Ice Games by Jessica Clare Page A

done, he had garish neon pants, but now they just looked like they matched mine.
    “Do you want a hot pink bandanna?” I asked as he pulled on his pants again. “It could complete the outfit.”
    He scowled at me. “Do I look like I want a hot pink bandanna?”
    I giggled. Guess not. “Does this mean we can still go on?”
    “I guess so,” he said, and sighed heavily. “The guys are going to give me such shit for this.”

    ~~ * ~~

    The music went up, and the show began. I could hear the audience cheering from the Crash Room—horribly named, I thought—in the back where teams sat and waited for their turn to go out on the ice. The judges were introduced, and then a montage of clips from the past two weeks began, showcasing moments from our introductions to trainings.
    I could hear a swell of gasps come up from the audience and heard my own voice, loud and tinny, over the speakers, explaining how I’d tripped and fallen. Oh no. They were showing the video of my bruised and swollen face.
    At my side, Ty clenched my hand and rubbed his chin, clearly nervous about how it would go over. But then they cut away to another team, and laughter filled the studio a moment later as Michael Michaels had a montage of clips of him falling on his ass repeatedly.
    No big drama about my nose, then. Good. I relaxed, too, and touched the bridge of it. It had healed up nicely a week ago, and you couldn’t even tell that it had ever grown to the size of a potato.
    The makeup artists had taken their time with me before the show, making sure that I looked like the others…which meant lots of make-up in bright colors. I wasn’t surprised. Skaters were used to heavy eye-makeup, blush, and lipstick so you didn’t look featureless and washed out on the ice. Of course, I was also used to my hair being pulled into an ultra-tight bun so it wouldn’t get in my face, and they’d insisted on braiding it into two cutesy tails over my ears. Ugh. It went with my horrible psychedelic cowgirl costume, I supposed.
    I eyed the costumes of the other contestants. Most of them wore a more casual look—jeans and plaid for the guys, denim dresses for the girls, and some sort of cowboy hat or fringe motif. We were the only ones in garish colors, and judging from the sympathetic looks Emma was sending my way, we looked pitiful. Oh well.
    We were the first up after the montage, and I tried not to be nervous. Well, tried and failed. I’ve always had a bit of nerves before a performance, and this was no different. Except the difference here was that in Nationals or at the Olympics, I’d be given time on the ice to warm up and prep. On the show, we were expected to take care of that beforehand and just stroll out onto the ice, ready to skate as soon as the music started.
    I didn’t like that, but no one asked me. So I simply leaned over and touched my talismans taped to the bottom of my skate with my free hand, trying to increase my good juju.
    “Okay, first team, you’re up. Montage ends in sixty seconds,” one of the production team told us, then pressed a hand to the headset over his ear. He pointed to the door at the far end of the Crash Room. Another assistant opened it and beckoned for us to come through.
    In a daze, I stood. Ty grabbed my hand again and pulled me forward, and the butterflies in my stomach turned into pterodactyls. I stumbled after him, my legs feeling wooden. We were about to be on TV. National TV. Live TV. And Ty still didn’t have the routine down pat. How could he? He wasn’t a skater, and we’d only had two weeks to learn it. I didn’t blame him. It was the show. The entire set-up was stupid. I was stupid for even agreeing to be on it. He’d look terrible and then, thanks to our ugly costumes, we’d be the laughing-stock of the figure skating world. And, oh God—
    “Breathe, Zara,” Ty told me as we moved into place. A cameraman was there in our faces, filming us as we waited, and I could hear the host talking to the