Page 75 of Side By Side

“What if we try leading together?” Belle asked. “I’ll share an idea. You tell me what you think about it, and if we’re into it, we try it out.”

“I have no idea how that works.” Chandler laughed a little.

Belle skated to the side wall, where she grabbed the remote for the speakers and said, “Let’s practice. We’ll play some music to help us relax and get warmed up and just have some fun. Do you like that idea or not?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t usually warm up with music.”

“Good. Something different. It’ll help loosen you up a bit.” Belle pressed the button and then quickly turned the volume down so they wouldn’t have to yell at each other. “Now, let’s race.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Let’s race, Chandler. No cheating this time. I mean it.” Belle pointed at her after setting the remote back down. “One lap around. Whoever wins gets to suggest how we alter the opening sequence because it’s not great.”

“You’ll win. You’re the fastest.”

“Maybe. Who knows?”

“You also didn’t get drunk last night and aren’t currently surviving on three sips of coffee and ibuprofen.”

“Rock, paper, scissors instead?” Belle asked and skated over to her, holding out her hand. “You win – you change the choreography for the beginning.”

“You’re going to do anything you can to let me win, aren’t you?”

“What? No,” she said, obviously lying.

“Belle…”

“This is your career, Chandler. That place, that program – it doesn’t matter to me anymore. I left it behind me a long time ago. Probably the moment I lost my mom and really understood that life was bigger than figure skating. I don’t have anything to prove to them or anyone else. I’m here for you. So, if you want us to skate there tomorrow, show me what you want, and let’s do it.”

“I need your help.”

“I’ll help, but you start us off, okay?” Belle asked, dropping the hand she’d been holding out.

Chandler nodded and said, “What if I’m really bad at it?”

“You won’t be. You know what judges want to see and what they don’t. You know, Chandler. You just haven’t ever been given a chance to take what you know and actually do it, so do it now. I’m right there next to you, okay?”

CHAPTER 21

“Is it weird?” Chandler asked when they got out of the car.

“Yes,” Belle replied.

They’d gotten a hotel room for the night between the first and second night of the competition to make it feel as realistic as possible, according to Chandler, who had set the whole thing up. She’d arranged for an early check-in, and Belle had packed an overnight bag, feeling a little ridiculous considering Chandler’s house wasn’t that far from the High-Performance Skate building where the competition was taking place, but she went with it anyway. Now, they were standing outside of that building, the one she hadn’t been inside since she was fourteen years old.

She’d talked a big game to Chandler yesterday about having moved on, and she supposed that was at least partially true, but now that she was getting ready to go in and compete for the first time in over a decade, the butterflies were kicking in. She needed to get herself together because they’d worked all day yesterday on their free routine, tweaking Cat’s existing choreography, adding some of their own, and they’d gotten up that morning and practiced the whole thing through as much as they could, along with the existing long program they’d already been taught before they needed to leave. She’d agreed to do this, and now, she was going to walk through those doors not as a fourteen-year-old who ran out of them one time many years ago but as Chandler Wolfe’s pairs partner.

“Need a minute?” Chandler asked her.

“No, I’m okay,” she lied.

They walked inside from the main entrance instead of the program’s entrance, which was where she’d always entered and exited from when she’d been a student here. The rink was right there, front and center. There were only stands on the far side, with all the offices above, overlooking the ice. To their left was a counter where people would pay to watch events, the bathrooms, a small concession stand that was only open during those events, and the locker rooms for the skaters as well as a warm-up space, a gym, trampolines, some gymnastic and ballet spaces, and more. That was all hidden from her view, though, and as she watched Chandler check them in, it hit her that this was a good thing; she’d get that closure now that she’d never truly gotten before.

“We’re all set,” Chandler said when she walked back over. “We’re up fifth tonight, so we’ve got some time to warm up.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Do you want to change in the bathroom?”