The next day, Lyric met Luke at the arena after school. It would have been easier to work at his house, but she guessed he didn’t want to lose track of time and be late for work. It wasn’t so much of an inconvenience that she minded, so she just brought everything with her.

“Do you have the base?”

Luke nodded and produced a long-sleeved black t-shirt from his bag. Lyric noted that it wasn’t creased the way a new shirt would have been. It was probably an old one that he was sacrificing for the costume.

“When we’re done, you should skate in it.” She suggested as she pulled out sequins and her sewing kit.

“Do you think I’ll be able to?” Luke sounded amused by the idea.

“Why not.” Lyric looked around and her eyes landed on a poster she had seen the day before. “You could even enter that.”

Luke looked where she was pointing. It was a poster for an upcoming competition. Nothing major or too official. It was meant to introduce new skaters to competition, so anyone could enter.

“I couldn’t.” Luke shook his head.

“Why not?” Lyric started sewing, choosing her sequins carefully. Luke had opted for a more generic ‘figure skater’ costume instead of a specific skater, so she had room to play with the colour gradient.

Luke chuckled. “I need more than a costume to compete.”

“You have the ability, isn’t that the most important thing?”

She had expected a quick retort, but was met with silence. Looking up, she saw that Luke was staring at his hands. She recognized the expression and her own hands stilled. She had said something wrong, something that brought up bad memories.

“Music.” Luke finally muttered. He looked up with a sad, hurt smile. “I need music to skate to.”

Melody would have helped him with that. Lyric realized. It made sense. With two classical musicians as parents, she would have known just about every piece of music skaters tended to use, plus ones they didn’t that would have helped Luke to stand out.

“I’ll help.” She blurted.

Luke blinked in surprise at her. “Really?”

“Yeah.” The Wolfes were her biological parents. Maybe she inherited some of their musical aptitude. She did like music, after all.

One thing was for sure. With her behind the music, Luke’s skate would stand out. The only issue was, would it be for better, or worse?

Luke reached across the table and placed a hand over hers. “Thank you.” He whispered. “That means a lot to me.”

He wiped a few tears that had formed in his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he turned his attention back to the costume. “Uh…” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that a rainbow?”

Lyric nodded, showing off the colours she had chosen. “It stands out wonderfully against the black material, don’t you think?”

Luke threw his head back and laughed. “I love it.”