Chapter Twenty-Nine

brYAN

DECEMBER

“ I have a proposition.”

“That sounds ominous,” I say breathlessly, wiping my mouth after having chugged the entirety of my water bottle.

Katya is utterly unfazed by the brutal cardio workout that just left me struggling to stand upright, as usual. We can spend hours off-ice or on-ice, and she’ll barely break a sweat. I, on the other hand, am huffing and puffing, sweat plastering my t-shirt to my chest and my hair to my forehead.

“So, I’m going home for Christmas.”

“I know, we’ve talked about this.”

“Well, yes, but I just—” Katya stops, mouth twisting, nose scrunching up.

Oh, I know that look. I know what’s about to happen. My smile just stretches bigger. “You just…what?”

“It’s nothing, I just wanted to know if maybe you—oh, forget it,” she huffs, turning away from me, and I take her by the shoulders and turn her back.

“You want me to come with you,” I say, almost giddily. The pure annoyance on her face of having to ask me for something is so funny that I start laughing uncontrollably. “Oh my god! You do! You want me to come!”

“Not if you’re going to be such a brat about it,” Katya snaps, trying to walk off, but she’s blushing so furiously that her skin tone is matching her hair.

I crack out the Puppy Face that she hates so much, pouting at her, turning so that I can loop my arm around her shoulders. “Aw, come on. Don’t be such a party pooper. Of course I’ll come.”

“Really? Because I didn’t even tell you when it is.”

I roll my eyes. “Honestly, sunshine, I could care less. I wanna get out of here.”

“It’s over Christmas,” Katya clarifies, and I shrug.

“So?”

She frowns. “You definitely don’t want to stay?”

“Why would I?”

“To spend Christmas with your own family.” She must notice the dark look that passes over my face, because she hastily corrects herself. “With Sasha. Or the others. I don’t know, what do you usually do?”

Christmas is…complicated. I used to love it. It used to be the highlight of the crazy, hectic winter months, when I could go home and take a week off before heading back out to the tail end of the season. It used to be so much fun, with the town dressed up for the holidays, the tourist rush temporarily slowing and everyone letting out a collective sigh of relief that we could finally have the slopes back to ourselves, at least until the new year.

Me and Ollie used to spike a thermos of cocoa and go hit said slopes while the girls went on one last round of gift shopping, trying not to fall out of the ski lift (which we failed to do so often that the guys at the front desk started sticking the big pink stickers they give the little kids on the backs of our jackets to warn the lifties to put the child lock on the guardrail.) Then we’d get everyone together to head over to the Kwans’ for dinner, which was both the traditional Christmas stuff and all the Korean holiday food: kimchi, mung bean pancakes, pan-fried everything, Grandma Yung’s rice cake soup with the dumplings that I literally could eat every day. Then we’d all sit down and watch Home Alone (all three movies) while drinking cider and eating butter cookies from the blue tin with the Kwans’ cat snuggled in my lap. And then I’d conk out in Oliver’s room and head to my parents’ in the morning, to hang out with my sister.

When I was a little kid, every year, me, Alex, and my dad would go out to Mirror Lake at the crack of dawn Christmas Day with our sticks and pucks and play hockey with the whole place to ourselves. Baby Alex would shriek and try to catch the puck, my dad racing circles around the both of us and making us so in awe with his tricks that we’d stand there, mouths gaping. We wouldn’t even complain about having to wait to open presents. The Christmas “game” was the part we loved most. Mom would have hot chocolate ready when we got back, and we’d flick marshmallows at each other across the table, pretending the salt shakers were little goalposts, and whoever made the most goals got to open a present first. Dad would always let us win.

And then there was the accident. So none of that lasted very long.

It’s still managed to be pretty fun sometimes. Recently, though, it just feels like such a drag. These last couple years, I’ve usually managed to be home instead of traveling—I haven’t qualified for anything that would demand otherwise—but I can’t be in the same room as my mom and dad for longer than a few hours, and even that’s enough to usually get me to storm out and/or hide in the kitchen by the end of it, as Katya now knows. I usually just beg Alexandra to come with me to the Kwans,’ so I don’t feel even worse about skipping out on her.

“Not a whole lot,” I finally answer. “Definitely less this year.”

“So…you’re coming?” Katya asks, a little uncertainly. I’d say almost a little hopefully if the idea weren’t so impossible to fathom.

I crack another smile. “Oh, you’re so going to regret inviting me, Andreyeva.”

She grimaces. “I already am.”