Walk on Water by Laura Peyton Roberts Read Free Book Online

behind her.
    “Oh.”
    “I’ve got a two-hour break to train. Then I have to go back.”
    She dared to glance his way again. “Oh.”
    His expression continued to measure her as he dropped his skate rag into his bag. “Yeah.”
    Lexa walked back to the office, not sure what had just happened. Ian hadn’t been rude, but he definitely hadn’t been chatty. He had continued the conversation when he could have dropped it, though.
    I guess I didn’t humiliate myself, she decided, closing the door behind her. I won’t have to hide the next time I see him.
    On the other hand, she wouldn’t be asking him to any dances, either.

 
—11—
     
    Ian was scarce at the rink for the next two weeks, arriving barely in time to warm up for his sessions with Blake and practicing only an hour afterward. Blake’s mood went downhill in direct proportion to the amount of time his favorite missed training.
    “That kid’s going to screw himself out of a national title,” he griped from beneath his ancient Zamboni after closing Friday night. “If he doesn’t pull his head out very, very soon, it’s all going to pass him by.”
    Lexa stood by like a surgical assistant, holding Blake’s tools. “He can’t help having to work. You remember how it was before Grandmom—”
    Blake tried to sit up and bumped his head on the machine’s undercarriage. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. This is completely different. And I never missed practice.”
    “Maybe because you didn’t have to. Do you even realize how stressed out Ian must be? Do you know what skating means to him?”
    Blake rolled enough of his body out from under the Zamboni to make eye contact. He hadn’t shaved in a week and one cheek was streaked with grease. “Do you know what skating means to him? You’ve never trained as hard as either of us, and you have no excuse.”
    “I train a hell of a lot harder than both of you lately,” she retorted, letting the wrench she held drop to the wet concrete. “Ian’s barely here anymore, and I’ve never even seen you wear skates. Not once in my whole life.”
    He waved a dismissive hand. “You have. You just don’t remember.”
    “Because I was a baby! When’s the last time you had skates on?”
    With a grunt, Blake pushed clear of the Zamboni and sat up. “What the hell does that have to do with anything? You think because I don’t skate anymore I don’t know what I’m doing? I’ve already been champion, Lexa. I don’t have to skate.”
    “Right there!” she accused. “No one has to skate—you’re supposed to want to. You expect me to be so excited about ice time, but you won’t even wear skates when you coach. It’s demoralizing.”
    “Demoralizing?” Blake’s face had turned angry red. “That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard! What I do and don’t do is completely irrelevant.”
    “It’s not irrelevant, because you don’t do anything! You don’t look forward to anything. You depress the hell out of me!”
    They stared at each other in disbelief. Lexa had never said anything like that before, hadn’t even known she thought it. It’s all true, though, she realized. She wouldn’t take it back. She held her father’s glare defiantly as the wire strippers from her other hand clanked down next to the wrench.
    Blake looked like he was about to blow. Instead, he snatched up the tools she’d dropped and shoved hard with his legs, disappearing deep beneath the Zamboni. Lexa stood there alone, trembling. He didn’t even think she was worth fighting with.
    “I’m going to Grandmom’s,” she said, walking off. “I might be gone a couple of days.”

 
—12—
     
    “We’ll have cocoa, and bake cookies, and turn it into a regular girls’ night!” Beth said, delighted to see Lexa show up unannounced carrying an overnight bag. “We have all those old movies in the library. We could watch The Cutting Edge again!”
    “Toe pick!” they chirped in unison, bringing smiles to both