Chapter Ten

brYAN

“ H ey, Bryan!” I hear from within the front office when I push through the entrance doors of the center, and I smile.

“Hey, Miss Lou,” I call to the eighty-something lady who’s manned that desk since way before I can remember. My dad said once that she was there when he came as a kid, so God only knows how long she’s been sitting there.

“How many times do I have to tell you, you’re a big boy now, you can drop the ‘miss’!” she yells after me, and I laugh.

“No chance in hell, Miss Lou.”

“Have a good practice, honey!”

I wave before turning the corner and heading to the locker room to put away my stuff, taking out my skates and my board bag and heading out to the ice.

There’s only a couple of people here for six-a.m. training, mostly the kids who come before school, and they’re all on the other side of the center. There’s less than an hour until our booked practice, and no walk-on freestyle sessions until after we leave, meaning I should have this side to myself. Which is a relief. Maybe with no one watching, I won’t pop all my jumps—wait .

I hear skating. Why do I hear skating?

I cautiously step into view of the ice. There’s someone out there, not playing anything over the loudspeakers, so the only sound is of blades ripping into ice.

Then the person turns, and I see a streak of bright red as a ponytail whips around— Katya . Of course.

She pulls herself back and forth through a complicated series of steps, twirling into a layback spin that rotates so quickly that her hair forms an orange cloud around her head. She straightens back up, curving her arms, looking so lost in her movements you wouldn’t think she didn’t have music playing.

She clearly doesn’t know I’m here, which in a way kind of feels violating, like I shouldn’t be watching. I don’t move, though.

I remember watching her from the audience at Worlds a few years back. When Katya stepped on the ice, the crowd went crazy, but the second the music started, you could hear a pin drop. She had everyone in the arena under her spell. And even without thousands of people hanging onto her every move, it’s the same. You can’t take your damn eyes off her.

Katya speeds up in preparation for a jump—she doesn’t even hesitate, just launches herself into a triple Axel that practically flies through the air, then backs away from the boards and does a quad toe, followed by a triple toe. Holy shit. Training with her every day, sometimes you forget she’s a world champion.

Suddenly, though, she stops.

Uh oh. I feel guilty, which is weird and also unnecessary, considering this is literally my rink that I’ve been skating in all my life and we also have practice together starting in—I glance at the clock—fifteen minutes. Katya glides to the far end of the ice, stepping off. I panic for a second, trying to figure out whether I should make a run for it, but she just walks over to the jump harness and starts strapping herself in. Oh, hell no.

She doesn’t know how to use that thing. She can’t possibly know that it’s old as hell and no one’s gotten around to fixing it, which is why we use the pole harness instead. And she doesn’t have anyone holding it up for her. Which is, you know, a problem, considering the rope runs out eventually.

“Wait, Katya,” I call out, starting to jog over there, but she doesn’t hear me, or just ignores me, because she skates out, the rope pulling out to follow her.

“Katya!”

She starts going for a quad Salchow—it’s beautiful, and she touches down, immediately launches her foot behind her, toe pick driving her in the air.

It’s right then that I notice something that makes my blood go cold.

“Katya, stop!” I break into a run, and it’s practically playing out in slow motion—one, two, three, four rotations, the rope unspooling faster and faster from the pulley and me practically going into cardiac arrest trying to get to it before it’s too late.

I run down the side and to the corner, diving for the rope just as she’s coming down and yanking just instants before she lands or the rope runs out; whichever comes first.

She yelps as her body goes up when she’s expecting to go down, and I let go right then as a reflex, sending her crashing to the ground, groaning and splayed out.

"Jeez!" I rush to the door, heart pounding. “Are you okay?”

Katya doesn’t respond, just grits her teeth, hugging an arm to her chest as she sits up, then gets to her feet, slowly and wincing. Oh, no.

She’s too far away for me to try and help her, which is fine because she probably wouldn’t allow me anyway. When she’s finally up, she skates over to me, rubbing at her ribs.

“Do you want me to go get—”

“ Why did you do that?”

Okay, I wasn’t exactly expecting her to thank me or anything, but I wasn’t expecting her to start yelling.

She picks up her guard from the ledge and whacks it against the boards in frustration, sending snow flying. “Fuck! I had it!”

I draw my brows together after the initial shock wears off. “Had what? A near-death experience before I saved your ass?”

“No, you idiot, I had the jump! I had it, finally had it, and then you just had to get in the way. What are you, stupid?”

“Um, hello? Look who’s talking! You were the one using the harness without someone to hold it for you.”

Katya rolls her eyes, slinging her guard on and starting to rummage through her bag. “Please. We learned how to do it ourselves as kids. You Americans, always needing someone to hold your hand for you.”

“Oh, good grief –”

“I’ve been using it myself all week, I haven’t broken anything yet.”

“Well, then you’re really luck—” I stop. “Wait. You’ve done this more than once? Are you insane? You could’ve cracked your face open, and no one would know!” Accidents like that aren’t as common as you might think in this sport, but when they do happen, it’s because of reasons like this, when skaters get stupid and ignore instructions, not to mention common sense.

I’m not even kidding at this point. I think she might actually be out of her mind.

She shoves the bag aside roughly, turning back to me with eyes blazing. “Why do you even care?” She lets out a harsh laugh. “I could crack my head open if I like. It’s not as if you give a shit.”

The urge to throttle her is immense. “Of course I give a shit! You’re my partner, or did you forget? You know, maybe you should hit your head. When else are you gonna get it into that thick skull of yours that you aren’t in singles anymore?”

Her features harden. “Probably about the same time you actually land a quad.”

I scoff. “You know what? Forgive me for trying to make sure you don’t seriously hurt yourself. I should’ve just let you fall.”

“Maybe you should’ve,” she snarls, before turning on her heel and stomping off, skate guards clunking against the floor and red ponytail swinging violently as she goes.

I don’t understand her. I don’t understand this girl at all.

God, she’s infuriating. Why is it so impossible for her to understand that, okay, I might not be her biggest fan in the world, but I don’t want her to break something? If she keeps pulling stunts like this, she eventually will; and then we’ll both have to pull out.

And that can’t happen. I can’t let everyone down again. I don’t know if the AFSC would even let me try to find another partner if she screws us all, so it could mean the end for me. Game fucking over, because Katya can’t get her head out of her self-destructive ass.

I have no idea what comes after that. I don’t want to know.

I don’t know how I’m going to get her to like me, but…maybe I don’t need to. I think she’s so gold-starved it might make her ignore how much she hates me just so we can get to the Olympics. I think all she needs is to get on that podium in Helsinki, make her old team realize their mistake. They’ll be begging her to go back.

She’d go home, and I would finally have something to show for my pathetic senior career; prove to everyone I’m not a worthless bag of shit. And I could figure something out with the AFSC, maybe stick to pairs. With an Olympic gold—fuck it, any Olympic medal, how could they say no? I’ll find another partner, one who isn’t a raging lunatic, and everything will be okay.

It'll work. And if Little Miss Adrenaline Junkie thinks she’s going to stop me, try and drag me down with her before I get a chance to get there, she has another thing coming.

I was right this morning when I figured we’d be working on side-by-side jumps today.

Sure enough, as soon as Lian got here and Katya emerged from wherever she stormed off to, we started drilling. Singles, doubles, triples—everything’s going fine, but of course Katya has to go and ruin it.

“Time for quads?” she asks nonchalantly, although the effect is a little diminished by the fact that she’s sweaty and slightly out of breath.

Still, I narrow my eyes at her, and she raises her eyebrows at me, like, whatever did I say?

It’s payback for this morning. She knows damn well I can’t do any quads consistently.

“Quad toe? Come on, you can at least do a quad toe. It’s the easy one.”

“Sometimes,” I mutter. On a good day. I can do them in training a good sixty percent of the time, but I haven’t landed one in competition since I was a junior. Not once.

“Salchow?”

“No.”

“Flip?”

I don’t answer.

“Loop?”

I clench my teeth.

“Lutz? Axel?”

Who does she think I am, Ilia Malinin? “Do you ever get sick of being a brat?” I spit out, and she just grins.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“You know damn well you can’t do any of those either, so back off.” You’d think she had all of hers the way she’s acting, but she doesn’t. That’s the whole reason she’s been stuck in second place anyway, is because Polyakova, the Barbie doll-looking one, has more. Katya might be the Ice Queen, but she’s definitely not the quad queen.

“That doesn’t look like playing nice to me,” Lian calls out.

Katya smirks at me, then turns to her. “I have an idea. Why don’t we add a quad combination?”

I stare.

“I think it’ll be fun,” she adds cheerily, and my fists actually curl.

“Pairs don’t do quads,” I say as calmly as I can manage, trying to get my blood pressure down. “There’s no point.”

You think I switched over without checking? It’s too much risk for too little reward; only a few teams have ever done them in competition. Quad twists pretty much send the girl into cardiac arrest, and the jumps…the whole thing is goddamn impossible, is what it is, even if Katya wasn’t suggesting it just to piss me off. Which is exactly what she’s doing. I hate that it’s working.

“Bryan’s right,” Lian replies warily. “It’s extremely rare, for good reason. We need to focus on getting everything solid, instead of risking everything on a few extra points.”

She just shrugs. “Like you said, it’s extra points.”

“Yeah, and more points off in fall deductions. Duh.” I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.

Katya looks at me, all innocent. “ I wouldn’t be falling.”

Before I can actually throw hands, Lian jumps back in. “Go around again. Triple Sals, I want to see them.”

Katya doesn’t move. “We do the quads, or I don’t do this at all.”

I laugh, then stop when I realize she’s totally serious. “What?”

“You heard me.” She stares Lian down. “I’m not joking.”

“Can we please discuss this later, Ekaterina?”

“No, we can’t. All I need is you to agree.”

“We don’t bully our coaches here,” I interrupt. Lee doesn’t need me to help her, but she’s important to me, and I don’t like seeing her disrespected.

Katya ignores me, expectant. “Well?”

Lian doesn’t say anything, just rubs at her forehead. I crease my eyebrows. “Lee?”

“Fine. But we’re working on everything else first. I refuse to make it a priority, but we’ll keep it on the back burner.”

What?

I turn to her, stunned. “You—”

“Go!”

Katya grabs my hand and tries to take off before I can prepare, but I recover just in time, snatching her wrist and twisting it back into the correct hold before she can squirm away, starting to skate faster and faster, until she’s the one needing to keep up. I have to fight to keep the triumphant grin off my face. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s going fast. Maybe Dad was right, and I should’ve gone into hockey instead, where it would actually be useful.

I can feel the frustration radiating off her, and it’s making me giddy. We do the step sequence from earlier, then let go in order to prepare for the jump.

One, two, three, four —inside three turn, hang onto the edge until it curves, bend your knee, swing your leg, and jump—three full rotations, taking off from the inside edge and landing on the outside edge of the opposite foot.

“Come on, Katya! You’re too slow! Get back on the count! Again!”

Katya’s fighting to get close enough to me. The amount of satisfaction I get from seeing her struggling for once is maybe a little worrying.

“Slow down,” she demands, and I grin at her.

“Going too fast for you, sunshine?”

She scoffs. “Oh, we’re being like that?”

We space apart again for the next jump. Only when I land, she’s more than just a few counts behind me. For a second, I panic, thinking I must’ve doubled out, but judging from the evil look on her face, she’s got one over on me.

“Again,” Lian calls, an edge in her voice, and that’s when I realize. I whip back to face my partner.

“You quadded it!” I accuse.

Lian sighs. “I said, again, guys.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I hiss, taking her hand.

“And you’re jealous,” she replies.

“I’d rather suck than be a petty jerk.”

“Well, you do suck, so good job.”

“Shut up,” I snarl.

Lian claps twice. “Hey!” she shouts. “Again!”

I grab Katya’s hand more roughly than necessary, and she grips back tight enough to leave marks with her nails.

I let go for the jump. And once again, I land before she does.

I charge towards her once she’s landed, doing a hockey stop that sends snow flying over her pristine white boots. “ What is your problem?”

“I think you’re the one with the problem here,” she taunts.

“Are you really that insecure that you need to show off every five seconds?”

“It’s not showing off if many skaters can do it.”

“Many my ass. Barely anyone can do quads.”

Katya clicks her tongue, pouting. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to put others down just because you can’t do what they can?”

Blood rushes to my face. “That’s not what I meant. Only, like, twenty skaters in the world have them, and less than half of those can do multiple.”

She grins. “I know. You’re speaking to one of them.”

“Again!” Lian yells from the boards, before I can act upon the screaming instinct to grab her and shake her, to force her to let me understand why she's being like this. Instead, I offer my hand, teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. She takes it.

“With the step sequence,” Lian calls, and we oblige, moving into crossovers.

As we turn in sync, the question finally jumps out. “I literally just met you,” I say into her ear, guiding us along the ice. “I don’t think you’ve known me long enough to be so pissed at me.”

“Some people just have repellent personalities.”

“Are we still talking about me?”

“Yes,” she says, looking straight ahead. “I still can’t believe you can’t even do a quadruple toe. It’s the easiest one.”

I laugh shortly. “Is it? If I recall correctly, if you could do it every time, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Katya screeches to a halt, and I almost trip over her as she rips away from me, skating backwards at the speed of light before she launches into a quad toe that flies probably a foot and a half in the air, followed by another one just as big.

“How was that, mudak?" she shouts from where she landed, an easy twenty feet away from where she started, and I shake my head, scoffing.

“You are unbelievable. Lian, can you please tell her she’s acting like a six-year-old?”

Lian doesn’t answer me, she just leans over, hitting her head repeatedly against the boards.

“You don’t know anything about me or why I’m here,” the girl across from me seethes.

“Oh, please. Everyone knows why you’re here,” I retort. “It was on TV, for Christ’s sake. You fucked up! Sure, it was only one time, but it was enough for your team to decide it was high time to kick your rude ass to the curb. And now, unfortunately for all of us, you’re here. Because AFSC felt sorry for you, and figured they might as well take an opportunity to use you before you got totally destroyed by your own coaches.”

As soon as I stop yelling, the silence is almost deafening.

Damn it. Too far, Young. Look at you, running your mouth like an asshole, just like —fuck. I'm no better than she is. What if I had actually ended up being booted off Team USA, and someone had said that to me? Probably would've started crying.

But Katya Andreyeva remains as cold as always.

“You,” she says, her voice just barely carrying but the dangerous edge in it perfectly clear. “Should really, really back off.”

My throat goes dry, and I swallow. “Look, I…”

She puts a hand up. “I’ll be back in five minutes. I need a break from this.”

Apologize , Lian mouths as she walks away.

I close my eyes. Shit.

“ L ook, I know what you think.”

I’ve found her standing in front of the water fountain, refilling the battering ram of a water bottle she’s always carrying around.

Katya seems unsurprised I’ve come to find her. She puts the water down. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

I huff. “About…me.”

“What, that you’re a total moron?”

I remember what I was telling myself earlier, and force myself to keep cool.

“That I don’t care about this.” I wave my hands around at the rink we’re standing in. “But you’re wrong, alright? I do care. And I want to win.” I sigh deeply. “I trust Lian, and if she says she thinks we have what it takes, then I believe her. So…are you willing to work with me?”

Katya stares at me, arms crossed across her chest. She looks like she’s analyzing me, trying to figure out whether I’m being serious or not. It hits me that I probably wouldn’t trust me either, if I were in her position. Especially after what I said back there.

“Listen. I’m sure you’ve already heard all this from Lee, but I want you to hear it from me. I’ll give everything I’ve got. I might not like you, at all—” I make sure to stress that part “ — but I love this sport like you wouldn’t believe, which is the only reason I’m trying to make a peace offering. But you’re going to have to promise me that you’re not gonna bail out on me before the season’s over.”

She makes a little scoffing noise, but doesn’t deny she would. I get the feeling that, she might hate my guts for no reason, and bully me mercilessly, and leave me stranded if she got something out of it, but she wouldn’t lie to me. And, at least for now, our interests are aligned.

Which is exactly what I point out. “We both want gold. I don’t know about you, but I want to stand on top of that fucking podium in Helsinki and prove to everyone that they were wrong about me.” I take a deep breath. “I want to make Taylor Davis and Chris Heffner and Gordon Brewer cry themselves to sleep.”

She bites her lip a little bit, which is how I know I’ve got her.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I think we’re both unhinged enough to actually try to get there in a year. You want to prove ‘em wrong. Right? You want them to come crawling back to you.”

Katya doesn’t say anything for a minute, fingering the ends of her ponytail. “I don’t know who Brewer or Heffner are, but Taylor Davis is a total—how do you say? Douchebag?”

I grin. “Damn right.” Then I tilt my head at her. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“It was a stupid question. You already know the answer.”

“Exactly.” I take a step closer towards her. “So…we’re in agreement.”

She lets go of her ponytail, grey eyes piercing mine as she looks up at me. “I suppose.”

I roll my eyes. “You can agree with me, it won’t kill you.”

“I can already feel my stomach churning.”

When did we get so close to each other? I can see all the red hairs that have flown out from her ponytail, the freckles peeking through the traces of unblended makeup, the strange glint in her eyes.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

That shakes me out of my daze. “What?”

“I said, we have a deal.”