Blaze

It’s possible that competing right now is not the best idea. Okay, it’s almost certainly a terrible idea. According to all those “professionals” anyhow. But what they don’t understand is showmanship. Or loyalty.

These women I skate with have their last hopes pinned on this race since none of us medaled in individual competition. Shit luck with disqualifications and crashes has us with a big goose egg up on the board. Which isn’t as bad as it could be—those crashes could’ve come with serious injuries, which none of them did—but it still sucks some royal donkey balls. This is our last shot.

Also, I have got a massive cut on my head, and no matter how they bandage it, it’s going to show up under my helmet because of where I got sliced. If I’m super lucky, it’ll still be bleeding enough that it’ll leak through the bandage and I’ll be like Curt Schilling and his iconic red-stained sock in the World Series, but it will be on my face. This is, frankly, ideal.

I’ll be a hero for competing, because if I don’t, my team won’t have enough people to make up the relay team, which means coverage. If I pass out during the race, well, fuck, I hope I don’t, especially because I don’t want to take out other athletes, but it would still be newsworthy. And, if we somehow manage to medal? Fucking A, that would be the best. Even a bronze. I’ll take it. It wouldn’t be so bad to have a medal to hang in front of all my newspaper clippings in my apartment.

Yep. Plus, of all the events, the relay is my favorite. It’s a mix of chaos and the most meticulous order. God, it’s so fucking sexy. Which would explain why I’m standing beside the boards, getting ready to skate in what’s likely my last SIGs.

I suck air through my teeth as I pull my helmet on because it sits awkwardly over the bandage on my head. It’s as if my body is trying to tell me something, like skating in a big race right now is a terrible idea. I can imagine by the time we’re done that my head will be throbbing because of the pressure on my wound. But I can do it. I will do it. People are counting on me, and sure a disc of metal is no substitute for having Maisy in my bed, but you know what? I don’t think she’s going to forgive me—why would she? So that not being an option, I’ll take a fucking medal.

Plus, winning a medal makes a person even more eligible in the village after the events are over. It’s like people are trying to play SIG bingo or something . . . Which, if they are, I want to get me one of those boards, because I could probably check off a lot of the boxes.

Gold medalist? Check.

Silver medalist? Check.

Bronze medalist? Check.

An entire team at once? Check. Looking at you, Australian bobsledders. Damn that was a night to remember.

But what I want to remember from these games is something more than my sexual exploits, though those will be sticking with me for the rest of my life for sure because hot damn, Maisy Harper. Who knew? Which is why I’m trying to keep my head on straight despite the pounding that’s started, making it feel as if the blood is fighting to get out of the gash under the bandage. Go for it, particularly if it will relieve some of the pressure.

I close my eyes and open them wide, hoping a blink will alleviate some of the pain, but no such luck. Such is life. Our coach sends us off with some last-minute advice, and then we’re skating to the track. Allison takes her place at the start line, Bonnie, Phoebe, and I take up our positions in the center of the track. I’m the last one, so my job is to stay out of the way until Phoebe’s turn, and then I’ll skate alongside her on the inside of the track to get up to speed, slip in ahead of her, she’ll give a push to my rump for an extra boost—and you can’t tell me she doesn’t enjoy copping a feel a little bit, the saucy minx—and then I’ll be off while Allison does the same. It’s madness. Pure, unadulterated madness, and I adore it.

Ignoring the pounding and wooziness, I focus in on Allison and her pretty, pretty start stance, and then they’re off. With the track as short as it is, it’s not so long until I’m coming up to speed to replace Phoebe, balancing about a hundred things in my mind. Keeping track of Phoebe, making sure I don’t do anything that could be construed as interference, staying out of the way of the other skaters because I will not be the one who falls and fucks our chances. Nor am I going to lose my rhythm when Phoebe gives my ass a shove.

Then it’s narrowed to concentrating on fewer things: skating as fast as I possibly can around this tiny disc of ice, taking my corners tight, and using every stride I have to its advantage. The hard breathing from the burst of exertion makes some stars set off behind my eyeballs, which is one of those weird body things that doesn’t even make sense. I wish it would go away, because it’s making it difficult to see Allison coming up on my left. But there she is in her red, white, and blues, getting ready to insert herself oh-so-carefully between me and the Chinese skater. Done, I lay my own gloved hands on her hips and give a push before swerving first to the outside of the track and getting the fuck out of everyone’s way, then skating back to the center when the current skaters have passed.

Lap after lap we go. The Italians fall behind because one of their skaters took a header during a transition, and then it’s my second to last lap. Pushing, pushing with my legs like I’ve never pushed before, I take my lap, getting the inside track on my Chinese peer before losing the lead to the Korean, and fuck all. I can’t even think about getting it back before it’s time to tag out again.

This is the frustrating part, the waiting. Not that I have to sit still for long, if at all, but god, if I could be out there, I wouldn’t have to think about things so much. All I’d have to do is make my body do one of the things it’s best at. Skate, really fucking fast, around a little track.

Finally it’s time for me to tag in again, and although I almost get tangled up in the Chinese team’s skate, I escape undeterred and without another slice to any part of my body. Good, because I could use all the blood I have. Hemoglobin and all that good shit. As Phoebe’s hands leave my ass, I take off. It’s only a few strides before I get down low into the turn, defying gravity and grazing the ice with my glove before straightening up a bit and resting the back of my inside hand on my hip. Keep the damn thing out of the way—it’s not like pumping your arms when you’re running.

Being the last skater to go in the relay, I’ve got to finish out the last two laps. Because stamina, I haz it. The only really good thing about that is that I can skate unimpeded with no worries about getting tangled up in a tag. That, plus being the person who will—for better or for worse—be the one crossing the finish line, and finally, having all the thousands of pairs of eyes in the arena being glued to me. I can feel them as if each were a point of heat, and I’m burning up even on the ice.

Faster, faster, knee practically touching the ice, rubber-encased fingertips skimming along the last corner and now it’s time. Blurs of red and blue are flashing in front of me, some in my peripheral vision, and I move an inch to my left so they can’t get through the inside, not without getting disqualified for not being within the boundaries of the track. You want to pass me? You’re going to have to do it the hard way.

Which is how I like it. Hard. Finish line in sight, I gun it with everything I have, blood pounding through my whole body, every molecule that makes me up working toward one goal: that blue line in the ice. Taking the outside because it doesn’t matter anymore, I nudge my right skate out because it’s the tip of the blade that matters; that’s what marks the time, that’s what decides your fate. Then, strangely, it’s over.

Yes, the noise is still echoing throughout the arena, flags waving in the bright lights, but I can’t honestly say if I’ve won. Close, I know we got close because the flashes of pumping arms, bright and patriotic uniforms, they were to my sides and not ahead. But I’ve also learned to not count my medals before they’ve been doled out.

Earlier in the SIGs, the winner of the gold in the 1,500 got his medal stripped after the tape showed interference. Imagine that. Parading around the arena in front of thousands of people only to be told after your victory that you’ve not only not won, but you get nothing. Some things about short track are really fucking ugly, and that’s one of the things I hate.

Turns out I was right to be cautious for once in my goddamn life because the officials are reviewing something on their screen, and while I don’t remember doing anything I could get called on, you never fucking know. My ribs are tight around my chest, my head is pounding—every drumbeat creating a flash of black behind my eyes. Should probably check in with the med staff after this is over, just to make extra sure it’s not a concussion.

Word travels fast over the rink and Allison, Phoebe, Bonnie, and I all skate over to where our coach and other staff are tucked behind the boards.

“What’s going on?” Everyone knows I’m not one to keep my face shut, so I’ll be the one to ask what everyone’s wondering.

Coach Lee looks at me. “They’re saying you might have had interference on that last hand-off with the Chinese skater.”

I’d like to say that’s impossible, that it was a fucking clean race, but who the hell knows. It felt good to me, I certainly didn’t try to fuck with her, but stuff looks different on video than it feels in your bones. My stomach bottoms out because this cannot be happening. My teammates will say, “It could’ve been any of us,” which would be the goddamn truth, but they’d be blaming me. Yes, I’d like to be infamous but not for something like this.

Which is when I see her. Sitting a dozen rows up, with an American flag in her hand, and the hat I left in her room pulled low on her head. It’s Maisy. She came. She’s here. Our gazes catch on each other like steel on ice, and it’s the sweetest kind of pain that she’s here to see this.

She accepted my apology—must have, because Maisy’s not the kind of girl to rub your nose in a mistake. She’d just . . . leave. Has. But she’s here and rooting for us. For me. Thank god her team got knocked out in the last round because I don’t think her poor Maple-leaf-shaped heart could take the conflict if she had to choose. As it is, she could get in some shit for being here and cheering me on, and she knows it. She did it anyway.

I want to put the guards on my skates and climb up into the audience, throw myself into her lap, take her face in my hand and kiss her, tell her I’m sorry, tell her I love her, and that I’m not sure what being with her would look like, but I’m willing to try. I want to know.

Maisy smiles at me, puts her fingertips to her mouth and blows me the smallest, sweetest kiss. I wish I could catch it, send one back, but mine would be big and showy and sloppy, like me. I settle for slapping myself in the face, which no one will think much of—What the fuck was that? Just Bellamy being a freak again—but when her shoulders jerk with a laugh I know she understood that was my way of catching it, keeping it, without drawing attention to her.

Because I want it to stay that way, I shake out my legs, focus on my coach and my teammates, hold their hands and pray to the rink gods that I didn’t mess up. I didn’t mess up. Yeah, I’ve been angling for the spotlight since before I was in the Games at Sapporo, but I didn’t mean for it to be like this. I’ll make the most of it no matter how it comes out, but come on.

It’s minutes of not being able to take full breaths, of feeling as if my legs are going to shake right off my torso, of my teammates squeezing my hands so hard I think the fragile bones might break. Finally, the official is leaving the screen, talking to yet another person.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight and promise whoever gives a damn that if they let me win this race, I’ll use my powers only for good and not evil—getting laid doesn’t count as evil, right? If so, I might have to reconsider, because I really, really love sex. Lots.

When I manage to crack my eyes open, it’s first to the blinding lights of the arena, but then I can focus on the Jumbotron hanging from the ceiling. The Koreans are first, the Chinese are second, but next to third place, the American flag lights up and all bets are off.

I drop my teammates’ hands so I can punch the air, and then I’m off. Arms wide open, skating around the rink, my rink, because we got it. A bronze medal, yeah, but a medal nonetheless, and one we weren’t favored to win. I’m gonna act like it’s gold, and you better believe no one’s going to say boo about that.

Someone shoves a flag into my hands on my way by and I unfurl it, lifting it over my head and letting it fly like a cape behind me as I whiz around the arena, trying not to take out any of the other skaters. Thrilled Koreans, delighted Chinese, heartbroken Italians. And us. Allison, Bonnie, and Phoebe hadn’t bothered keeping up with me for the first few laps, but as I slow down, they join me, and we keep skating round and round, soaking in the noise of the hometown crowd.

And unbeknownst to them or hopefully anyone at all, whenever I pass Maisy, I smile right at her. I want to bask in her approval, too, have it drip over me like a goddamn gin shower. Maybe she’d lick it off? We’ve got some talking to do, but she doesn’t make decisions hastily. Her being here means my past seventy-two hours of celibacy hasn’t been in vain.