The Favorites: A Novel(33)

Sheila put a hand up. “I don’t care. You’re on in five minutes. Make up with him.”

“Why should I be the one to have to apologize?”

Even as the words spilled out, I wanted to stuff them back down my throat. No one spoke to Sheila Lin like that.

To my surprise, she softened. “I know how you feel, believe me. But what do you care about more, Ms. Shaw—your performance or your pride?”

I didn’t see why I should have to choose. This was the World Championships, though, and we were on the brink of a bronze medal.

So I went in search of Heath, ready to say or do whatever it took to get him to forgive me—at least until the end of the free dance. My training at the Academy had improved my skating, but it had also taught me how to perform under pressure. Whether you’re miserable or in pain or so pissed off you want to scream, you have to keep a smile on your face. And you have to convince everyone watching—the audience, the judges, even your partner—that it’s genuine.

I’d made it all of two steps into the backstage area when Garrett intercepted me.

“Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.” I tried to peer around him, but his broad shoulders blocked my view. He still had his oversized Team USA jacket zipped over the gauzy gray costume he wore for the twins’ somber orchestral piece in tribute to the 9/11 victims. The choreography had been completed months before the attacks, but their mother knew a PR opportunity when she saw one. “Have you seen—”

“Bella told me about the billboard. She said Heath was upset.” Garrett leaned closer. “I could talk to him if you want? Make sure he knows nothing…happened, or—”

“I appreciate the offer. But I’ve got it under control.”

Or I would, if I could get to Heath in time. The fifth-place couple from Japan had already started their program, so the clock was ticking.

“Gotcha,” Garrett said. “Well, good luck out there. You two have been killing it.”

“You too.” I smiled up at him. “See you on the podium?”

“See you on the podium.”

Garrett walked away, giving me a quick shoulder squeeze on his way past. The Japanese team’s music shifted into the slow, lyrical section signaling the halfway point of their free dance. I had to find Heath.

But he had already found me.

Before, he’d been freezing me out. Now he was blazing with fury. Even at a distance, I could sense the heat of it, like I was standing too close to an open flame.

“Sorry,” he said. Exactly what I wanted to hear, but not at all the way I wanted to hear it. “Did you two want to be alone?”

“Stop it.” I pulled him behind the bank of monitors, which showed the Japanese skaters whirling in an intricate combination spin. “Garrett was just—”

“He was touching you.”

“He squeezed my shoulder.”

“I see the way he looks at you. Not only on that fucking billboard either.”

“That ‘fucking billboard’ is the only reason we’re here.”

Heath furrowed his brow. “What?”

“Without the money I made with the photo shoot, we would’ve had to quit the Academy months ago.” It turned out “not much” to Garrett was more money than I’d ever seen at one time, enough to cover our costs for the rest of the season.

“What about your inheritance?” Heath asked.

“Lee spent it. All of it. And if it weren’t for Garrett getting me that job—”

“I don’t want to hear—”

“If it weren’t for Garrett, we would never have made it to Worlds in the first place. You should be thanking him.”

Heath was silent for a moment, and I expected the next words out of his mouth to be something like Why didn’t you tell me? Or even I’m going to kill him—referring to Lee, or Garrett, or both.

Instead he said, “Are you attracted to him?”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on.”

“Are you or aren’t you?”

The space rumbled with applause as the Japanese team took their bows. We should’ve been out there already, prepared to step onto the ice as soon as they sat down in the kiss and cry.

“It was just a photo shoot,” I said. “Now let’s get going, we have to—”

“It’s a simple question, Katarina. Yes or no.”

An insulting question, and it deserved an insulting answer.

“Of course I’m attracted to Garrett. He’s attractive.”

Heath opened his mouth to retort, but I barreled ahead.

“If you trust me, it shouldn’t matter.”

“Trust you?” Heath scoffed. “How can I, when you’re lying to me? Keeping secrets, running around behind my back with—”

“Because I knew you’d react this way! I’m allowed to have other friends, Heath.”

More applause. The scores had been posted. We’d missed our entire solo warm-up.

“You’re like a different person around them,” he said. “I hardly recognize you.”

I thought that was why we’d come to the Academy: To become different. Better. The best possible versions of ourselves. He was right, I had changed.