From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

  So…

  We kept going.

  I made time for my family on Saturday nights, when Ivan usually joined me unless one of his “kids” was sick. And on those rare days when one of them didn’t feel well, I’d drive out to see him on Sunday, and we’d hang out at his house and take them for a walk, or watch television on his big, comfortable couch. And twice, I’d brought Jessie and Benny along with me, and it had been just as fun, because Lacey might be a little sassy ass with a side-look that impressed the fuck out of me, but she loved kids.

  I worked. I practiced. I trained. I did ballet with and without Ivan. I did Pilates without him, sometimes with my mom. I went for runs, sometimes with Jojo. I went rock climbing a few times with Tali. Ruby and Aaron came by for dinner randomly.

  Every single minute of my life began to count. Measured, booked, and given away before the day had even started.

  But I loved it. Valued it. All those squeezed-in moments were appreciated and necessary for me.

  I was making things work. I was happy. The happiest.

  So, the last thing I wanted or needed was to go see my dad.

  But…

  “What’s that face for?” Ivan asked from where he dropped his bag beside me at the gymnastics facility we were going to be training at that afternoon, while we tried to work on doing a quad throw—because fuck it, why not? I had asked when Coach Lee brought up how easy our triple throws had become and how she thought we could add another rotation to the mix easy, easy. Only, at the gymnastics facility, we could try them without the fear of me busting my fucking head open on the ice. Apparently, they had found out thanks to my check-up, that I’d had five concussions already in my life and had to try to avoid getting another one. I’d offered to put on a bike helmet, but all I’d gotten were two blank stares.

  Ivan was the only one who had gotten a middle finger in return though.

  They hadn’t appreciated my joke about us trying a Pamchenko while we were at it either.

  So here we were.

  I didn’t put my phone away as I glanced over at him. He had on a thin white T-shirt that must have been ancient it was so threadbare, and faded black sweatpants I had never seen before, not even at his house when he dressed down in the same sweats he practiced in. And he looked great. I didn’t know why that surprised me. “My dad is in town.”

  He blinked. “I thought your dad was a deadbeat.”

  The snicker that came out of me was more sad than funny. “No.” I scrunched up my nose and looked away. He wasn’t.

  Ivan hummed thoughtfully, and I knew that never meant anything good. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned him other than on Father’s Day when you said you weren’t going to call him. I figured….”

  I glanced at my phone sitting on the floor and caught myself shaking my leg. Months ago, I would have changed the subject. But Ivan had grown into… he’d grown into someone I didn’t lie to. Not ever. Even knowing all that and accepting it, I still only told him a part of it. Telling him everything was too much. For me. I was happy. I didn’t want to ruin it. “We’re not close. He lives in California,” I explained.

  “So? He’s a dick? Didn’t pay child support every month?” he asked bluntly.

  I shook my head, prying more honesty out of myself and realizing it wasn’t as hard as I’d expected it to be. “No. He paid child support, came to visit a lot back in the day when Rubes, Seb, and Tali were still growing up. He still comes to visit once a year now. Calls on birthdays. Sends gift cards for Christmas….” While he spent it with his step-kids. But I didn’t say that. What was the point?

  Something funny came over his face, but he didn’t say anything, and it only made me sigh. I could see him trying to figure out what my deal was. And he either got it out of me now, or he’d pester me over it for as long as it took to get it.

  “He’s just not very supportive of me figure skating, that’s all.” I shrugged. “You can guess how that makes me feel. Anyway, he’s visiting and my family is doing a group dinner tonight with everyone, and I don’t want to go.”

  He leaned forward and flicked me on the forehead. “Then don’t. Say we have to practice.”

  I gave him a side-look but kept my hands to myself. “I used to do that to him every time he came to visit. For years.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not trying to do that anymore,” I repeated. “And I don’t like the idea of running away from seeing my dad just because I don’t want to hear him call me a disappointment.”

  Ivan’s blink was slow. The tick that pulsed at his jaw, even slower, and he lowered his voice in a way that I hadn’t heard since the morning over two months ago when he had sat beside me as I deleted my personal Picturegram account after the rude comments and messages had kept coming. When he had asked to go with me to check on my PO Box from then on, I hadn’t even argued, but nothing must have come in because Ivan hadn’t brought up creepy letters since. “He’s called you that before?”

  Shit.

  “No, but some people are really good at sugarcoating what they really think.” I sighed again and rubbed at my forehead one more time. Should I go? Should I lie and stay home or go do something with Ivan instead? I knew what I really wanted to do. It wasn’t even a choice. But… fuck. “It’ll be fine. I’ve grown up. I can keep my mouth shut and not argue with him for two hours.”

  At least that’s what I was going to tell myself.

  Ivan nudged my arm with the one he hugged me with several times a week, usually for no reason at all, but always when we nailed something or just had a great workout. “I’m free tonight.”

  I snorted. “You’re free every night.”

  Because he was. Other than his family and me, the only other thing he spent his time on were his babies at home. He’d told me once that he’d been away so much growing up, that now he just liked being home as much as possible.

  He nudged me again. “I can pinch you if you start to argue with him,” he offered.

  I couldn’t help but give him a smile. “I’m sure you’d pinch me even if I didn’t argue with him.”

  The smile that came over his features lit me up, and I bottled it up and set it aside for later, just like I always did. “You want me to clear my busy schedule with Lacey then?”

  Oh, Lacey. The distrustful, grudge-holding, cute monster had only just barely started letting me pet her. But only when she wanted. And only for a second. And not on her head. “You don’t have to do that. I know you’d rather hang out with the crew at home.”

  “Yeah, because it’s the only time people aren’t looking at me and talking about me,” he replied, the honesty in it catching me off guard. “But I don’t like you dreading going to see your dad more.” He gave me another one of those bright-ass smiles. “You know I’ll keep you in check.”

  I snorted and rolled my eyes. “You can try.”

  Ivan leaned back on his hands, his grin widening. “Meatball, you know I can. I’m not scared of you. You like my face too much to punch it.”

  What an idiot. An idiot. And I only egged him on by snickering because I wasn’t about to laugh and make it that much worse. “One of these days, I’m going to shove my foot up your ass so you can keep that in check.”

  He laughed, loud, grinning. “You can try.”

  I rolled my eyes and pretended like I didn’t have a smirk on my face.

  “Did you get your Anatomy issue already?” he asked suddenly.

  I blinked. “It’s out?”

  Ivan nodded. “Yesterday,” he replied, already reaching toward his bag and dragging it over. It only took him a moment to pull out a shiny black magazine with a familiar-looking football player on the cover and drop it on my lap. “Page 208.”

  Flipping through the magazine and catching bits and pieces of thighs, biceps and sculpted backs, I found the page and stared at the spread. I had thought for sure they would use one of the shots the photographer had taken of us doing a star lift, a move where Ivan had me over
his head with his hand on my hip, while I looked like I was upside down in a split position. The photographer had shown it to us when we had wrapped up for the day.

  But the magazine hadn’t chosen that image.

  Instead, it was the most perfect shot of us doing a death spiral that was in the issue. Well, a modified death spiral because instead of having my arm at my side, mostly parallel to the ice, I had it over my tits, covering the two pieces I wasn’t about to show: my nipples. With Ivan in a pivot position, which basically looked like he was sitting in an imaginary chair with one leg slightly back so that his toe was anchored in the ice, one of his hands was holding one of my hands. In motion, he would have been spinning me around in a circle, with my body parallel to the ice, my head level with my knee, so I was inches from grazing the ice.

  It was one of my favorite elements period.

  But looking at us on the magazine… it was something else.

  The lines of muscle at Ivan’s thighs and calves were unbelievable. The arm holding mine was long and strong, his visible shoulder and neck were graceful as hell. Ivan looked amazing. A perfect physical example of all the things that made up figure skating: elegant, powerful, and limber.

  And I looked pretty fucking good too. Jojo wouldn’t be crying too much. The angle the picture was taken at mostly showed a whole lot of thigh, the profile of one butt cheek, and skin at my hips, some abs, ribs, and flesh all the way up to the hand holding Ivan’s.

  It was a work of art. A work of art that would be worth any shit I might get in the mail that Ivan was now screening for me. It was beautiful.

  I was going to need to get a copy and frame it.

  “What do you think?” the man beside me asked.

  I was looking at the ridge of muscles that wrapped from his ribs around to his back as I answered, “It came out all right.”

  I couldn’t even be surprised when he elbowed me in response.

  I had made a horrible mistake.

  A terrible, terrible mistake.

  I should have stayed home. I should have gone to Ivan’s. I should have stayed at the LC.

  I should have done anything other than come to dinner with my family to see my dad.

  Because it was easy to forget that love was complicated. That someone could love you and want the best for you, and at the same time, break you in half. There was such a thing as loving someone the wrong way. It was possible to love someone too much. Too forcefully.

  And with me, my dad had mastered that shit.

  I’d sat all the way on the other side of the table, trying my best not to bring any attention to myself after I’d given my dad his first hug in over a year. It had been awkward, for me at least. All of my siblings and even my mom had given him one, so I had too.

  My goal had been to shut up as much as possible to prevent myself from saying anything that could trigger the f-word that came up way too often when we were around each other.

  But it had come up, like it always did, no matter how much I didn’t want it to.

  And I had Ruby to thank for it.

  Ruby who brought up my awesome new partner—who had taken a seat beside me and on the other side of Benny—and how we had several competitions coming up over the next seven months.

  And just like that, without congratulating me on teaming up with the man he probably didn’t know was a gold medalist, a world champion, who had fan pages and even an unauthorized biography written about him, my dad had just jumped right in to a conversation that had never, ever ended well between us.

  He had leaned over the table, a good-looking man with skin and hair color the exact shade as mine, and asked with a condescending smile, “I’m happy for you, Jasmine, but what I want to know is, what are you going to do afterward?”

  Goddammit.

  Later, I’d tell myself I had tried. I had tried to play dumb and give him an out, even though I hated playing that game. I hated having to give him a chance.

  “After the season?” I got myself to ask, hoping, hoping he wouldn’t embarrass me or insult Ivan by not giving a shit he was figure skating in a body.

  But like every other time, he either didn’t give a shit or ignored the signals I could feel everyone giving him to shut the fuck up. “No, after you retire,” he answered, a pleasant expression still on his seventy-year-old face. “Your mother told me you’re still working at a diner. It’s wonderful you’re making your own money after all those years you used to say you couldn’t because you had to practice,” he chuckled.

  Like I hadn’t said that shit when I was sixteen and seventeen and eighteen, when I’d been struggling with school and trying to squeeze figure skating into every other minute of my life because I’d been killing it then. I had dominated the juniors scene then. I sure as fuck hadn’t wanted to work because a part-time job would have meant the end of my dream.

  My mom had always known that and understood.

  But he hadn’t.

  And I had fucked up at eighteen and asked him for money, even though I knew better.

  You’re a little old for these skating things, Jasmine, no? Focus on school. Focus on something you will always be good at. These dreams, they waste a lot of time.

  I wasn’t a superstitious person. Not at all. But the season after that one had been the worst I ever had. And each one after that hadn’t gotten much better.

  Practices were good. Everything leading up to every event was great. But the moment it really mattered… I choked. I fucked up. I lost my confidence. Every time. Sometimes more than others, but always.

  And I had never told anyone that I blamed it on my dad. Focus on something you will always be good at. Because according to him, I wouldn’t always be good at the one thing in the world I was actually great at.

  And his words then, at the restaurant surrounded by my family, were a fucking punch to the solar plexus I had no way of avoiding or handling.

  And he’d kept right on going.

  “But you can’t work there, waitressing forever, and you can’t skate for the rest of your life, you know,” my dad said, still smiling like every one of his words weren’t sending a hundred needles straight into my skin, each one going deeper and deeper by the second, so deep I wasn’t sure how the fuck I would ever get them out.

  I clenched my teeth together and looked down, forcing myself to keep my mouth shut.

  To not tell my dad to fuck off.

  To not blame him for all the damage his words and actions had done to me.

  To not tell my dad that I had no idea what I would do after figure skating and somehow not admit that the lack of an answer—of even an idea—caused me to panic. I didn’t even know what I would do a year from now when this was all over with Ivan, but I wasn’t going to bring that shit up. Even Ivan hadn’t brought it up in months. The last thing my dad needed to know was that Ivan didn’t want me for longer than a year, even if he was my best friend and a person I enjoyed spending my time with.

  My pride could only handle so much.

  “I think, maybe, you should have gone to college like Ruby. She went to school and still did what she wanted to do,” my dad kept talking, oblivious to the fact he was killing me inside and that my mom, who was sitting beside me, was gripping her knife for dear life. “It’s never too late to go back and make something out of yourself. I’ve thought about going back to get my MBA, see?”

  Make something out of myself. Make something out of myself.

  I swallowed and fisted my fork tighter, stabbing my ravioli with a vengeance, and shoving it into my mouth before I could say something that I might regret.

  But probably not.

  Something touched me beneath the table, sliding over my knee and cupping it. I hadn’t realized I was shaking my leg until he stopped it. Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ivan’s arm partially hidden under the table. But what I could definitely see was the fact that he was side-eyeing me, his cheeks flushed.

  Why were they pink?

  “Y
ou have to focus on what will make you money when you’re older and can’t get on the ice anymore,” my dad kept going, oblivious.

  I held my fork so hard, my fingers were going white around it. The hand on my knee cupped it even tighter before moving slightly above it, just on top of the knee cap, lining it. Did he have to say this stuff in front of someone who had dedicated his entire life to figure skating? It was one thing to insult me, but it was another thing to undermine all the hard work that Ivan had put in.

  “You weren’t so good in school, but I know you can do it,” my dad kept talking, sounding so enthusiastic at the idea of me going back to school, it was that, that set me right off.

  Jasmine doesn’t have a learning disability, he had argued with my mom one day in the kitchen when I’d been maybe eight years old and I was supposed to be in bed but had snuck downstairs instead. All she needs is to focus.

  Looking up at him, up at this man who I had loved and wanted to love me just as much for so long, all I felt was an anger that I hadn’t come to grips with in the twenty-plus years since he’d divorced my mom and left. Left me. Left us. Just left. And I swallowed carefully, accepting that he didn’t know me at all, and he never had. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe it was his.

  But that didn’t mean I was going to shut the hell up like I had promised everyone I would.

  “No, I didn’t do so great in school. I hated it,” I told him slowly, watching every word out of my mouth. “I hated myself for hating it.”

  My dad’s dark eyes flashed toward me in surprise. “Oh—”

  “I have a learning disability, Dad. It was hard for me, and I didn’t like it,” I kept saying, keeping my eyes on him and ignoring the looks that I was sure my brothers and sisters were giving each other. “I didn’t like having to go to… what did you call it? ‘Get special treatment’ to learn my ABCs while everyone else was already reading. I didn’t like having to figure out different ways to learn how to spell because my brain had a hard time keeping track of letter sequences. I didn’t like that I could never remember my locker combinations, so I’d have to write them on my hand every single day. I hated that people thought I was stupid.”