Mike felt lost the moment he walked into the Terwillegar Community Recreation Center. He missed VITAL and its simple layout, its familiar faces on every corner, its everything.
The Challenge booklet said it was for over 500 athletes from novice to senior, and they didn't exaggerate. Even with four arenas, the bloom of Canadian figure skating and their parents unnerved him. He looked more weird on his own here, than he did in the craft store last Christmas.
Next time I'll wear 'my girlfriend is a figure skater' tee shirt.
He thought he glimpsed Daya once, jerked forward to get to her, and nearly tripped over a kid hotly telling his voluptuous mother that if it were an underrotation, then he'd be fine with it, but it wasn't. Wasn't! the kid emphasized, throwing Mike a dirty look. He assumed the kid hoped for a solicitous expression and shrugged guiltily. My girlfriend is a figure skater...
Her phone was probably off. He tried anyway before crawling into the arena slotted for the pairs' tests. Daya wasn't picking up. And the skaters didn't look like pairs. They looked like junior ladies.
Mike abandoned calling to frantically search the lists, the flowcharts and the updates. Who knew one had to have a flowchart to be a figure skating fan. Correction: a hard-core figure skating fan, because the arena was almost empty. If he missed Daya, she'd notice his absence for sure...
No, he was in the right place, just too early. Dhawan/Sorokin would compete here. And he would be here for it, if his nether regions had to freeze to the bleachers. Mike Williams, representing the Calgary Public Library... damn it.
He slanted his eyes to his right where two aunties settled in the choice spots behind the judges. Triple axel, lutz, technical score, they whispered to one another while the skaters waited for the scores. Oh, that scarlet with that pink looks horrid on her dress...
The lady closest to him, the one in a checkered wrap over a black turtleneck, scanned the arena between the test skates, her eyes slipping over him twice. He smiled, feeling like a kid caught pilfering Halloween candy ahead of time—my girlfriend is a figure skater, ma'am—and stared straight ahead at Zamboni clearing the ice for the pairs.
Despite the hypnotic way the metal hippo moved, Mike's heart raced. It had been so long since he'd seen Daya...
The arena emptied again; the loudspeaker called the first group of senior pairs to warm up. Daya sprung on ice pummeling her thighs. She tossed him a smile, then her attention turned towards the guy who was holding her hand. So did Mike's.
The guy—Pavel Sorokin, presumably—blurred the line between Greek and Scandinavian pantheons. He had Thor's mighty hamstrings and Hermes' fleet calves; Loki's nimble fingers and Hephaestus' hammered span of shoulders; Frey's summer eyes and Apollo's wiry waist.
That mixed divine anatomy carried him over the expanse of the ice with a deceptive facility. Having had suffered an embarrassment after an embarrassment when skating, Mike wanted to weep watching Pavel glide hand in hand with Daya.
The ladies next to Mike came to life, whispering excitedly about the new pair and why they were so early in the warm-up groups.
Daya again found his eyes across the arena before stepping through the gates, and Mike fashioned a goofy smile, despite the needle in his heart. He came to see Daya, and he'd just wasted the precious minutes of the warm-up on studying her blond partner.
The two pairs that came before Dhawan/Sorokin could have sprouted golden wings and took off to circle under the ceiling beams, and he wouldn't have cared one whit.
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Winners Don't Have Bad Days (Watty 2020 Winner, Romance)
ЧиклитWhen a total stranger knows what eats you, maybe they are your one true love. Even if you don't know it yet. || On Friday the 13th, two twenty-something, Daya and Mike, end up in a mutually beneficial arrangement: she is his caregiver after he break...
