Snow Queen (11 page)

“Work? How?” Grayson said, looking confused and, much to Aubrey’s pleasure, none too happy about this development.

“I’m going to help out backstage,” Sophia explained. “And on the night of the pageant I’ll pass the crown off to the new winner.”

“Really? We’ve never had the former Snow Queen do that before,” Grayson said.

“Mom thought it would be a cool idea,” Layla put in.

I’ll bet. Once
you
convinced her of it
, Aubrey thought.

“Anyway, as assistant director, you’ll be Sophia’s boss,” Layla said to Grayson. “Guess you two will be spending a lot of time together.”

Aubrey’s stomach turned as Sophia smiled. She found herself staring down at Grayson’s hand—the one that had so recently been holding hers. Why had he let go of her? Did he not want Sophia to see that they were together?

“Um, hi,” Sophia said suddenly, turning toward Aubrey.

“Oh, sorry. Aubrey, this is Sophia. Sophia, this is Aubrey,” Grayson said. “Aubrey’s visiting from Florida. She’s competing in the pageant.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sophia said in a totally genuine tone.

“You too,” Aubrey managed to reply.

“Well. Good luck. I bet Layla’s going to be tough to beat,” Sophia said, adjusting the strap on her expensive leather purse.

Layla preened. “Oh, Sophia. You’re so sweet.”

“I had to say that because she’s one of my best friends,” Sophia joked at a whisper, leaning in toward Aubrey’s shoulder. Aubrey laughed. She couldn’t help it. As much as she wanted to hate Sophia for being Grayson’s ex, the girl seemed kind of cool. Not that she was surprised. Grayson probably wouldn’t have dated her otherwise.

“Come on, Soph,” Layla said, narrowing her eyes. “Let’s go put on our skates.”

“I thought you were cutting in line,” Grayson said as they stepped away.

“Yeah, I’m not hungry anymore,” Layla said.

Me neither
, Aubrey thought, seeing right through Layla as if she was Plexiglas. Obviously she had cut in only so she could shove Sophia in Grayson’s face and ruin their date.

“Bye!” Sophia said, allowing herself to be led
away. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah. Bye,” Grayson said vaguely.

For a long moment, Aubrey stood in silence, listening to the boys in front of her as they confused the poor woman behind the counter with their constantly changing order. She glanced up at Grayson and found him staring straight ahead as if someone had just blinded him with a camera flash.

Okay, this is awkward
, Aubrey thought.
Ask him something. Get him to talk. This silence cannot go on.

“So, Sophia is…?” she said, even though she knew the answer.
He
didn’t know that she knew.

“My ex-girlfriend,” he said, still staring. “She goes to Brown. I haven’t seen her since August.”

“Ah,” Aubrey said again. “So that must have been weird.”

“Weird? What? No,” Grayson said, finally looking at her. “No. That’s over. Beyond over. I was just surprised, that’s all. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Yeah. Too bad you still have that deer-in-the-headlights look going on.

“We can cut this short if you want,” Aubrey
said, simply because she wanted to be the person who said it. If he suddenly decided he wanted to go home, she wasn’t sure she could handle the disappointment.

“No. Absolutely not,” Grayson said, taking her hand again. “I’m having fun. Aren’t you?”

“Definitely,” Aubrey replied, forcing a smile.

“Next!” the woman behind the counter called out, sounding harried.

“So we’re good?” Grayson asked as he pulled out his wallet.

“We’re good,” Aubrey replied.

She glanced over her shoulder at the crowded lake as Grayson ordered their hot chocolate, trying to pick out a black ski jacket and suede coat skating around together.

The only question is, will we still be good after I hunt down your sister and scratch her eyes out?
Aubrey thought.

A
ubrey moved through her dance steps with robotic stiffness on Friday morning, trying to keep one eye on the wings, where Grayson and Sophia had been chatting for the last fifteen minutes. Madeline called out some kind of direction, but it was entirely lost on Aubrey. All she could do was imagine what the two exes might be saying. Was Sophia telling him she’d made a mistake? That she wanted to get back together?

“Aubrey! What are you doing? You’re supposed to move back, not forward!” Madeline shouted.

Aubrey whipped her head around just in time to see Dana bearing down on her. They collided with a jarring slam and both of them hit the floor.

“Sorry,” Dana said, as the music continued to
blare through the speakers.

“No, I’m sorry,” Aubrey replied, disentangling her legs from Dana’s. “It was my fault.”

“Please. I’m a total klutz. Do they have to make this dance so complicated?” Dana said with a laugh as she helped Aubrey up.

“It’s
not
complicated,” Layla said, horning in. “You two just don’t know your right foot from your left.”

Aubrey instinctively glanced over at Grayson to see if he’d overheard Layla’s comment. She was simply dying for the day that she exposed herself for the bitch she really was. But Grayson was too wrapped up in Sophia to have heard.

“All right, everyone! Let’s take five, and when we come back we will take it from the top!” Fabrizia announced, clapping her hands above her head.

Quickly, the girls huddled together and headed backstage to get warm.

“You coming?” Christie asked Aubrey, grabbing her jacket off the floor near the back curtain and shoving her arms into the sleeves.

“Actually, I was going to go talk to Grayson,” Aubrey said, pointing over her shoulder at stage right.

Christie’s mouth set in a line as she glanced past Aubrey’s shoulder. “Looks like someone already beat you to it.”

Aubrey’s heart sank as she turned around. Grayson and Sophia were on their way down the stage steps together, heading away from Aubrey. As they reached the bottom stair, Sophia tripped and Grayson touched her arm to steady her. They both laughed in a familiar way and then he led her down the aisle in front of the stage and around back. Where were they going? And why did they have to be alone?

“Everything okay, FL?” Layla asked facetiously as she traipsed by, heading backstage. “You look like you’re going to lose your breakfast.”

Aubrey opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. What was she supposed to say to that? She
did
feel like she was going to throw up. Too bad she couldn’t do it on cue and aim for Layla’s feet.

“Aubrey, come on. You’re going to freeze,” Christie implored.

“Just a sec.”

Aubrey watched the spot at the corner of the stage where Grayson and Sophia had disappeared and willed him to come back. She willed him to tell Sophia it was over, that he had moved on, and that the girl he had moved on with was probably waiting for him onstage right now. But he didn’t reappear. And the longer she stood there, the more the cold penetrated her skin, until she finally had to give up and go backstage for some warmth with everyone else.

As much as it pained her to admit it, even to herself, it looked as if Layla
was
a person she didn’t want to mess with. Unfortunately, the realization had come way too late.

“Do you think they’re getting back together?” Aubrey asked, hating the pathetic tone of her voice. It was Friday night and she hadn’t seen or heard from Grayson since he’d walked off with Sophia that morning. She lay on top of her unmade bed, fully clothed in a sweater and jeans, her cell phone clutched against her
chest, silently mocking her. She had already left Grayson two messages and almost gone for three before Christie convinced her it was too much. But why hadn’t he called her back? As she stared up at the ceiling of the room she was sharing with Christie, she willed her phone to ring, but it didn’t oblige.

“Please. No way,” Christie replied as she paged through last year’s
Seventeen
prom issue on her own bed. Neither Christie nor Aubrey had settled on a dress for the pageant yet, and time was running out. Christie spent half her time perusing magazines and the internet, looking for ideas. Aubrey had done zero research herself. She just figured that one of these days she and Christie would go shopping again and she would just pick something out then. It wasn’t as if it mattered.

At least it
hadn’t
mattered. Not before Sophia had shown up on the scene. Now Aubrey was thinking it might be a good idea to actually
think
about which dress she wore. Because Sophia, obviously, was going to look like a supermodel when she handed over her crown.

“What do you think of this?” Christie asked, holding the magazine open to a photo of a girl in pink satin.

“It’s nice,” Aubrey said with a glance.

“I know the pink is kind of…
pink
, but I like pink,” Christie said, laying the magazine down in her lap again.

“You know you’ll look good in anything. And how could you say ‘no way’?” Aubrey asked, laying her arms down flat on the bed with her palms up. “I mean, did you see her? She’s perfect. Totally gorgeous, totally sweet…”

“And totally his ex,” Christie replied with a sigh. “They broke up for a reason. Do you really think that Grayson’s the kind of guy who just bumps into his ex-girlfriend once and turns into total mush?”

Aubrey rolled onto her side to face Christie, propping her head up on her hand and placing her cell on the sheet in front of her. “Knowing what I know about him, I’d definitely say no, but you weren’t there, Christie. You didn’t see how he looked at her.”

“I’m sure he was just surprised to see her there,” Christie said. She slapped the magazine
closed and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “You can’t expect him to have
zero
feelings when his ex shows up out of nowhere.”

“So you admit it! He still has feelings for her!”

Christie rolled her eyes and groaned as she stood up and paced over to her dresser. “How do I know? I’ve never even had a boyfriend!” she blurted.

Aubrey blinked. Christie had sounded a tad impatient there. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. I’m just…stressed out,” Christie said, looking at herself in the mirror. “I have to find a dress for the pageant and a dress for the ball, not to mention a
date
for the ball….” She stared off into space, chewing on her thumbnail. Then suddenly she looked down at her nails and tucked them under her arms. Snow princesses, after all, could not have gnawed-up nails.

“Jonathan hasn’t asked you, then?” Aubrey said gently.

“No. He hasn’t,” Christie said, looking at the floor. “At least you guys have
had
a date.”

“Christie, I’m sorry. I totally suck,” Aubrey said. She couldn’t believe she’d spent all this
time whining about Grayson, whom she’d just met, when Christie was still pining away for a guy she’d been crushing on for years.

“Whatever. It’s not your fault,” Christie said. She turned and grabbed her baton off the floor next to her dresser, avoiding eye contact. “I have to go practice.”

“Okay. But, Christie…don’t worry,” Aubrey said, causing her friend to pause at the door. “I’m sure it’s all going to work out.”

“Yeah. I guess,” Christie said.

Then she slipped into the hall, closing the door quietly behind her. Aubrey dropped back on her bed, placing her cell on the night table. Forget Grayson. For the moment, anyway. Aubrey would never have even come to this place and met Grayson if it hadn’t been for Christie. And with all the stress going on in the girl’s life right now, she deserved a date with the guy she liked. Aubrey decided right then and there that she was going to make that happen.

She just had to figure out how.

“Come on, upper right!”

Aubrey slapped her tenth puck at the hockey
goal and it flew off into the night, at least two feet above the hole. She tipped her head back and stared up at the stars. “Crap! Why can I not hit the upper right?”

“Don’t worry, kid! You’ll get it!” one of the carnival workers shouted from atop the Ferris wheel, waving a flashlight in her direction.

“Thanks!” Aubrey shouted back, clutching her stick with both hands and skating in a little circle. “You can do this,” she muttered under her breath. “Just don’t think about anything else. Concentrate.”

She skated over to the edge of the pond to retrieve her pucks, using her stick to corral them together. After searching the inn for Jonathan, who apparently was not on shift that night, Aubrey had finally given up and come outside to practice. Shooting pucks was a perfect way to get out her aggression about Layla and Sophia and Grayson and the Chamberlains, but being on the pond was also distracting. She kept catching herself glancing over her shoulder at the woods—the spot from which Grayson had emerged that first morning—as if she expected him to come striding out toward her. Unfortunately, every
time she looked she saw nothing but trees.

“Okay. Just try to get
one
puck in the upper right,” she told herself as she set up again.

She reeled back and hit the first puck. It smacked into the tarp and bounced across the ice. She took a deep breath and tried again. This one went way wide. Aubrey gritted her teeth. Pucks three, four, five, and six all missed. Every muscle in her body coiled even tighter with each failed try. Aubrey was just pulling her stick back to hit number seven, when she felt someone skate up behind her.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Oh my God!” Aubrey gasped, her skates nearly slipping out from under her. She whipped around to face Grayson, her hand to her chest. He had his hockey stick and backpack with him. Apparently he’d come to the pond to shoot around as well. “What are you doing? Trying to kill me?”

Grayson laughed and skated off, making a wide circle around her and her goal. “Looks like you’re practicing for the hockey shot competition.”

Aubrey stared at him, her heart still in her
throat. He was simply smiling and skating around as if nothing was wrong. As if he hadn’t totally vanished with his ex-girlfriend that morning and gone radio silent ever since. He stopped short behind her line of pucks, spraying ice up over her skates, and shot number seven directly through the center hole.

“Very nice,” Aubrey said sarcastically. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just had dinner up at the inn with a friend of mine,” Grayson replied.

There was a huge lump in Aubrey’s throat. Was this “friend” Sophia?

“Who?” she asked.

“His name’s Brody Landry. He’s this old bachelor guy who does some work around the resort sometimes. He’s always heard about how good the food was at the inn, so I said I’d bring him,” Grayson replied, skating around in circles with a grin. “He was definitely impressed.”

Aubrey watched him, baffled. Grayson was bringing his parents’ employees to eat at the inn? Why? And why did he seem so inordinately psyched about it? Of course, these weren’t the most pressing questions on her mind, so she
decided to ask what she really wanted to ask.

“Why didn’t you call me back?”

Grayson’s brow creased. He fished in his pocket for his cell phone and looked at the screen. “Damn. Dead again,” he said. “When did you call?”

“Forget it,” Aubrey said with a sigh. “You’re supposed to charge those things, you know.”

“People are always telling me that. I just never seem to remember,” Grayson said. He tucked the phone away, skated another circle around her, and shot the eighth puck through the upper left hole. “So are you going to compete?”

Aubrey couldn’t believe this. All that stressing about him not calling her back, and he’d simply let his battery run out. She thought back to the first time she’d met Layla, when the girl had complained about her brother’s inability to answer his phone. Maybe she shouldn’t count on his cell from here on out. If there was going to
be
a here on out.

“Yep,” she said finally. “That’s the plan.”

“Cool. From what I saw, you’re pretty good,” he said. “But it’s too bad I win every year,” he
added with a cocky smile.

Aubrey narrowed her eyes. Apparently the ego thing was something he and his sister had in common.

“Not this year,” she shot back.

Grayson’s grin widened. “We’ll see about that.”

Then, without even taking a breath, he slapped five pucks in succession, hitting each of the five holes. It was like watching a hockey-drill DVD on fast-forward. When he was done he stopped and leaned on his stick, looking at her all self-satisfied. His smile was semi-adorable, semi-infuriating. Where
was
he all afternoon? She knew he hadn’t spent
all
his time with Sophia, because she had come back to rehearsal, but he never had. And where had he been
since
rehearsal? Had the two of them met up somewhere?

Aubrey wanted to ask all these questions, but she knew she would seem like a pathetic loser if she did. So, with no other options in mind, she turned and skated toward the goal and tugged it to the edge of the pond.

“What’re you doing? Backing down from a challenge?” Grayson teased.

“No. I’ve just practiced long enough,” Aubrey replied, kicking a few pucks in front of her.

“Oh, come on! Let’s see what you’ve got!” Grayson said.

“You already saw when you got here,” Aubrey replied, dropping the goal off on the dirt. “I think I’ll save the good stuff for the night of the competition.”

Grayson laughed and started to help gather the pucks. “All right, then. I can respect that.”

As they worked, Aubrey refused to look at him. She was sure that if she did he would be able to see the hurt and confusion in her eyes. But she could feel him staring at her the entire time and her face started to grow warm under his gaze. Was he going to explain what was going on with him and Sophia? Was he trying to find the words to say he was sorry, but he couldn’t see Aubrey anymore? Was that why she was being forced to endure this painfully awkward silence?