“Son of a bitch!” I hissed as I burned my scalp again trying to get my straightening iron as close to the roots as possible. Skate North America wasn’t the most televised event in the season, but…

It didn’t matter to me.

What did matter was getting my hair as straight as possible, even though it already was. Only, I couldn’t see or reach the back of my head well. We had three hours before the event even started, and we weren’t scheduled to skate until almost the end. But my makeup was on, so was the black long-sleeved lacy dress that Ruby had finished months ago, before I’d gotten injured.

Ivan had decided to go change in the men’s restroom because he didn’t want “any riots starting” if people saw him in his underwear.

The idiot.

And now I needed his help. He would help me straighten the rest of my hair. I knew he would.

But I was going to try and do as much as I could without hopefully burning myself for the sixth time. Turning back to one of the three illuminated mirrors in the room we were sharing with two of the teams we had worked out with at the same time the day before, I leaned into it and tried to angle my head as well as I could to catch a glimpse of what I was doing. I’d seen the other four people we were competing against—two teams that Ivan knew and had already said were nice—but they hadn’t even changed yet.

I’d done two chunks of hair when the door opened, but I didn’t think anything of it.

Until a voice I recognized spoke up.

And it wasn’t Ivan’s.

“Jasmine, I want to talk to you,” the semi-familiar voice requested as I turned to face him, instantly wondering where the hell Ivan was.

I’d made a promise to him.

I will not talk shit to Paul. I will not talk shit to Paul. I will not talk shit to Paul. He’d made me say it seven times total the day before when I’d sworn I’d seen him while we had been waiting for the van to pick us up following our practice session, because apparently, once you did something seven times you couldn’t forget it.

I had promised him I wouldn’t start anything or do anything. I was a lot of things, and half of them weren’t good, but Ivan was.

And I wouldn’t go back on my word. Especially not to him. Not after everything he had done for me.

But…

There was no way either one of us could have predicted that Paul would be dumb enough to try and come talk to me before our first skate—our short program. I had always thought I was the one who wasn’t as smart as other people, but apparently, this guy I had spent three years of my life teamed up with was the real fucking idiot.

Keeping my gaze on my own reflection in the mirror, I set my straightening iron down on the counter and made my hand into a fist.

“Jasmine, please,” the second man in my life to ever do shit to my heart kept going as I kept on looking at myself in the mirror.

I didn’t think I looked that different from back when I was nineteen. My face was a little slimmer. My hair was longer, and I was more muscular. But on the inside… well, on the inside, I was definitely different.

Because nineteen-year-old Jasmine would have already thrown her straightening iron at Paul and hoped it magically burned his balls through his costume.

“Jas, just… five minutes, please,” my old partner basically pleaded from wherever he was out of the way from the mirror’s reflection.

I fisted my hand tighter. Held my breath. Then I rolled my eyes because fuck him. Repeatedly. I hadn’t given Paul a single thought in so long, I had genuinely forgotten how much I hated his ass.

But I remembered real quick. Real fucking quick.

You promised Vanya, that calm part of my brain reminded me.

And easily, so easily, I got myself under control… and I exhaled.

“You’re just going to pretend I’m not here?” my ex asked, stepping so close behind me I could finally see him in the mirror. So close, I was pretty sure if I kicked out backward, I could easy-peasy kick him in the nuts.

You’d figure after three years together, he would know how dangerous of a position he was putting himself into.

Fucking idiot.

God, Ivan would know better.

Tall, slim, and brown-haired, he looked the exact same as he had almost two years ago, when he’d walked out of the LC and never came back.

Paul looked pale in the lights and the reflection. His hands were in front of him, and I could tell he was anxious.

Good.

“Look, all I want to do is talk.”

I didn’t mean to snort, but it happened just as I straightened. I was still so short, I had a clear view of me from the waist up. The front of the costume had a sweetheart-neckline in the center of my chest, the dark fabric covering everything important—no beads on mine or Ivan’s costumes because they got caught on everything—with lace overlapping everything else, but ending a few inches above my wrist so that the lace wouldn’t get in the way of my grip. I loved it. When Ruby had told me her idea for Dracula, I couldn’t have picked a better costume design. Ivan had agreed.

Paul’s dumbass took that sound for the opposite of what it was—an invitation—and kept on yapping his mouth. “After all the time we were together, you owe me, Jasmine.”

And, there it was. The three words he had no business using. The same three words that just like that had me seeing red and hoping Ivan would forgive me for breaking my word to him.

But I could tell him that it was because of him, and because of what we’d agreed on, that I didn’t punch my ex in the balls from the get-go. If that wasn’t an achievement, I didn’t know what was. He would get it.

That’s what I was going to tell myself as I turned around slowly on the balls of my feet and looked up at the man who I had wasted so much of my time on. Tall but not as tall as Ivan, and with shoulders that weren’t as broad, with light brown hair and an almost tan complexion, handsome, sure… he was just like how I remembered him. It had been almost two years, after all.

Little fucking bitch.

“I don’t owe you shit,” I said up to him, sounding so calm I was honest to God proud of myself.

This buttfuck sighed as he ran a hand through his short hair and said, “Give me a break, Jas. We have history—”

Yep, I went from seeing red to seeing fucking magenta. “Yeah, that history ended the day I heard about you pairing up with Mary from someone who had read an article about it online.”

He flinched. Paul hesitated. Then he seemed to shake it off as he demanded, “What else was I supposed to do?” He shook his head, swallowed hard, and steeled his shoulders.

But it was pointless because he’d already pissed me off.

He wasn’t about to try and guilt trip me or intimidate my ass. “You could have told me like a normal human being that respected the person who had stuck with them for three years?” I snapped, barely managing not to yell at the reminder of what he had done to me. “I tried calling you, Paul, calling you and calling you, and you not once picked up, you fucker,” I spat. “You didn’t have the balls to warn me or explain shit, not once over the last two years.”

“It’s not—”

I gave him a look that I knew was my crazy expression. “If you fucking say that’s not what it’s like, I will punch you right now, on the dick, as hard as I can.”

He shut his mouth, because he knew I would.

But he’d broken this dam, and now he was going to have to live with it.

“I gave you three years of my life, Paul. Three. You were my partner, I would have done almost anything for you, and you treated me like a piece of shit. You just ran away and did what you wanted to do, without telling me. Don’t tell me I owe you anything. I don’t. I don’t owe you a single fucking thing,” I hissed at him, pointing my finger at him because there was no way I could keep my hand from doing something when all it really wanted to do was form a ball and break his nose or his dick.

“You make it seem like I could have just… told you. Like it would have been that easy,” he replied, his hand still caught in his hair, his expression twisted.

I blinked. “Yeah, it would have been that easy. Hey, Jasmine, I quit. I’m going to pair up with someone you can’t stand. Good luck,” I mocked, shaking my head. “Done.”

His laughter held a sharp edge. “That’s not how it would have gone, and you know it. You would’ve yelled at me, called me a quitter, a bitch, a pussy, all those things and more. You know you would have. You wouldn’t have let me leave that easily.”

You promised Ivan you wouldn’t do this. You promised.

And I had.

And that’s why I kept my hand at my side, still.