Page 24 of The Fall

Oh. Oh. Did she think I was bailing on them because of that?

“We had a moment?” I know we had a moment, but I figured she would try to deny it until the day she died. Her dislike of me seems to make me even more attracted to her. Which confuses the hell out of me. Savannah is beautiful, she’s a talented skater, and I actually like her attitude. Not many people have the balls to talk to me like she does, and it’s a nice change.

“Yes! We were skating and then you pulled me closer and…”

“And what?” I ask, needing to know exactly what she thought.

“And you looked at me like you wanted to kiss me.”

I suck in a breath. It had crossed my mind briefly, unexpectedly. But of course, I wouldn’t do that.

“Did I?”

“Yes, you did,” she states firmly.

“So you’re off your game today because I possibly wanted to kiss you the other night?” I smirk, and she rolls her eyes. “Didn’t realize I had such an effect on you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I can’t have you mess this up for us. This season is important.”

“I understand.”

“That means you can’t quit on us if your fragile ego cracks because I don’t want to kiss you,” she says.

I chuckle as I grab some healing ointment and a large bandage from one of the shelves. She can pretend she didn’t want to kiss me all she wants, but she’s forgetting that I could see exactly how she was looking at me, too. Her lips were parted. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes dropped to my lips more than once.

“My ego can handle it. I’m not a quitter either. You can trust that I’m not going anywhere. I just hope you can handle it when you’re begging me to kiss you and I say no.”

She scoffs. “Please.”

“Look at you already begging for it.” I put the bandage on her knee, the giant hole in her tights making it easy.

“You wish.”

I remove my hand from her knee and look her in the eyes. “Maybe sometimes I do wish.”

We stay frozen in this moment of tension. I feel the gravitational pull making me want to lean down and touch her.

“Remember I hate you,” she whispers as her eyes once again dip to my lips.

“It’s impossible to forget.”

“Good. Are we done here?”

I take a step away from the table. “Yep.”

She jumps down from the table and winces. “Are you going to be ok to practice today?”

“Yes.”

“If it hurts too much, will you tell me?” I ask. I need her to push herself because we’re on a time crunch, but I don’t want her to hurt herself even more.

“Probably not,” she admits.

I chuckle. “You’re impossible.”

“Thanks for cleaning me up, Coach.”

I wash my hands as she heads back to the rink. By the time I make it out there, she and Max are restarting the routine. It runs a lot smoother this time. Max is a little shaky on a few of the lifts, but it’s nothing we can’t iron out in the next few weeks.