Being part of an Olympic skating pair should be excitement enough for one life, but for Erika that's only the beginning. Her skating partner, Tom Alan, is her ex-husband, who fell in love with former British ice dancer Milo, and all three of them live together and raise her daughter, whose father is Erika's ex-boyfriend, Bill, a rabid hockey fan who is old friends with Milo. Whew! As if that's not enough, Erika still loves Bill, loves Tom Alan, and might just love Milo, too. Add a couple of troubled teenagers to the pile, and suddenly training for the Olympics is the easy part. But Erika's never been a fan of the conventional, and one way or another the four of them will find a way to make their strange tangle of love, sex, and family work.

Transitions

The homemade cake was a visual disaster. “Maybe frosting will help.” Milo practically licked Tom Alan clean when he pulled the hand mixer from the mixing bowl while the beaters still whirled. “I hope there’s enough left.”


“Get a room,” Kensuke commented, entering the kitchen in time to see it.


“Got one. And we gotta keep the curtains closed so you can’t see into it.”


The cake didn’t taste bad. After it was served, Billy dropped Etsuko off at his parents’, picked up Burgess, then dropped both him and Kensuke off at the indoor skate park. Jesse and a few other friends—from both Kensuke’s old school and the new one—would be meeting them there to continue the party.


“He seems happy,” Billy said upon his return, as the other three were still cleaning up the kitchen. “I hope…” He shrugged.


“The house is quiet.” Erika listened. “For the first time in weeks, no music and TV going at the same time, though a cloud of Axe Body Spray still lingers.”


Chapter 82