Chapter Thirty-Two

brYAN

LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK

“ I t’s on!” Nina yells, and we all dive for the couch, scrambling for a seat.

We got back from the city just in time for the replay of our last skate, because CSN barely airs skating on cable anymore, so now we’re all holed up in Lian’s living room so we can watch it together before we leave tomorrow for our holiday show in New York City.

Everyone’s chattering, adrenaline running high. Then Taylor Davis opens his mouth, and we all scream “Shut up!” at once.

“Welcome to the live CSN Sports coverage of this year’s Nordic Prix, the last event before the Final in Paris.

“ Andreyeva and Young are definitely the team with the most eyes on them right now. This is only their fifth or sixth competition since pairing up in January, but their story is really something—Ekaterina Andreyeva was skating in singles for Russia right up until they swapped her over to Team USA, in what was probably the fastest athlete transfer I’ve ever seen. And Bryan, well, quite frankly, it’s a miracle he’s lasted this long on the circuit. He was a superstar in his junior days, but he hasn’t been a big name in years, which is why it’s so shocking that he of all people was picked to skate with Andreyeva.”

“You’re right, Taylor. Katya was number one, number two in the world under the watchful eye of Russian coach Tatyana Zhukova, who’s well known for her aggressive methods, and for producing probably some of the biggest talent in this sport. She had a nasty fall at the Prix Final last year, but the decision came basically out of the blue. There’s rumors she was forced out of the Russian skating federation.”

I glance over at Katya, expecting her to react to that last part, but she doesn’t seem to.

“This free program is classic, elegant, dramatic—it takes what’s become a pretty repetitive musical choice and turns it into something new. It highlights what both of them are good at, Ekaterina’s ferocious technique and Bryan’s charisma and musicality. It’s still a little rough around the edges, which is to be expected; they’ve been struggling with some of their Ultra-C elements, like their quad twists and throws, and he’s been stumbling on some of the bigger side-by-sides. That reminds me, the standard of technical advancement they’ve been pushing has been amazing to watch. I’ve never seen a pairs team with more than one quad element, let alone multiple per program.”

“That’s true, Naomi. That reminds me, we’ve talked about how hot-and-cold their skates can be. From one competition to the next they’ll go from beautiful to rough-and-tumble. We’ve been hearing rumors about problems off the ice. Katya’s got a reputation for being a bit of a—uh, hard person to work with.”

Juliet laughs, and I choke on my drink. Nina has to smack my back a couple times.

“True, but again, we’ve got a team that’s barely a year into training together; barely a year into pairs itself. Both of them were singles skaters prior to this season. It’s normal for these kinds of problems with a new pair; I’m actually shocked at how good they’re doing.”

“I agree, Taylor; Bryan Young’s turnaround especially has been mind-blowing. Just last year he was slipping and sliding around the ice, averaging at the bottom end of the ladder and falling multiple times per event. This is a guy who barely had a triple axel in him, and now he’s pulling out quads he was never able to do on his own in singles.”

“Liar!” Ollie bellows, and everyone shushes him.

Naomi continues, adding as if she’s heard him, “ Back when he was a junior and on the fast track to Olympic gold, though, I do remember him having one, maybe two?”

“ And speaking of which, one thing’s for sure; quads in men’s skating come a dime a dozen. In pairs, they’re far from it. Dare I say, gold material?”

“This after the guy cusses me out on live TV saying I should retire?” I ask incredulously, and everyone shushes me.

“I have two words for you—network kiss-ass,” Lian mutters under her breath, and I grin. Pretty sure that’s three words, but I’m not about to risk the wrath.

Taylor laughs just then in response to whatever Naomi said. “We’ll see about that tonight after the free, Naomi; but I’m excited to see it. Three quad elements, ladies and gentlemen. It’s gonna be a good one.”

Lian clicks it off.

“What a tool. He really almost called me a bitch,” Katya observes. “Lucky thing he caught himself, otherwise I’d finally have a reason to rip off that toupee next time I see him.”

“And barely had a triple axel?” I protest. “Come on. That’s the reason I survived so long, just from the GOE on it.”

“That’s what you’re focused on right now?” Ollie asks incredulously. “Dude! You’re back!”

Nina high-fives me, Juliet whooping and cheering, and Oliver proceeds to crash-tackle me onto the couch, howling some war-cry, and I crane my neck around him to shoot Katya a grin.

We did it , I mouth.

We’re not done yet , she mouths back, but she’s smiling.

“Your turn!” Ollie yells, getting off me to face my partner, who looks understandably terrified. “You got my boy back on track!”

“Uh oh, Hurricane Ollie fast approaching,” I joke, and Katya shrieks as Oliver dives onto her, batting him away, and he scrambles off when she threatens to hit him with her shoe.

All of us are practically crying laughing, and Ollie gets to his feet, punching the air in triumph. “Victory is ours! Onto Moby’s! Who’s paying?”

“Not it,” Nina and I call out simultaneously, and Katya raises her hand.

“I’ll do it. It’s about time I pay up, no?”

Ollie’s jaw drops, probably from the shock of one of us actually agreeing to pay for the cause of his inevitable liver transplant, and I groan. “Katya, you really shouldn’t have done that. Now you’re going to be designated credit card for the next year and a half.”

“He’s speaking from experience,” Juliet chimes in, and Ollie shakes his head vehemently.

“Don’t listen to them. You are my new favorite person. Bryan can go to hell, screw Bryan.”

Katya laughs, and I fake gasp. “First of all, betrayal. Second, wow, sunshine. First my sister, now my best friend?”

Ollie nods emphatically. “If I didn’t have so much Drag Race on my DVR, I’d kiss her right now.”

He ducks out of reach before I can smack him.

“For the record, I was just backing this dumbass up when I was being mean to you before. If I’d gotten to know you, I never would’ve told everyone you were a sociopath with a bad dye job.”

“ Oliver !” I yell, but instead of getting rightfully offended, Katya just raises an eyebrow. “Promise?”

Ollie sticks out a pinkie, and we all start howling with laughter. Nina almost falls off the couch, nearly dragging Jules down with her.

“I should’ve bought you drinks earlier, yes?” Katya finally says when she can get enough air in, and I grin at her.

“Apparently.”

“Why are we still here?” Ollie cries out. “Let’s go get plastered!”

Lian groans. “I’m not seeing any of this. You all better show up tomorrow morning, not hungover,” she adds pointedly, staring right at me.

I throw my hands up. “I don’t know why I’m being targeted right now.”

“Because you have—”

“I do not have the alcohol tolerance of a hamster!”

Ollie drags me off the couch. “Let’s go already!”

“Bye, Lee,” we chorus, and she rolls her eyes, waving us out.

“Yeah, yeah. Be careful! And don’t stay up too late!” she shouts after us, and we all cheer, piling out the door and starting to race down the hallway.

“ I ’m so sorry about him,” I tell her mid-laugh many hours later, the two of us stumbling in the sidewalk as we walk home from Moby’s.

We’ve been deep in debrief post- Oliver’s soliloquy on current US men’s pewter medalist Jordan Hesse, debating whether or not his trash personality made him any less fuckable, and also the Bad Bitch ranking of our entire friend group, with Katya and Ollie obviously tying for first place. I think Katya might be too foggy to recall that I was unanimously voted dead last, and I’m sure as hell not about to remind her.

Katya waves a hand aimlessly. “Noooo, is nothing. Bad bitches have to stick together.”

I can’t help but laugh, and she furrows her brow.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“Nothing, just between the slurring and the accent, you saying those words is extremely funny.”

“I am one!” she protests, her feet dragging slightly, and I roll my eyes, lifting her back upright, catching her purse before it slips off her arm and hooking it on my shoulder, keeping my arms secure around her waist.

“Yeah, yeah…”

“What, you don’t think so?”

“I think you’re a total lightweight, is what I think.”

“I am Russian, how dare you. No such thing as lightweight.” She grabs my face, forcing me to look at her, squeezing my cheeks as she stares at me, eyes round like a puppy’s. “You think I’m not a bad bitch?”

This conversation is surreal, but I know I’m done for if she starts pouting, so I gently pry her hands off my face, draping her arm back over my shoulder. “Yes, I do.”

“You do?”

“You are the baddest bitch,” I tell her, fighting to keep the smile off my face as I see her face light up, then twist into an adorable yawn—woah, adorable ? Jeez, I must be drunker than I thought.

She leans into my chest, and I yank her upright again as she starts to slide down. “Don’t fall asleep on me now, sunshine, I’m not carrying you up to your room.”

“You carry me every day,” she points out, voice muffled by my sweatshirt, and I roll my eyes.

“Exactly. I don’t want to do it in my free time, too.”

She tries to smack me, but it’s half-hearted. She must really be tired if she’s not putting all her effort into inflicting pain on me. I sigh heavily, unwrapping our arms from each other, and she moans.

“Stop complaining. I’ll do it.”

“Yayy,” she mumbles, sticking her arms out expectantly like a little kid, and I bend my knees to get down to her level, scooping her up in my arms and starting up the steps one by one so I don’t accidentally drop her. Both of us are tipsy, and I don’t want any accidents less than eight hours before we drive down to the city.

“The things I do for you…” I sit her on the porch rail so I have a free hand to feel through her bag for the keys, and she leans into me again, mumbling so incomprehensibly I can’t tell whether it’s Russian, English or both.

There’s so much in this tiny purse it’s ridiculous, but I finally dig out the keychain among all the random crap. What is it with girls and their bottomless bags? I stick the key in the lock and jiggle it until it clicks, then push against the door with my shoulder.

I pick Katya back up and carry her across the threshold, pushing the door open with my shoulder. Once we’re inside, I mean, technically I could put her down and make her walk, but she’s already half-asleep. It would be just mean to wake her back up now.

I walk us down the hall through the kitchen and living room past the bath to Lian’s guest room, my old room, where I’m right to assume is where Katya’s been staying. The whole place looks almost exactly the same as I’d left it—though she, unsurprisingly, is a lot neater than sixteen-year-old me was. I can’t even catch a whiff of gym bag. Not a single spare sock out of place, bedspread neatly folded. I lean down so my arm can reach to pull it back without letting her go, and put Katya down, pulling off her shoes.

She moans again when she leaves my arms, and I roll my eyes. “I’ll be right back, I’m just going to get you something so you’re not dead for our flight tomorrow.”

Lian has, thankfully, not done any major re-organizing in the last few years, so I know where to find it. When I return, glass of water and pill in either hand, she already looks knocked out, red hair splayed across the pillow and mouth half-open. I snort when I see the spot of drool on her chin.

The noise makes her eyes flutter, and I walk over, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to her. “Sit up.”

“Nyeet .”

“Yeees,” I mock, sliding an arm under her lower back and lifting her into a sitting position, handing her the pill, which she reluctantly pops, chasing it down with the water. “You really are absolutely impossible, you know that?”

“Mm, you like it,” she says, yawning bigger this time, sliding back down and pulling the bedsheets up to her chin.

I check my phone. 2:43. At this point, I might be as wrecked as Katya tomorrow, and I didn’t even drink four rounds. Thank god I’d had an unexpected stroke of productivity and packed early. “I gotta go now,” I whisper, reaching over to pull a strand of hair out of her mouth.

“Mm-hmm.” She opens her eyes slightly, lifting her hand to pat my cheek absentmindedly. “Solnishko ,” she murmurs drowsily, before her eyes flutter shut and her arm drops back onto the bed.

I have no idea what that means, and I’m too tired to care. I tuck her arm under the sheets and stand up, rubbing at my head and walking over to the door.

“Goodnight,” I whisper, not that she can hear me. Then I close the door, very softly, and I make my way home.

THE NEXT DAY

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—SOMEWHERE IN THE brOOKLYN TUNNEL

I f I'd thought Practice Katya was bad, she has nothing on Travel Katya. Travel Katya is an actual psychopath.

Which shouldn’t have surprised me, really, because I know better than most anyone how much of a control freak she is; and international travel—especially when there’s a major competition lying in wait on the other side—is enough to drive anyone crazy even when they aren’t already predisposed to being a maniac.

And if I’d thought the fact that (for once) we didn’t have to worry about competing once we got there was going to make her chill, I was also sorely mistaken. I could still hear the frantic pacing and bilingual cursing as she tried to figure out how to get a seat change. Meanwhile, I was fulfilling my civic duty as a citizen of The Rest of the State by waxing poetic to anyone who would listen on how overrated New York City is. Although you’re just never gonna get hot dogs as good as those horrible ones street vendors sell out of their carts, right next to the mountains of garbage bags crawling with rats and bacteria. Man. I would love one of those hot dogs right now.

Sadly, there’s no time, because we have three days to prepare for the New Year’s Eve show at Bryant Park we’re here for.

“Do you have the guards?” Katya demands again, rifling through her wallet after checking once again that we have all our papers. I roll my eyes.

“For the millionth time, yes. I have them.”

“Because I handed both of ours to you to put away, and I don’t know if you actually put them away—”

I suppress the urge to shake her until she’s sane, but instead I keep my mouth shut and produce the guards from my bag (mine blue, hers red).

Relief washes over her, but only for a second. “And what about the—”

I lean forward in my seat so that the driver can hear me. “Excuse me, how much longer?”

“ A re you really going to drag me to this?” I groan, and Katya doesn’t reply, instead continues to literally drag me down the sidewalk, yanking me through a mass of tourists and making me nearly trip over a discarded stack of newspapers.

“Slow down!”

My partner finally screeches to a stop. “Here,” she declares, and I drop my shoulders, panting.

“Okay, now can you take your picture so we can go? Lee’s going to kill us if we’re late to rehearsal.”

Katya glares at me. “Okay, first of all, this was Alexandra’s request, so really you should be trying to be a good brother and fulfill it for her.”

“I am being a good brother. I just walked with you all the way to Greenwich Village, like two full miles out of the way—“

“Drama queen!” Katya sings, and I ignore her.

“For one picture, with a street sign —“

“You just don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head in faux disappointment, and I roll my eyes.

“Of course I get it. I’ve lived with a top-one-percent listener for the last fifteen years, a lot of it gets passed through osmosis.”

“Then stop whining and get over there.”

“Okay, okay!” I take a step closer to the sign, then stop when I see Katya starting to cross the street. “Wait, where you going? Don’t you want me to take the picture of you?”

“I’m not posing, you are.”

“I’m what now?”

“Just stand there—move closer,” Katya instructs. “Yes, there. Now pretend to be excited.”

I groan, then put on the biggest, most annoyed smile I can muster, making Katya giggle as she snaps the photos.

“Am I done now?” I plead, and she rolls her eyes.

“Yes, yes, you are done. We can go now if you like.”

“What? No way. We’re getting one of you.”

Katya pauses, then shrugs. “Okay.” She hops back over to where I’m standing, passing me the phone, and I lift it up to try and get the photo, but frown.

“What is it? Is it my hair?” she asks worriedly, lifting a hand to her head, and I shake my head.

“No, you look great, I’m just trying to—“ I take a few steps to the side, tilting the camera, making sure you can read Cornelia Street clearly and trying to get both her, the sign, and the sunset in the background into focus.

“What is taking so long?”

“Shut up, give me a second.”

“Bryan,” she groans, and I scoff.

“Look who’s whining now!” I take one last one, then lower my hands. “Okay, fine, I’m done.”

“Finally.” She bounds back up to me, then snatches the phone back, scrolling through the pictures. “Huh. I’m impressed.”

“I’m flattered by your confidence,” I say, smirking, and she huffs.

“Shut up. No, I’m serious, these are really pretty. I didn’t know you were good with a camera.”

“No, that’s just you,” I say, before I can stop myself.

Katya turns, her mouth in a perfect 'o' of surprise, then closes it and smiles, backlit by the glittering lights of the city, and it feels like someone’s poured a bottle of fizz into my skull. My brain completely disintegrates. She really can’t keep doing this to me.

God, I need someone to smack me upside the head. This is getting ridiculous. I need to go find Ollie when we get back and get him to do it. He’d oblige enthusiastically.

Snap out of it! I do not, instead giving into my impulses. I reach forward and grab her cheek with two fingers, making her yelp.

“What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? Is that a smile ? Are you sick or something?” She tries in vain both not to laugh and to bat me off of her, but I just pinch the other side too, so I’m holding her face, and her smile just stretches even bigger as she puts both of her hands on my shoulders.

“You are so stupid,” she tells me, eyes shining, and that’s when it happens.

That’s when I want to kiss Katya Andreyeva.