I typed out a reply, because knowing them, if I didn’t, the next time I looked at my phone, I’d have an endless column of JASMINE on there until they heard from me.
That didn’t mean my response had to be what they wanted.
Me: Who is Ivan Lukov?
“What are you smiling at, Meatball?”
My shoulders went tense for a second before I reminded myself that this idiot wasn’t worth getting all riled up over. At least not where he could see me react. He didn’t deserve that. Setting my phone next to my knee, I glanced around to see that Coach Lee wasn’t in the room. Huh. I leaned forward, back straight, soles of my socked feet pressed together. I didn’t even give him the benefit of glancing over as he lowered himself beside me for some reason.
“Just checking out pictures of you naked.” I leaned into a stretch even more as my palms walked me forward until my forehead hovered just an inch above the floor. “I needed a laugh.”
His “Hmm” made me smile into the mat, and thankfully he couldn’t see it. “You know what I look at when I need a laugh?”
The smile on my face immediately disappeared. I didn’t reply to his dumbass question.
“Videos of your programs with what’s-his-face,” he answered his own question.
Ass. I turned my head to the side just a little so I could peek at where he was sitting beside me. “I have a video bookmarked of you falling doing a death spiral at the Cup of Russia last year.”
He tried to hide his hiss, but I recognized it immediately. I couldn’t help but smile again. I turned my head back to where it was and shared my smile with the mats. But I should have expected him to have a comeback almost immediately. “You watched that live at home, huh?”
I turned my head to glare over at where he was sitting a few feet away, his legs extended straight out. His head was turned toward me. Of course it was. He was always fucking looking at me, trying to get a reaction. “I was. Did they give you anything for coming in fourth that day or…?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “They didn’t have anything to give me for fourth place. They said something about how they ran out of ribbons after you decided to switch over to pairs.”
I blinked.
He blinked.
Be better. Be better. Be better.
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” he muttered.
“This next year isn’t going to come fast enough,” I whispered more to myself but a little to him too because why the fuck not?
The corners of his mouth quirked into a smug smile that really made my palm itch. “I’m going to count down the days, Meatball. Believe me. One year, and I’ll probably pay someone to take you so I can get rid of you.”
Something ugly and maybe even hurt bubbled up in my chest for all of a second before I squashed it. One year. I knew it. He knew it. That had been part of it. It wasn’t a surprise. “In a year, I’ll pull my voodoo doll of you out of its box and go back to sticking needles into your black heart.”
His eyelids hung low over his eyes. “The one I have of you is still sitting on my nightstand.”
“I hope your hair falls out.”
He blinked. “I hope—”
“What is wrong with both of you?” Coach Lee hissed from behind us. I tipped my head over a little more to catch her shaking her head as she stood between us, watching us with almost a horrified expression on her face. “I’m a few minutes late and you….” She closed her eyes and shook her head before reopening them. “You know what? Ignore me. I told you not to talk about each other during practice, but you can do whatever you want as long as we aren’t training.”
Neither one of us said a word, but our eyes met.
And I mouthed you suck.
And he whispered back with his pale pink mouth, you suck more.
There was another sigh, but it sounded even more resigned. “My eyes work. I can read your lips. Both of them.”
I didn’t ignore Coach Lee, but all I’d promised was not to say anything. So I didn’t worry about it when I moved my lips at Ivan again. Eat shit.
His tongue tapped at the inside of his cheek. Then he opened his mouth. I’m looking at it.
“Whatever we have to do to make this work, remember?” Coach Lee emphasized, obviously still watching us.
Ivan and I were both staring at each other as we muttered, “Uh-huh.”
Whatever we have to do were infamous words to live by.
It wasn’t like I was going to regret them but…
Goddamn.
It was going to be close.
“Again!”
“Again!”
“Again!”
“No! Again!”
If I never heard the word “again” in my life, I would be totally fine with it. Totally fucking fine. Because starting over from what felt like scratch—it wasn’t really scratch but it seemed like it—was a giant pain in the ass.
Mostly because it was Ivan I was doing this with. Ivan, who I could tell was getting just as aggravated.
It wasn’t until Coach Lee dropped her head back and sighed at the ceiling that she finally changed her words. “Okay, that’s it for the day. Your speeds stopped getting better half an hour ago, and your timing has only slightly improved. We’re wasting time at this point. It isn’t going to get any better.” She shot us both a look that was pretty damn accusing, like she didn’t understand why we were running out of energy.
I wasn’t used to this anymore. This basic exhaustive shit that I hadn’t done since I’d first gotten paired up with The Piece of Shit four years ago.
Fuck me.
Despite the ice bath I’d been taking every night for the last week, everything still hurt. My ribs. My entire abdomen. My shoulders. My wrists. My quads. My back.
The only thing that didn’t hurt was my ass, and that was only because my butt cheeks hadn’t become unused to falling on them. That, and one of them had less nerves still working than the other one did. I was pretty sure I’d killed those nerves while I was trying to work on my 3Ls—my triple Lutzes—back in the day.
I’d been icing my lower back multiple times a day, icing my knees, my hips… everything. It was only a matter of time, I knew that, until I got used to it again. At least I sure as hell hoped so. There was a reason the younger girls quit figure skating before they were legal. Your body’s ability to recuperate took longer and longer every year you got older, and the fact that I’d done more damage to it in twenty-six years than most people would do in double that amount, didn’t help.
Her fingertips were rubbing at the bridge of her nose when she sighed and said in a low voice, “Let’s go over a few things before this afternoon, since we still have time.”
Was she in a bad mood or…?
“Let’s meet in the office in fifteen,” Coach Lee called out, huffing in exasperation as she turned around and walked away.
Yeah, I wasn’t imagining it.
I mean, I didn’t think practice had gone that bad. It hadn’t been the best one yet, but it hadn’t been the worst either. Things had gotten better with every day that went on.
Ivan’s demeanor hadn’t changed, and neither had mine. We didn’t talk to each other unless we were talking to Coach Lee at the same time. We didn’t argue when she gave us instructions or when one of us gave the other a pointer….
It took everything in me to keep my mouth shut, and I bet it took him the same amount of effort too.
But we did it. Because we had to.
That and she hadn’t left us alone again.
“Well then,” I muttered to myself, rubbing at my hip bone with the palm of my hand to ease the ache there from the position I’d been holding doing camelback spins—where you pretty much contorted your body to form a tear drop shape by pulling the heel of your boot toward the back of your head. It had been a hell of a lot easier when I’d been sixteen. Now… it was harder, and that was bullshit.
Without waiting for Ivan, or even turning around to look at what he was doing
at that point, I skated to the exit to the rink, put my skate guards on, and then headed toward the changing rooms so I could get dressed and get this meeting over with. Maybe I’d get out of here earlier than normal and could squeeze in another table at work. I made it to my locker, ignored the icon blinking on my phone until later, rubbed myself down with a baby wipe like I’d been having to do every day now that I didn’t have time to shower, got dressed, and put on just enough makeup to look decent.
It didn’t take me long at all to get ready, but by the time I was done, only ten minutes had passed. What she wanted to talk about, I had no clue, but I wasn’t going to worry about it. Whatever it was, I’d deal.
Hauling ass down the three different hallways it took to get to the right side of the building, I found the GMs office easily. Knocking on the door, I waited until I heard Coach Lee’s familiar voice call out, “Come in!”
I went in and found that she was alone inside, her cell pressed to her hear. She held up her index finger, and I nodded, taking a seat in the chair closest to the wall.
“This isn’t what I asked for,” the other woman said quietly into the phone, her hand going to cover her face as her voice got even lower to whisper.
Shit, I could tell when someone needed privacy. Digging through my bag, I pulled out my cell phone and took a look at the screen. I had new messages. A group one to be specific. It was from Dad, Jojo, Tali + 2. The one and only other group chat I had. The one that was used the least amount, one that had my dad in it and not my mom. I almost thought about ignoring it until later, but when Coach Lee’s voice got even quieter, I opened it anyway.
The first message was from him.
Dad: I bought my ticket to come visit in September.
Rubes: Yay!
Jojo: What days?
Rubes: You can stay with us.
Dad: OK.
Dad: 15-22
Rubes: Hopefully Jasmine will be here.
Dad: Where is she going?
Jojo: She has a new partner.
Dad: I thought she quit?
Jojo: No…
Rubes: Jasmine wouldn’t quit, Dad. You know that. Sometimes she has competitions in September. I’ll find out.
He thought I quit.
I shook my head and let out a breath before turning my screen off and tossing my phone back into my bag.
He really thought I quit. Of course he would. The last time I had spoken to him, three months ago, I had specifically told him that I was still training… and he had asked, “Why? You don’t have a partner anymore.”
“Are you all right?” Coach Lee asked, drawing me out of my thoughts.
Swallowing back my frustration and what I was pretty sure was bitterness that I wasn’t going to double check, I lifted my head and nodded at the other woman. “I’m fine.” Because I was.
She raised her eyebrows, her face drawn and tired looking. More tired looking than I had ever seen it in the years I’d sneaked glances over in her direction. “Okay,” was all she said with another sigh that said she was anything but.
And even though I kind of didn’t want to, I couldn’t help but ask, sounding how I felt, hesitant as hell, “Are you… okay?”
Her dark eyes flashed upward in surprise before shifting to the side for one moment then coming back to me with a nod of her chin. “Yes,” she lied.
I blinked.
The sigh that came out of her was totally unexpected before she shook her head. “Personal life. Don’t worry about it.”
Yeah, I knew what “don’t worry about it” usually meant.
I didn’t want to worry about it, I sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it, but I wasn’t a punk. “We can talk about it.” I spun my bracelet around my wrist and eyed her, secretly hoping she wouldn’t want to. I was the last person in the world to give anyone advice or know what to say in uncomfortable situations. “If you want.”
Her snort—and her smile—caught me totally by surprise. “Oh, Jasmine, that’s sweet, but it’s fine. I’m all right.”
Me? Sweet?
She snorted again, her smile growing just a little wider. “Don’t look like I’m insulting you. I appreciate you asking. I wasn’t expecting it is all,” she said carefully, wiping a hand across her brow. Then she raised her eyebrows. “Let’s talk about you instead, deal?”
Shit.
“Nothing bad,” Coach Lee added, like she could tell I didn’t want to necessarily do that, but knew I had to.
I nodded at her.
She stopped smiling as she leaned into the desk, planting her elbow on it. “First thing, have you opened new social media accounts?”
Fuck me. Of course she’d start there. “No,” I answered her honestly, this weird, almost nauseous feeling lining my stomach for a moment before I shoved that shit back down. I would be fine. Everything would be fine. It would. “I haven’t made time for it yet. I will this weekend.”
The older woman nodded, but there was something hesitant in her expression. “Can I ask you something?”
I hated when people asked me that, but it wasn’t like I could tell her no.
“Why’d you delete your accounts to begin with? I used to follow you on your Picturegram account. You had a good amount of followers on there. Your Facebook page was popular too, but you deleted both of them at the same time,” she went on, her expression watchful.
Damn it.
“That was what? Almost two years ago? You got rid of it while you were still with Paul,” she added like I didn’t know that. Like I hadn’t been the one to go on there and personally cancel those accounts. I didn’t have a publicist or a team of people working behind the scenes of my life. It was just me. And sometimes my sister got on there.
At least it had been my sister until I’d told her to stop because I’d been worried she would catch on to what was going on. She’d freaked out enough the first time I got a creepy message. If she’d seen the rest of them, it would have gotten worse. Maybe my family had never been super overprotective of me, but they had it in them to be. I just didn’t want it or need it. They had better things to do.
And I didn’t want to tell Coach Lee about it either but…
Did I want to start this relationship off by being a fucking liar?
Damn it. I knew the answer. I just didn’t like it.
“I had a situation with a… fan,” I told her, making a face at using the f-word because it should have been more along the lines of “creepy ass stalker.” “It was uncomfortable, and I ended up cancelling my accounts because they were distracting me too much.”
Her forehead had wrinkled and then gotten even more wrinkled the more I spoke.
Shit.
“Did you go to the police?” she finally asked, her forehead still lined.
“There were never any actual threats to me, so there wasn’t anything they would do,” I told her honestly, feeling like an idiot. “Everything was online.” There I did lie, somewhat. When I had first gone to the police, it had been true, but it hadn’t stayed that way.
Her expression still didn’t change at all, but there was something about it—maybe her eyes—that made her look more thoughtful than she had before. “You’ll tell me if there’s a problem?”
I lifted a shoulder and made my face do the closest thing to a smile it could make when it didn’t feel genuine.
Her forehead flattened, and the corners of her mouth twitched just a little. “I can appreciate you not lying to me. At least keep me in the loop if things pick up again. I would rather you be comfortable and safe than being harassed, understand?”
I was going to take that as her telling me she would rather I not have an account than have one where I got sent videos of someone jerking off to pictures I’d posted of myself.
I nodded at Coach Lee, shoving the memory of that away.
She didn’t look like she believed me exactly, but she didn’t call me out on it. “Let me think about it some more, but for now, post basic things around the LC. Once
a day is best, make sure they’re good, quality photos. In a few weeks, start to mix the content up. Ivan and I were talking—”
When the hell did they talk? On the phone? I had never seen them whispering to each other or anything.
“—and after what you’ve just said, I think it might be a good idea if we set up an account dedicated to the two of you.”
I blinked at the t-word. “For…?” We were only in this for a year together. I blinked again. “Why?”
Her expression almost made me feel like an idiot. “The more fans like you, the more they’ll root for you, the easier it’ll be to get donations to hopefully cover the rest of your expenses, Jasmine. If you need the assistance—”
I made a face.
“—or even if you don’t,” she threw in, probably seeing my expression, “you might want to think about starting one of those online fundraising pages to cover your other expenses.”
Right. Like that would go well. I could name the people who would donate, and I was related to all of them. I was used to it, but the last thing my rep needed was for people to laugh over no one giving a shit about me.
No fucking thanks. Stripping or the kidney black market it would be.
When I didn’t say anything, she went on. “It’s also a good idea for you two to do a few interviews together in the near future. I was thinking we should invite a reporter or two to the facility and get some footage of you both practicing. We can spin the story nicely. Two rinkmates coming together. It would look great.”
Me and Ivan doing an interview together? Uh….
“A unified front,” she kept going. “Knowing each other for so long and then coming back together—”
From Lukov with Love Page 12