Quentin angled every limb with perfect precision. His expression stayed locked in analytical intensity, as if he were calculating the exact degrees of every turn, every lift of a leg or arm.

Technically, he hit every mark. There was no denying the power that showed as he whipped through the air.

---