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BTR had been at the Palm Woods for north of a year, so their antics and chaos were no longer a surprise. Or, well. Camille corrected herself, the specifics could be plenty unexpected, but the generalities were predictable. Kendall biting the ice when she asked? Predictable. But the why. . . Therein lay the question.
“No!”
She had to give him props for trying. Between the resounding slam of hitting the ice and the echo across the rink, Camille’d heard the tell-tale squeaking wheeze of all the air in one’s lungs being evicted post-haste. In dire need of air and kissing ice weren’t really ideal conditions for–anything, actually. But Kendall gave it a good try. Maybe it was all that singing.
“Why not?”
Maybe it was cruel of her to ask for an answer when he was still fighting to breathe; cruel, but not out of character.
“Ca–”. An ice-dry cough interrupted him, “Camerellisssss.” Camille cocked her head, ignoring the coughing fit that was destabilizing his efforts to get back on his skates.
“Who are the Camerellisssss?”
“Figure skaters.” He paused, waiting for his lungs or esophagus to protest, and when neither did, continued. “Figure skaters and hockey players are sworn enemies.”
“Well duh.”
Camille looked at Kendall; Kendall looked at Camille.
“Our personal sworn rink enemies?”
“We’re not in Minnesota anymore, Dorothy. And my name isn’t ‘Camille Camarelli.’”
Honestly, Camille wasn’t sure if she should be impressed, flattered, or offended at the series of aborted, aggrieved, expressions that flickered across his face. Somewhere, he had a poker face. Somewhere.
“We have a Code. A No Figure Skating Code because of those jerks.”
Ahha! Camille felt like she should’ve guessed it was something like that. Fortunately, she was practically a certified Big Time Rush Wrangler by now.
“And you just let those two, small-town figure skaters dictate how you guys were going to skate for the rest of your lives?” There. What boy could resist that bait? Especially Kendall "Authority Issues" Knight.
Camille knew the importance of a dramatic pause, and apparently, so did Kendall. She let him have this one; this was the moment when the trusty sidekick capitulated to the hero’s persuasive speech and the two went forth on their zany adventures.
She could see the moment coming, the only hang-up would be. . .
“We have to keep it a secret.” Bingo.
. . .the guys. Camille would’ve bet a starring role in the Operation Improbable movies the others would get over the broken code faster than Kendall had agreed, but logic tended to avoid the guys, so why the hell not? It was certainly faster this way and definitely more fun.
**************
One of the new guys was on her rink.
On her rink and a hockey player if his ease and movement on the ice was anything to judge by.
Camille didn’t ascribe to that worn-out rivalry between figure skaters and ice hockey players not since she’d left vying for rink time in Connecticut. She didn’t have to begrudge him the company per se, but no one else from the Palm Woods had ever shown up here, so she’d come to regard it as hers.
A place for Camille Roberts, not ‘Camille: the Palm Wood’s ‘Queen of Method Acting’.
If he didn’t make something of it, then she wouldn’t; the rink was, in fact, big enough for the two of them, as well as the eclectic collection of other patrons slipping, sliding, and gliding their way around the ice.
Tucking the interlop–new guy out of her mind, Camille tried to refocus on her lutzes.
It worked. At least, it worked until New Guy coincided with her spot. She might’ve salvaged the jump had their gazes not snagged each other. Instead, Camille only just succeeded in getting her forearms on the ice first, not her chin, legs splayed akimbo, and feet forced uncomfortably sideways.
Great. A wipe-out with an audience.
Fortunately for her pride and liability, no one was near enough to be collateral, or even worry about getting skated over. There were some gawkers, but on the whole, people were ignoring her with conspicuous studiousness.
Well, almost everyone.
Horror of horrors, New Guy was still looking, a sympathetic cringe twisting up his features, hand half raised, although to what he thought he’d do from all the way over there. . . He gave her a thumbs up, uncertain support replacing his earlier gut reaction to her flop of a jump.
Camille hauled herself up, mindful of the light twinges strumming along her nerves from her knees and ankles. She’d be feeling those for a few days and probably have some Monet-reminiscent bruising in the morning, but nothing more serious was demanding attention, so maybe she was in the clear.
Which left her with no reason not to go meet accost New Guy. If only because New Guy was a stupid name and apparently they weren’t going to be able to avoid each other.
She sighed, angling so she merged seamlessly into the circulating stream of fellow skaters and could work her way to him without disrupting the entire crowd. No need to cause any more wrecks. At least New Guy had clocked her destination and was sticking to the lazy outer edges, giving her plenty of time and space to catch him, regardless of her body’s grumpy complaints and intervening human congestion.
Aside from a pair of tweens more enthusiastic than skilled pinballing through the pack, Camille drew abreast of New Guy without issue.
Despite incorporating him into her acting that first day, none of her attention had gone toward noticing him as more than a prop, so she took a moment, trying to gauge his reaction to her arrival.
At ease on the ice, and with enough presence only the unsavably unobservant weren’t giving him–now them–a healthy berth. That self-assurance and tall build could’ve made him a bad choice to meet with a slap, but it was tempered by a laid-back, distinctively Midwest nonchalance. Not quite Floridian levels of chill, but if he were from a coast, Camille would eat a playbill.
New Guy had to have noticed her scrutiny, but he hadn’t acknowledged her yet besides adjusting his movements to accommodate company. Well, and the fluttering pulse she could see racing beneath his jaw and the looks he kept shooting her through that swoopy hair, light eyes reflecting helpless confusion.
Taking note of the approaching rink entrance and the high likelihood of New Guy attempting to runskate away, Camille took pity on him.
“I’m Camille Roberts. I bet you've heard that, though.” She stuck out her left hand for a handshake; the angle was awkward, stretched across her body and suspended in open air barely clear of her other arm, but better than jamming her other arm between them.
Of course, that left New Guy jamming his–considerably longer–arm between them, rebounding off the wall back into her when he tried to make a sliver more space between them for a handshake.
Once again demonstrating the supremacy of physics, Camille slid away from him, only stopped by the unwieldy grip New Guy had on her hand; fortunately, while playing hockey provided excellent practice at knocking people off their feet, apparently, it was also taught one how to keeping someone on their feet.
Considering it had just saved her from a second fall in quick succession, Camille couldn’t complain too much, except for the role New Guy had played in inciting both incidents.
“Kendall.” Camille stared at him, momentarily lost in her head and uncomprehending. “Me, I’m Kendall. Uh. Knight.”
Unless his parents hated their child, or were enthusiastic medievalists, Camille deemed it unlikely his name was “Kendall a Knight,” but the opportunity was irresistible as any siren’s song.
“A knight, huh? Hollywood sure attracts some colorful characters.”
Carefully not-watching, Camille still caught the way his eyebrows bunched in confusion before giving way to a humoring look of long-suffering understanding.
“Hollywood sure does. Nice to finally meet you by the way, I didn’t catch your name between the SLAPPING! and storming off.” New G– Kendall flung his arm out for emphasis, almost taking out one of the rinkside lurkers, and Camille didn’t try to stop the grin tugging at her cheeks.
Touché.
Despite the wide range of emotions and volumes he slid through in that sentence, she got the sense he was more at ease now than earlier; at the least, he wasn’t watching her like a bewildering–potentially hostile if harmless–creature.
Mission: success.
“So this is your rink? Or time?”
His questions dragged her away from her self-congratulations and she put the mental cheering on hold for a minute.
“Where are you from again?”
“. . . Duluth?”
“Are you sure, because you don’t sound like you are.” Camille remarked dryly, “Doesn’t matter anyway,”– she ignored his indignant “seriously?” steamrolling ahead “but this rink will not be participating in any rivalries. Check' em at the ice, or find another.”
“Oh come on!”
“Them’s the rules, take it or leave it.”
“You just made that up!”
“I sure did! But who's got seniority here . . . Newbie.” She had him there. Camille could practically see him wavering at the reminder he was–as he understood it–on her ice. Never let it be said that The Camille Roberts didn’t understand the human psyche, regardless of how strange and how hockey-addled it might be.
“Just two, not-hockey, not-figure skater people, skating on the same ice? At the same time sometimes?” He asked, and if the considering note in his voice was any indication, this was Camille’s win.
“Yup!” She chirped, intentionally imploding the p and keeping a calculatedly subdued tone, even if the celebrating in her head was starting up again; teenage boys were prone to overreacting, and if she sounded too chipper, he might balk, just for the hell of it.
“I guess,” he was hedging, dragging the word out as if that would negate his capitulation and Camille’s victory, “that could work.”
In an effort to avoid the convolutions of their earlier handshake, Camille swooped ahead of him, proffering her hand in an echo of before, effortlessly navigating backward.
She was willing to bet a collision he would warn her of any potential obstacles, or at least any he saw, and optics were non-negotiable, so. Mild posturing and unshakeable confidence it was.
Of course, if he left her waiting here like an idiot much longer, that confidence could backfire. Granted, the odds of someone who cared and could affect both of them watching this very minute were very small, infinitesimal even, Fortune had a fascinating sense of humor, though, and Camille didn’t intend to be the butt of her amusements today.
Fortunately, for everyone–or maybe just Kendall–he took that moment to accept Camille’s hand, meeting her gaze with a friendly, if lightly apprehensive, smile.
“Pleasure doin’ business with ya.” And she swept around in a neat 270 and was gliding away; those lutzes weren’t going to improve themselves, and she had a good feeling about the day.
As she left, an anticipatory swish to her skating, barely audible over the rink’s babel, Camille heard an incredulous laugh.
****************
“The sneaking was fun while it lasted–kind of–but look! The guys know and nothing bad happened.” Camille reasoned, watching her partner drift closer to some sort of psychological break. A thorn of regret prickled along her own nerves as her own words replayed in her head; like the blade of Damocles, the pall of the jinx hung over them now.
“. . . Yeah.” Camille was surprised when he didn’t return with some sort of, mildly ridiculous, albeit accurate refutation. Instead, it was further evidence that all was not right with Hockey Head #1. If she could’ve brushed it off, or ignored it until afterward, she would have, unfortunately, she could make the diagnosis herself: performance anxiety.
Damn.
She scrutinized Kendall, the garish fluorescent lighting doing neither him nor the concrete any favors as it cast them in dingy relief. Many of the classic indications of performance anxiety were absent, but he was uncharacteristically quiet, and most telling, she could feel the disturbed aura he was throwing off poisoning her own reservoir of composure.
Some unhelpful part of her mind reminded her that she might not be catching his performance anxiety, but be brewing her own–in a perfectly rational reaction!–to a first-time partner that was perhaps not currently the best choice to entrust with her life and limbs.
“All right, level with me, Minnesota. What’s eating you?” Personally, Camille preferred a delicate approach. Experience, though, demonstrated BTR required more straightforwardheavy-handed methods.
“I have no idea!”
She flinched as the cement walls threw Kendall’s outburst back in dissonant waves, her eardrums ringing; Camille felt a petty satisfaction when she caught Kendall cringing against the aural assault as well. Serves him right. She wasn’t sure she could hear her own voice yet, but Camille figured as long as he could, it’d work.
“Is this an ‘I ’m-embarrassed-and-don’t-want-to-own-up no idea’, or an ‘I-don’t-know-my-own-mind no idea’? Just for clarification.” Camille asked. Yeah, her own voice sounded like there was water in the way, but Kendall’s visual reaction was probably more important than his verbal one.
Sure enough, the bewildered, full-body shrug was far more telling than the desperate “ehhh?!” that accompanied it.
She wrinkled her nose, frowning at him. Unfortunately, neither of those reactions actually answered the original question, let alone provided any guidance on how to solve the problem. Her own disquiet ratcheted up a notch.
“If this is the yips or stage fright or some weird mix, just. . .”Camille trailed off, scrambling for a good way to phrase it before giving up “just chill. You’ve gone on a freakin’ tour! And played, uh, high-stakes high school hockey?”
The bewildered and affronted look she found herself on the receiving end of wasn’t exactly indicative of rousing success, but it wasn’t worse than blatant anxiety, so she kept talking.
“Look, all I’m saying is we both have supporters out there, this is a low-stakes thing, and if it turns into an absolute train wreck, well, neither of us actually needs to show our faces here ever again.”
He’d graduated to openly gaping at her, eyes wide and mouth working soundlessly, unfortunately reminiscent of the koi at the Chinese restaurant her family had liked years ago.
“Camille.” Kendall stalled. “Camille, “ he tried again, “You’re terrible at pregame speeches.”
Rude, but understandable.
“Neither coach nor team leader is a role I’ve played before–I don’t know why they don’t think I could play the parts–so excuse me if it’s a bit rough.” A scale of warning notes sounded through the halls. Simplistic and a touch garbled, the meaning came through clear: their time was almost up.
“You’re supposed to say something inspiring! Something that unites the team and makes sure everyone is focused on the same goal!” He brought his hands together, the motion charged with more energy than fineness. “And positivity! Always end on a positive note!”
“Huh, you know, now that you’ve said it, I could probably pull something like that together.”
“You already didn’t!” Kendall groaned, pulling at his hair as he looked beseechingly at the low ceiling before closing his eyes and groaning. Camille could’ve told him there were no answers there.
“Regardless of whether I did or didn’t, we should move; tardiness is never a good look.”
Camille resolutely did not look behind her as she started down the hall along the path indicated by the rink access signs. She didn’t doubt Kendall would be right behind her; he was dependable like that.
“Late to a disaster sounds like a decent look to me.”
She ignored that too, Kendall could have the last word if it made him feel better. They had a performance to give, and Camille’s own inner peace had packed a bag, probably to wherever her partner’s had gone. There wasn’t nearly enough time and distance to recenter herself before they were in the spotlight. There was even less time to suddenly improve their technique–which wasn’t the issue anyway–so Camille focused on trying to recover a little of that earlier confidence and clarity. Despite her efforts, as the stale air of the access tunnels freshened with the cool bite of ice and sounds of the rink became clearer, Camille couldn’t shake the foreboding feeling constricting her throat and pulsing in rhythm with her flighty heartbeat.
******************
The rink-sharing was working well; she hadn’t thought it’d be divorced-parents-sharing-a-kid levels of tension, but certainly a few bumps and side-long looks at least. Nothing of the sort had manifested yet though, and they’d initiated their little arrangement weeks ago.
The fact they–apparently–had pretty different schedules seemed to be working in their favor, unless Kendall wasn’t actually at the rink all that much–and based on Hollywood Fever’s swing-and-a-miss with him, she doubted that.
More crucial to their co-sharing success, Camille suspected, was that BTR was at least within spitting distance of sanity when separated. . .and under very specific circumstances that differed depending on the person. Questionable sanity aside though, they weren’t Jett or Bitters, so they were also pretty cool to hang out with as long as chaos was assumed. There was hypocrisy somewhere in that thought, but thatshe wasn’t the issue at the moment.
The issue was, like any good hobbyist, Camille watched others in her craft and ended up wanting to try what they did with her own style. Fine, no problems there. The problem showed up when she went down the rabbit hole of couples’ routines; there weren’t many roles Camille couldn't play, but simultaneously playing both halves of a couple during a lift was proving to be one of them–despite her best efforts.
She scowled at the ice, settling for imagining it melting under the heat of her frustration. Predictably–but unsatisfyingly–nothing happened, much like her sequences.
Camille groaned, pressing her knuckles into her brow bones. The steady pressure didn’t really help, but it didn’t hurt either, and maybe it would jog some solution free.
The rhythmic susurrations would’ve been the only heads-up she got, had she been paying attention, before someone addressed her.
“Soooo, what’s wrong?”
She snapped her head up, taking in the uncertain aura radiating off Kendall, and disregarding it in favor of fixating on the easy confidence he displayed on the ice. Rapid fire, Camille ran through what she could remember of seeing him on the rink–admittedly sparse, but her memories only reinforced the idea he was on better terms with skates than sneakers.
“How do you feel about helping out a friend?”
He squinted at her, well-worn suspicion glinting in his eyes having swiftly replaced the concern of moments earlier. “With what?”
Considering how Looney Tunes his own plans and schemes had so far proven themselves, Camille wasn’t sure how he justified the wariness he was leveling at her. Besides, at least she was about to explain herself, unlike someone.
“I want to try something, but it needs two peopl–”
“Nope! Nopenopenope! Can’t help you!” He startled backward, crossing his arms at the wrists in an X and thrusting them toward her, as they could ward her off like some minor irksome spirit.
“You don’t even need to do anything!” Really, just a little lifting. She’d do it herself if she could.
“Then you don’t need me!”
That logic was aggravatingly sound, Camille had to admit.
“Okay, so you’d need to do something! But it’s not even figure skating! Just one, or two, little-bitty lifts!” Kendall was trying to surreptitiously glide away, but the middle of an ice rink–shockingly–provided few opportunities for a clean getaway. She barely even had to push to stay close enough to badger.
“Pretty sure partner lifts on ice is in the definition of figure skating!”
“For someone who’s refusing to figure skate, you sure seem to know the definition well!” Again, an annoyingly hard-to-refute piece of reasoning. If it wasn’t stymying her very reasonable requests, she’d be impressed. But at least she could take advantage of that slip.
Kendall flushed, the ruddy spots of color incited by the brisk air blooming across his skin and disappearing beneath the edges of his hat and jacket collar. Against the pale color scheme of the rink, it stood out like red to a bull, and Camille was happy to play the part.
“Besides, all I’m asking are a few very basic lifts and movements. On land, you’d never know it wasn’t just dancing–or a strange couple reenacting avian mating displays.” She thought she had him until that last part, figurative hackles lowering and rational reasoning prevailing against the knee-jerk hockey head reaction.
Huh, she’d never seen someone do a double take with quite that much energy, and still manage to maintain eye contact. Impressive. He lowered his hands from where they’d still been suspended between them; incredibly, now that Kendall was past his initial reaction, none of the reactions she’d braced for followed.
Camille watched, staring at the line of his shoulders, sure enough, they were definitely dropping, tension clearly ebbing away.
Kendall opened his mouth, then seemed to rethink, closing it and giving her a searching look. He must have found something–a decision maybe–because he sighed before asking.
“This stays just between us?”
“Just us,” Camille promised. “Just us, and just here, nobody else ever has to find out.” A giddy, effervescent feeling was bubbling up in her chest as Kendall nodded, gaze fixed on something besides their surroundings, before he came back to the present.
“Alright, I'll do it. Just here, just between us.”
She perked up, noting what he did–and didn’t–say.
“Fancies?” Camille asked, trying to keep a lid on her imagination and her pitch. For all that they could both skate, they weren’t similar skaters, and partner work was a far sight more than ‘can they both skate.’ But. . .
“If it’s going well, I guess we could try, um, fancy, stuff?”
“Yes!” She couldn’t resist the fist pump, “This is going to be so cool–eventually!” She lunged forward, grabbing Kendall’s arm and began hauling him away, ignoring the unbalanced flailing behind her.
This was going to be so much fun!
************************
Time had a curious way of moving like a rabbit, in erratic bursts of whirlwind speed and biding stillness, with the occasional spell of unremarkable moseying. Regardless of how it moved, move it did. If pressed, Camille probably couldn't have consciously accounted for where and how it went, only stand-out events: the day when she noticed the flyer on the ice rink bulletin board was one of those events lost to the haze.
The moment the idea occurred to her also passed unnoticed in her psyche, but on one sepia-stained afternoon while waiting for the Palm Wood’s bus to take her back, Camille found herself staring at the flyer.
It was almost like it was waiting for her, nestled there amongst the other flyers and ads, paper warped from the inexplicable moisture lingering in the waiting area. The gloss indicative of a recent posting was worn away by the weather, and really, the showcase date it was sporting was too close to be wise, but, focusing on the innocuous advert, Camille was seized by the certainty they could do it.
More than that, she wanted to do it.
Of course, if that was all there was to the matter, she’d be headed to the front desk to enter, not stalled out staring at the advert. No, her real stumbling block to participating was also woefully essential to qualifying as a “couple” and probably running harmonies at Rocque Records.
Hmmmm, how to convince him . . .
The conundrum buzzed around Camille’s head, and she made her way back to the Palm Woods in a fit of distraction.
The problem, mused Camille, was the whole 'secrecy’ business. The actual exhibition was probably fine, but the fact that peoplethe other guys might find out was the theoretical holdup. How, exactly, they’d find out when they hadn’t yet, Camille wasn’t sure, but again she wasn’t the problem!
It wasn’t even like it’d be newsworthy. Maybe in a small town, but here in L.A.? Even the neighborhood paper was unlikely to pay enough attention to report on an amateur, no-stakes, showcase.
But what if that was part of the problem?
Like a kickboard laboriously surfacing from deep water until it breached and bobbed freely, the idea came to her: competition.
Was he not a teenage boy, and a hockey head, to boot? Did he not have a Pavlovian reaction–more’s the pity for Gustavo’s blood pressure–to the concept of ‘no.’?
Camille felt her heart pick up as the advantages of this strategy occurred to her and the thrill of impending success set her skin to tingling. She wasn’t altogether sure yet how she could use his anti-authority tendencies, but she wasn’t one to discard tools lightly, so in the toolbox it went.
For a moment, Camille paused. There was a slim, ever-so-slight, possibility this might backfire horribly. But. . . Well.
If Kendall never saw the flyers–and why would he turn observant now–then how would he know to call her bluff? Besides some vague notions of betrayal, and he was pretty forgiving, Camille couldn't see much of a downside.
Which really just left her with the question: could, and would, Minnesota manage to turn down a challenge? Yeah. That’s not a bet Camille would take. Or at least, not once she pitched her tailor-made, Kendall Knight-trapping, spin on things.
************************
“It could’ve been worse.”
“You’re right, I could’ve injured you even worse!
“Oh like you’ve never injured someone before, Hockey Head.” Camille retorted, unmoved by Kendall’s overreaction.
He groaned, dragging his hands down his face, avoiding, Camille noticed, putting full pressure on the area around his bandaged cheek and sore nose. “That’s different.”
“Oh really?” Mighty dangerous waters Kendall was getting himself into here, and since they were both injured, it wasn’t even like she was kicking a man when he was down; she was right there with him!
“Yes, really.” He dropped his hands away, glaring at her. “It’s just a little bit different to injure a teammate or opponent while scrimmaging or during a game, compared to, oh I don’t know!” He jerked a hand at her, “Your partner in a–non-violent!–performance!”
Oh. Chagrin bloomed in her stomach, and the hot flush accompanying it banished the clinging chill of her ice packs. Her jaw gave a fresh pulse of pain throbbing through her skull with the influx of blood and feeling.
Kendall’s heated words echoed, in her head and the empty air ‘twixt them, but Camille made no attempt to replace them; it was easy, and easier, to forget there were serious sides to the guys. Easier in the short run, perhaps, but that reductive view led to moments like this, that landed like a whale in a pond and left you scrabbling for solid ground.
“Well,” she began, slowly feeling her way forward, “as cliche as it sounds, accidents do happen. Camille would’ve liked more time to order her thoughts, but she knew her audience and bulled on before he could launch a full-scale reaction.
“And okay, it looks bad! But I’m positive you guys have done worse to each other–on and off the ice! The first time is always rough, but we won’t have the nerves or sneaking around craziness going forward.” Personally, Camille thought it was a good get-off-the-ledge speech considering she’d had about three seconds to compose it, but Kendall’s aghast recoil into the wall didn’t read as agreement.
“Going forward?!” Being 2J’s floor neighbor meant hearing the odd moment of vocal practice or spontaneity, but that screech was a new one; at least she knew what the problem was.
“Yeah, like getting back in the saddle again? Perseverance in the face of adversity? You get knocked down and you get up again?!” Neither idiom, literature, nor Tubthumping had any appreciable effect, and before she could think of an appropriate BTR line, Kendall was talking.
“I’m all for ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’ But!” One vigorouslyviolently pointed finger jabbed at the ceiling and Camille wondered where the energy came from. “There’s also such a thing as ‘pick your battles!’ and mind the face!’”
Camille opened her mouth–
“OH! ‘Quit while we’re ahead,’ that’s good! ‘Nothing but a mistake seems accurate, unless you’re aiming for a little ‘oops, I did it again–’ She tuned him out, not an easy thing to do when Kendall was proving to be fluent in late ‘90s and early 2000s pop, but she was a woman on a mission, even if that mission was maybe just maybe ill-advised.
Well no. No ‘might’ about it–skating together how they had had been ill-advised all the way down. Today hadn’t necessarily been a failure itself so much as the moment everything blew up spectacularly. With an audience. And video and audio recording. Part of Camille wanted to crawl under a rock at the idea of that footage existing; the other part looked like neon signs pointing at every audition and casting call she’d ever done.
Pushing down the Best of the Worst montage her mind was trying to start, Camille opted for the easiest route: stopping the spiraling boy bander.
Nothing beats the classics, so Camille fell back on her old faithful–a slap. Mindful of the livid bruises speckling like stepping stones across his face and her own impaired arm, she kept her hand well clear of them and properly reigned in, ‘til it was uncomfortably close to a pat that stuck its landing.
Hmmm. She’d never really considered the merits of running away to farm alpacas before, but the appeal was growing on her.
“Camille? . . .” And hey, she had Kendall’s undivided–nearly mute–attention.
She yanked her hand back, just enough to waggle it assertively before him, close enough he had to go cross-eyed to follow it.
“We don’t have to perform again, I’ll give you that.” Lose the battle. . . But you can’t tell me you didn’t have a good time when it was just us messing around on the ice.”
Camille’s challenge hung in the air between them, waiting for an answer, and for a split second, she could’ve sworn he was about to argue.
Instead, Kendall’s shoulders dropped and he ducked his head, sighing out the most reluctant “yes” Camille had heard in months.
. . . . win the war..
“I want it known that I still think this is a bad idea.”
“Performing was a bad idea. “This–” She motioned between them, “is a great idea. Besides, can you imagine how awkward it would be to run into each other at the rink and play the ‘totally not exes’ game? Totally a mood killer.”
Kendall still looked like he wanted to argue, but the lime-biting grimace her words inspired told Camille they were at least on the same chapter, if maybe not the same page. Never let it be said she didn’t know when to throw a dog a bone though, so she continued. “However, your objections are duly noted and you have full ‘I told you so’ and worrywart rights.”
A shrewd look replaced the grimace, “Both?”
“Both.”
“We’re dialing it back some; doing things right. Rightish.”
“I think I can live with that.” Camille grinned, and Kendall matched her, albeit with a healthy serving of apprehension. “Here’s to getting back on the ice, and doing it better.”