“I can’t believe he said that stuff to you. Jake, too. Assholes.”

I opened my mouth to tell him everything was okay, but his eyes shot to mine. “I know you handled it. Awesomely. But when I heard Marin saying what happened, all I could think about was punching Paul and Jake in their stupid jerk-ass faces, which would be pointless anyway, because what would that even do—”

“Hey, hey.” I interrupted Jude’s rambling, relieved he was mad about Paul and Jake, not about the ice rink fiasco. Relieved he still cared enough about me to be mad. In his very Jude way. All the relief made me giddy. I broke into uncontrollable giggles.

Jude looked at me like I’d gone bananas. “Um…”

“Stupid jerk-ass faces?” I gasped out.

Jude kept staring at me. “I’m glad my rage is funny to you.”

That made me laugh even harder. Which made Jude laugh. Which felt amazing. Us together, shaking with laughter, my stomach muscles hurting like I’d just done a hundred sit-ups.

We sobered up finally, our breathing settling back into a comfortable rhythm. I looked at him. “I really am okay.”

He held my gaze steadily for the first time in weeks. “I know you are.”

I wanted to hold on to that look forever. Hazel and warm. I wanted to kiss him again, but Jude looked away too soon, like the moment didn’t exist for him.

“And I really am sorry about everything at the ice rink, what I said. I—”

“It’s okay.” Jude shook his head. “You don’t have to apologize for that. I understand.” His voice was quiet but firm. Like, end-of-this-particular-conversation firm. “So anyway…” He leaned back on his hands, more at ease after our laughing spell. “Looks like we’ve got a rehearsal Saturday?”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

He squinted at me. “I watched the ballet duet on YouTube, the one from the movie. And she’s not wearing pointe shoes. She’s barefoot. So maybe it won’t be so different than the dancing we’ve been doing?”

I smiled but shook my head. “My old ballet teacher Kira is choreographing it. So it’ll be different. It’ll be real ballet.”

“Oh,” Jude said, scrunching his mouth to the side. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

“Well,” he said, “I’m going to be doing ballet with you, and I’ll be so spectacularly bad it might distract you from everything else.”

“Nah. I bet you’ll be a natural. You have a ballet body.”

“I do?” He looked down at his torso, studying it.

“I know it sounds girly, but—”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve seen guys do ballet before at my cousin’s shows. I just thought you were being too nice to me.”