Chapter 2

Present day

Seriously, is there anything worse than the sound of a phone alarm beside your head at the ass crack of dawn?

The answer is no.

Rolling to my side, I swiped the stuff sitting atop my nightstand to the floor, where the phone landed, but continued to beep-beep-beep-beep and buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz. I knew what time it was without looking at my cell—five in the morning—the standard time for young men who trained under Ilya Sidirov to crawl out from under the covers where he was having a nice dream starring himself and Lenny Kravitz doing a pairs routine. Lenny was shirtless, which was not at all acceptable attire for a skater during a competition, but hey, if Lenny wanted to bare his chest, I wouldn't stop him. That man is delish.

The phone kept it up, vibrating under the bed on the hardwood floor.

"Ugh," I groaned at the incessant beeping and buzzing. Moving to my belly, I nudged Koro, my sobo's cat, who was nearly as old as my grandmother, but not nearly as nice. He hissed. I changed my mind and wiggled around the grumpy black cat with the ragged ear. He always slept with me. Not a clue why, as at any other time the ancient cat didn't like me much. Guess I had the best bed in the house. Sliding to the floor, the room dark, save for the light of the cellphone, I found where it had half slid underneath and now lay beside a pair of old hockey skates, way too small now, all covered with dust.

Good thing my mother didn't see the dust bunnies under my bed, or she would toss aside her paintbrushes and grab her Swiffer. Mom didn't like dust. Sobo liked it even less. Dad and I didn't care about dust. Which was obvious, given the thick layer coating all the junk under my bed. I grabbed my phone, silenced it, and then, caught by something like nostalgia, I pulled out the tiny black skates. Sitting on the floor in the dark in my sleep pants and a ratty T-shirt, I closed my eyes and let my fingers move over the laces. Memories of a childhood that felt as if it were ages ago, instead of just seven years, flowed over me. Ice hockey had been the sport that had gotten me onto the ice. I had always loved skating, so my father had signed me up when I was a kid.

Jun, my older brother, had no interest in sports of any kind. Much to the delight of Mom and Sobo, who were thrilled he was getting his masters in a field that would bring them honor. Mostly those were Sobo's words. She was old enough to still hang onto ancient ways of thinking. Mom was glad to have at least one child who wouldn't be hurt by strapping on blades. Dad, ex-flyboy in the US Air Force who'd turned to law enforcement after retiring and now worked in the state capital on the capital police force, loved having one boy who was as gung ho about athletics as he was. Imagine his shock when I announced, after playing hockey for several years, that I wanted to try figure skating.

Mom and Sobo had been thrilled. No one would punch me in the face repeatedly if I were figure skating. Jun didn't give a damn. He was too busy being the brains of the family, our own Asian-American Sheldon Cooper. So, I switched to skates with toe picks just as puberty was about to set in. Dad had commented once to Mom that he felt that this figure skating thing was a phase, and once I came out the other side of the hormone rush, I would see the light. He also had thought that my dating boys and girls was a phase at first. I've not grown out of figure skating or finding all kinds of people attractive.

Which went full circle to thoughts of Shaun Stanton. Shaun was my dream boy. Tall, strong, a jock. He and I had a history of sorts. We'd been the best of friends once, until his dad suggested hanging around with me was ruining his chances of being a hockey superstar. I'd wanted Shaun to tell him to fuck off. He didn't. I hated Shaun for it.

I think.

Only it was hard to avoid him now that we were at the same school.

A thud on the floor startled me from the past and Shaun's big blue eyes. Koro sat staring at me, cat-eyes glowing.

"Right, I know. You want treats."

He reached out to swat at me. Yep, treats. "On it," I said, stuffing the kiddy skates back under the bed, then getting to my feet. I yanked on some socks, then crept out of my room, past my parent's, and my grandmother's bedroom doors. I slid into the bathroom, used the toilet, washed my hands, and got on the scale. It read 121, which meant I'd gained a pound since yesterday. Ilya would give me that look when he weighed me today. We did not skip weigh-ins. Fat skaters did not place in competition; he would tell me in that thick Russian accent of his.

I glanced at myself in the mirror to see if my face was puffier. No, I was okay. Five-foot-six and a hundred and twenty pounds was perfect according to my coach, so one-twenty it had to be. It could be water weight that had pushed me over. It could be that pizza I had chowed down on like a hungry dingo at dinner. Damn carbs. I knew better…

I flipped off the light, disgusted with my lack of discipline, and trudged downstairs to make myself breakfast.

Koro made his way down the stairs, his tail kinked at the top as he led me into the kitchen. He knew the routine in this house well.

I filled his bowl with dry food, which he ignored before opting to eat or starve. Not that the fat cat would wither away anytime soon. I flicked on the light, placed my phone on the counter next to the stove, and began whipping up some egg whites for a cheese and egg omelet while Dua Lipa sang about dancing the night away. I opted out of toast and sliced into a ripe avocado instead, shaking my butt to my favorite singer.

"No treats for you," I said to the cat, who was staring daggers at me. "Okay fine, I'll give you two."

I picked two tiny fish-shaped treats from the bag, then placed them on top of the dry food. The cat walked off. Cats. Oh. My. God.

I ate by myself, eager to get the food I wanted into me, instead of having to bicker with my mother and grandmother over eating a heartier meal. Sure, I loved my dad's American morning meals of pancakes and sausage. But I dared not let my weight get out of hand. If it did… well, then shit went sideways. So, counting calories it was. Lots of people did it every day. They had tons of apps for it. I used one. Not a biggie.

I wolfed down the omelet, then jogged upstairs to change into something casual to wear to the rink to skate for an hour or two before classes at Chesterford. Grabbing my car keys from my dresser, I shoved my wallet, books, and skates into my backpack. School was one of my escapes from skating if that made sense. Not that I didn't love skating. I did. But Ilya was intense. Like super intense as only an old-school Russian trainer could be. It was the ice or nothing. He disliked his skaters frittering away valuable training time with extracurriculars. You were either one hundred percent a figure skater—or you were not, he would say. And his methods paid off. I was doing well. Not as well as he felt I should, because no one ever pleased Ilya. And I would never tell him, but sometimes I wanted more from life than skating. Like maybe dating and dances and fooling around with friends at the ramen shop. Ilya had still not gotten over me disrespecting his wishes. He let me know that his students back in Belgorod would never have been so brash. I felt properly chastened but stuck to my guns like the typical American he often accused me of being. Yep, that was me, American as apple pie.

So yeah, I was super excited. I'd been homeschooled for a few years—it was simply easier to compete if we could work my schoolwork at our discretion—but coming into my junior year I had wanted more. I wanted to experience high school. I loved skating, and I wanted to continue, but I also maybe wanted to go to college. I went to dances, football games, and made friends. Like a normal teenager.

Well, mostly normal, if normal meant driving to the school rink before the sun was up to train. Which meant I was not normal at all, as every other student was still in bed right now. Almost every other student. There would be one other person there.

Shaun Stanton.

He was the only one I knew of who put as much into his sport as I did. Birds of a feather, we were once called, back in the day when we were playing hockey on the same team. That was before things had gotten weird. Before I'd left hockey for figure skating. Before I'd been talked into homeschooling by Ilya.

Parking behind Shaun's blue truck, I turned off my sporty little VW Jetta, the tunes dying away as the engine tick-tick-ticked. I stared hard at the bumper of the azure Ford pickup, my sight locking on the GO COYOTES bumper sticker plastered next to a Chesterford parking permit sticker like mine. My bumper had a pink, yellow, and cyan pan heart sticker next to the permit, just to let the world know who I was. My dad had bought it for me at Harrisburg Pride last year. He'd learned a lot about queer kids in the past few years, and now marched with me, Mom, and Jun every June for Pride. Sobo was too old to march, but she wore a rainbow wig to show her support of her youngest grandson. A big step away from her very traditional Japanese upbringing.

Shaun's truck kind of intimidated me. No, that was a lie. The feelings I had for Shaun and about Shaun were what always had me sitting here working up the courage to go skate. We rarely spoke other than a perfunctory "Yo" to each other as we did our thing. Him shooting pucks or working on stick handling on one end of the ice, while I twirled, leaped, and snuck in quad jumps my coach admired, but the world skating organizations said I was too young to do as I was under nineteen. Silly rules.

Shaking off the funky vibes, I grabbed my bag and marched into the rink, giving the Coyotes banners, and snarling canine faces painted on the white walls a glance. I even patted the nose of the nearest coy-dog as I entered the rink, my bag bouncing off my backside as I jogged to the ice. Shaun was doing laps, his skates, and puffs of breath the only sound as he maneuvered the puck around small cones with incredible skill. I'd never had those kinds of hands when I played. I was more a speedster, taking the puck down the ice at Mach speed, then getting knocked off the puck by a much larger player. I'd never been beefy. Shaun glanced my way as I sat on the home bench, my hair pulled back out of my face with a bright yellow hairband.

My skates were black, like his, but smaller and narrower with the toe picks all the hockey players teased us figure skaters about. I tied my skates, shucked off my jacket, and stepped out onto the ice. My end of the ice.

Whenever I saw him, I had a flashback to when Shaun had walked in on me, pushing into my life uninvited as always, and had seen me trying to purge. Or had he? The expression of horror on his face that day said yes, he had witnessed me trying to get rid of the anxiety balled in my gut like castoff fishing line along the shore. My insides always felt tight, cutting off my ability to digest and to breathe at times.

He'd never said a word to me about what he had or hadn't seen. Then again, he'd not said much to me at all after that day. Our friendship had died a slow death. Much like an orchid left to wither in a dark corner with no water or sun. Now, here we both were, at the same school, sharing the same ice, and still not speaking. Some days, I wanted to march up to him and demand he speak to me. Tell me what he'd seen. Explain that I'd done that once. Clarify I'd spoken to a counselor a few times, and I was now eating as I should to maintain weight.

Maybe I should just skate up to him. Get in his face. Ask him why he'd dumped me like a used tissue. I paused in my warmup and waved a few fingers, the lights of the rink picking up the sparkly nail polish I'd put on last night. His blue eyes widened. Such pretty eyes. He ducked his head. Was that shame or shyness? When he glanced back, he looked as if he were going to say something more than that stupid broski yo I always got. My heart sped up a tick. What would I say if he moved to my end of the ice? Would I shout at him or offer him a kind word? I had no clue. As it turned out, what might have happened, never took place because his father arrived. Mr. Stanton was beyond driven. I had never cared much for Shaun's father. Shaun tore his gaze from mine and went back to hockey.

Whatever. Probably that was for the best. Shaun didn't need to be spending his ice time talking to someone as undisciplined as me.

We returned to our little worlds. Mr. Stanton shouting at Shaun. Ilya barking at me. For an hour, we did our work, then, at the end, when both adults had left the ice, I was wiping the sweat from my neck when a puck slid to a stop in front of me. I glanced over about ten feet, and there stood Shaun, also soaked with perspiration, hockey stick in hand.

"Hey," he said, and I swear if he hadn't been in skates, he would have been scuffing his feet. "Can we talk?"

I lowered my towel, the pull to say something to him so strong I wet my lips to speak. Then, I remembered he'd been the one to ghost me.

I kicked the puck back to him, then skated off, tears welling as I headed to the locker room.

I left him standing.