Chapter Text
It’s an early morning practice in Ilderton when Tessa eyes Katie McDougall and Devin Shaw skating around the rink with clasped hands. She tries to busy herself with some barre stretches at the boards and pretends she’s not watching them. Stretching is important anyway and the last thing she needs is to hurt herself. Mom said yesterday that if she keeps on track she might even be able to apply for the National Ballet School in the next year or two.
She’s excited about that but also Tessa is just starting to get good at skating and she wants to keep getting better and better. Coach Carol said she might teach her an axel soon, and it’s exciting but a little scary too.
Watching Katie and Devin skate makes Tessa wonder what it would be like with a partner. Then maybe they could help her be less scared to try the hard moves and maybe they can help hold her up too.
That’s when Scott Moir skates over. She knows him because he’s Coach Carol’s nephew and Mom calls him ‘unruly’. Tessa doesn’t mind him though. They don’t talk much but he’s always been nice to her even though she’s quiet and some kids think that’s weird.
“Hey those are some neat stretches,” the spiky haired boy says.
Tessa feels her cheeks turn pink. “Uh, thanks. I they’re from ballet.”
“Oh yeah, they call you Tutu the Ballerina!” He doesn’t say it in a mean way, but her cheeks get even pinker anyway. She wishes Mom didn’t tie her bun so tight on top of her head today.
“Danny Moir calls me that.”
Scott gets this crooked smile on his face and it somehow makes Tessa smile too, even though she is still feeling shy.
“Danny’s my brother,” Scott says, “so that means I can call you that too.”
“Alright,” Tessa says turning away from Scott a little. She hopes Laura Landry didn’t tell anyone that Tessa said she’d like to be good enough to skate with Danny Moir some day. If she decides to continue skating, of course.
“I’ll only call you ‘Tutu’ if it’s okay though.” Scott continues even though Tessa forgot what they were talking about for a minute.
“It’s fine.” Tessa says quietly, even though she’s not sure if it is yet.
“If you don’t like it I can call you something different. It’s Tessa, right?”
She can’t believe he’s been talking to her this whole time and he wasn’t even sure what her name is. Her lips pinch together because that makes her a little mad, but Scott just smiles more, which makes her think that maybe he was joking about the name thing.
“T for Tessa, T for Tutu. What do you think of ‘T’?”
Tessa thinks she likes T better than Tutu. She should try and not be mad anymore.
“Yeah okay, I guess that’s fine.”
“Awesome, T. You’re cool. Do you think you should teach me some of those stretches now?”
“Okay. Just go like this.” She digs her toe picks in and bends her knees while balancing herself a little on the boards. He does the same and they crouch and stand three or four times before Tessa stops.
“That’s really good, just make sure your back is nice and straight, like Coach Carol keeps saying.” She watches him for a minute and he’s doing it a lot better. She smiles a little too. She’s surprised he’s not embarrassed to be doing dance stretches with her. Most of the boys that figure skate make sure everyone knows how much they hate it. Scott is like that too, but he doesn’t seem to hate this. “You’re very good.”
“Thanks,” Scott answers, looking shy for the first time since she’s met him.
Tessa just nods her head and pushes off the boards to start her warm-up lap.
“Wait!” Scott says, so she does. “I saw you watching Katie and Devin before. What do you think?”
Tessa thinks about it for a minute, “I think Katie is a lot better than him.”
Scott laughs louder than Tessa might have expected. She wasn’t really trying to be funny, it was just true.
“Would you do it, T?”
“Skate with Devin?”
Scott laughs again, “No! You’re way better than Katie and Devin put together. I meant would you skate with a partner?”
Tessa grabs her elbow and runs her hand up and down it a few times.
“I dunno, I guess I never thought about it before.”
“Well,” Scott leans in a little like he’s telling a secret, “you didn’t hear it from me but Auntie—I mean Coach Carol is going to start pairing us up more to see how we do.”
“Aren’t you skating with Laura Landry?”
“You’re better than Laura too.”
“Oh.”
“Um yeah, well also I was thinking maybe you should be my girlfriend.”
Tessa just blinks a few times.
“A lot of the dance pairs are dating, and I think we should try. It might help our skating.”
“Uhh—”
“Hey, it’s okay T. Just think about it alright? It’s not like we’re getting married or anything.” He’s quiet for a second and Tessa watches him. She pretends she doesn’t notice how red his neck is getting.
“I’ll see you out there!” He says finally, then Scott is pushing off the boards and skating away like someone is chasing him.
Tessa just sort of stands there for a minute. Pairing up? Dating? Getting married? It was going to be a tough practice with all of those crazy ideas going through her head.
She’s right, and she is distracted. Later as she’s doing backwards crossovers her blade catches and she’s falling. What surprises her the most though is that Scott Moir somehow gets close enough to catch her. Her butt still hits the ice, but he slows her down a lot and it doesn’t hurt at all. As a bonus she doesn’t bang her head like she was expecting to either.
“If you’re going to be my partner, I’m going to have to practice catching you more.” He says as he hauls her up. Before she can say anything he’s gone again.
Tessa’s never thought about skating with a partner, or dating, or even getting married before, but if she does do any of those things she hopes that whomever it is watches out for her like Scott Moir does.