kisser?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.
“No, not that. Not at all,” I rush to say.
God, how many times since New Year’s Eve have I imagined the electricity of our kiss? Sometimes, I catch myself daydreaming about it at Summit when I know I shouldn’t.
“You should go for him,” Sara says clearly.
“What?”
“You like him. So tell him that. Go out with him. Do something.”
I feel hot, like I’m under a spotlight.
“I can’t do that,” I protest.
“You can sit here in your discomfort, or you can step outside your comfort zone and try something new,” she continues, slipping into what I assume must be a platitude from her yoga classes.
“We work together. It’s complicated,” I explain. “I told him we probably shouldn’t do anything like that again.”
“Life is short,” she says.
She shrugs and scoots off the bed, then whirls around to face me. “We can be friends, can’t we?” she asks.
“Of course we can,” I rush to say.
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that,” she says, grinning. “I have to get going. The studio does candlelit yoga on Sunday nights. I’m teaching at six thirty and eight o’clock. Wanna join?”
I glance around the bedroom, which doesn’t quite feel homey yet, though it’s shaping into something that feels like mine. This apartment feels like a fresh start. I don’t want to leave it just yet.
“Maybe another day?” I suggest.
I don’t mean it. It’s the way I was raised—unless a workout involves a raised heartbeat and death-defying stunts, I’m not interested. Chanting mantras in downward dog doesn’t seem like it’d do it for me.
“Free classes on me anytime,” she says, heading around the corner into her own bedroom to get ready.
I sink onto the bed. First Summit, then whatever is going on with Ryan, and now this new place to live. For the first time in a long time, I feel the different elements of my life clicking together. I like this new life.
* * *
After Sara leaves, the apartment is quiet. I drive to the supermarket, pick up an armful of carrots, mushrooms, herbs, and rice, and make risotto for myself. Cooking dinner for one is an endeavor that requires a little too much time, energy, and money for what it’s worth, but I need to do something to keep my hands and mind busy. I have to focus on drizzling the pan with precisely the right amount of olive oil and dicing the vegetables the right way so I don’t have the bandwidth to think about Ryan. He’s been on my mind more than I’d like to admit lately.
I didn’t used to be like this—sappy, emotional, with a soft center. I used to pride myself on being able to block out distractions. It’s a necessary skill in gymnastics: when you’re four feet aboveground, balancing on a four-inch-wide beam, there’s no room to notice the trilling of another girl’s floor music or the flailing kid cartwheeling past you or the watchful gaze of your coach. There’s you and there’s the beam. That’s it. Tonight, there’s me and there’s this meal. I wish that could be it. My mind keeps circling back to thoughts I shouldn’t be having.
There’s nothing worth getting distracted from Olympic glory, least of all a crush—that’s what Dimitri drilled into me years ago. But the truth is that however deeply I know Ryan and I can’t hook up or date or whatever we were veering toward, I still want to kiss him again. I can’t stop thinking about running my fingers through his hair and feeling his powerful hands pressing into the curve of my waist. I like him. I liked him back then, too, though I didn’t think I could do anything about it. Now, though? I’m not sure. I’m in a new home. It’s a fresh start. Anything could be possible.
• CHAPTER 12 •
Monday’s practice slips by in a flash. Hallie, clad in a blinding neon orange leotard sprayed with sparkles, whips through warm-ups and conditioning with alarming grit, charges down the vault runway like a sprinter, attacks her tumbling with gusto, and moves with an impressive sense of focus on beam. Nationals—the annual competition that brings together the country’s top talent—is one of the most important events of the year, and it’s just two months away. The upcoming competition sharpens the pressure. When Hallie’s moving in top form, like she is today, practice never drags. It’s impossible to look away from her.
She and Ryan have spent the final hour of the day together on bars, drilling her