Chapter Fifty-Three

KATYA

“ W e've got a surprise for you,” Bryan says, doing an extremely poor job of fighting the smile on his face.

“Don’t tell me. You made a cake with our faces on it?”

“ Not quite.” The sound of a male voice behind me saying those words makes my eyes go round. Oh my god . I’d know that cigarette voice anywhere. I whip around, and standing right there is my family. My mother and grandfather and Mikhail.

“Mama!” I shriek, and tackle her with a hug, and I can hear her laugh despite the fact that I’ve buried my face in her curls and I can’t see much of anything.

“Ay, Katya, you’re going to choke me to death,” she exclaims, still laughing, and I don’t even care that I’m crying a little bit, because my heart feels like it’s about to burst. They’re here. They came.

“What are we, chopped liver, malyshka ?” Dedushka protests, and I immediately rush over, pulling him in.

“How—why—” I pull away, lost for words, still in shock, and Misha grins.

“We caught a flight. Duh.”

I’m not in too much shock to smack him, so I do. “Durak . Don’t be a fool. Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you were coming?”

“Well, that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?” Mama protests, and Dedushka barks a laugh.

“We had to make sure you were going to win before we decided, obviously . We wouldn’t fly ten hours otherwise.”

I huff, and he and Misha both howl with laughter. “I don’t know why I missed you so much. All you do is bully me.” My face breaks back out in a smile anyway. “ Thank you for coming.” I’m crying again, like a fool, but then I laugh and dive back in for another hug. “Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re here.”

Mama strokes the back of my head, pressing a kiss to my forehead and cupping my face with her hands, smiling at me, and it’s like looking into a mirror. This woman is everything I ever want to be. “ Ya tebya lyublyu. I love you so much, Katenka. I’ve always been so proud of you. I hope you know that.”

I hiccup, just a tiny bit, and I let the tears stream down my face, but I’m smiling so big I barely notice. She’s proud of me. “I love you too.”

Dedushka ruffles the top of my head, or tries to, because I have about a pound of gel matted in my hair. “Lord, what did you do to yourself? It’s hard as a rock!”

Mama and I make eye contact, then double over in laughter all over again.

“Yes, yes, make fun of the old man.” Dedushka points a finger at me. “Just because you’re now American national champion does not mean you’re too good for your grandfather.”

I grin at him. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Well.” He’s clearly pleased, not that he’d say so. He adjusts the collar of his button-down before producing a bouquet of flowers out from nowhere. “Here. I nearly forgot. Congratulations, moya svezda.”

That nickname used to make me sick with worry. It always reminded me of the debt I owed my family, to shine for them, make them proud. I thought I’d never be able to repay them, so I threw myself into what I thought would let me at least try.

But they don’t want me to succeed for the wrong reasons. They don’t want their love to be a burden. My grandfather doesn’t call me his star because of the gold medals.

I take the flowers. Crocuses . “You remembered!”

“Of course I remembered. I have yet to develop dementia. Sharp as a pin,” he says, tapping at his temple with eyebrows raised, as if daring us to say otherwise. “It’s all the crosswords. Well, that and the water aerobics. Isn’t that right, Mikhail?”

Misha doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes, of course.”

My mother rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “Good lord. Let’s get you out of here before someone calls the cops on you, old man.” She takes him by the arm, ignoring his huffing and puffing. I have to stifle another bout of laughter seeing her scold him like she would a rowdy toddler. “Anyway. Katya, lyubimiy , we must go to the hotel. We got the front desk to hold our bags, but only temporarily.”

Dedushka rolls his eyes. “That poor bellhop. Your mother packed her entire closet for a single trip.”

“Says the one who packed his entire bookshelf,” Mama counters, before winking at me. “We’ll be here all week. You’re going to be quite sick of us by the time we leave.”

Not a chance.

Mama hugs me again, the scent of violets everywhere, then turns to Bryan, who’s been awkwardly watching. “Don’t think you were getting away from me, mal’chik . I have yet to forget about you.”

I turn to him, watching confusion and surprise flick across his face before he tries to clamp down the excitement. “Oh, um, thank you—” He’s cut off by my mother tackling him, and I hide a smile.

“You’re scaring the boy, Lyudmila, let him breathe,” Dedushka says, trying not to laugh, and she begrudgingly lets go. Bryan’s redder than a fire engine, but he can’t hide how happy that just made him.

Mama takes both our hands. “So proud of you,” she repeats. I blow her a kiss as she and my grandfather turn and walk away, chattering in Russian.

“I love your mom,” Bryan blurts out, still blushing, and I bump his shoulder.

“I can agree with you on that one.”

Mikhail hasn’t gone with them. Bryan glances between us, then back at me. “I’m gonna go over there,” he says, motioning to the others. Bless him .

“What is it?” I ask Mikhail finally after he’s gone, switching to Russian. Right now he’s looking like a guilty eight-year-old, shuffling with his hands in his pockets.

“I need to apologize, Katya. I’m sorry I let all of that happen.” He doesn’t need to explain what he means.

Bryan stiffens in the corner of my eye, even though he doesn’t turn around. Even if he doesn’t understand anything we’re saying, I’m sure he gets the gist of it, and he’s so protective, it makes me ludicrously grateful for him. I was expecting Misha to say something, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Still, the reminder comes like someone pressing on a bruise—and yet I can hardly hold it against him.

I sigh. “It’s not your fault, Mikhail, really. You did what you could.”

He shakes his head. “There isn’t a defense for it. I could’ve called it out, and I didn’t, and I could’ve left, and I didn’t.” He takes a breath. “So I’m doing it now.”

What ? “You’re…leaving Tatyana?”

“It’s time. Long overdue, actually.”

“But—” My mind rushes through all the reasons he can’t leave before it finally screeches to a halt. No. This is good. This is great . He’s been subject to Tatyana for far too long. “Wait, that’s amazing, but where are you going to go? To Osipov? Savchenko? Vasiliev? Not Smirnova.”

Mikhail actually scoffs, the pretentious little shit. “Of course not Smirnova. I have standards.”

I’m trying to wrack my brain for anyone else. “Who, then? Unless…” I trail off, and he starts grinning. “Are you starting your own camp?”

He glances over at Lian, who fights a smile, and his grin grows even bigger. “Not exactly.”

I stare at them, my eyes flicking back and forth. If he’s pulling my leg, I’m going to kill him. “Are you serious?”

“ Nyet , Katyusha, I’m lying. What kind of question is that?”

I smack him automatically, before it finally sinks in that oh my god this is really happening , and I start shrieking at the top of my lungs and tackle him with a hug. “You jerk! How did you not tell me?”

“I’m telling you now, stupid!” he laughs, spinning me around, and I’m squealing like a little girl.

“You’re coming to New York!”

“And I think some of the others might be, too. But not if you keep acting this insane,” Mikhail warns, and he cranes his neck to look over at Bryan, switching back to English. “I don’t know how you deal with this every day. It’s been so much more peaceful without her around.”

Bryan turns around, giving up pretending he’s not eavesdropping anymore, looking right at me. “Believe me, Kuzmin. I’d much rather have no peace than the alternative.”

He’s too smooth for his own good. But I could care less. It’s more than enough to make me free Misha and run back to my partner, who lets out a surprised oomph as I pull him into a kiss. He recovers quickly, smiling against my mouth like an idiot, and he can’t help himself, he just starts laughing.

“Pinch me?” he says, and I burst into idiotic giggles.

“Yasha, we’re both delusional, but I don’t think even we could make this up.”

“Well, if I’m dreaming, then I hope I turned off my alarm,” he says, that crooked sunshine grin of his shining full force. I was right. It really is going to be the death of me.

“You’re an idiot,” I tell him, not even bothering to fight the spread of the huge smile on my own face, and he nods his head in agreement before pulling me back in.

This might be the best day of my life.

T he medals ceremony follows shortly after.

It feels so unreal that I can’t help but feel like I’m dreaming, even though I made fun of Bryan for saying the same thing earlier. I can’t stop smiling, and the audience is full of people who wanted us to win, and Bryan’s here next to me holding my hand after he bashed my face with his bouquet, and I have a gold medal around my neck for the first time in ages.

I feel so relieved. I feel so happy .

Because we did it. We won Nationals. We proved everyone wrong. And we’re officially representing the United States at the Helsinki Winter Games two weeks from right this very moment.

“Hey, I don’t think this is real gold,” Bryan garbles around the medal he has in his mouth, then spits it out, gagging. “God, that tastes disgusting.”

“That’s what’s disgusting?” I ask in disbelief, but I couldn’t stop smiling even if I tried. “ Bryan ,” I whisper, eyes wide, and he immediately stops short, breaking into the biggest, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.

“We did it, sunshine,” he whispers back. “Thank you.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” I tell him truthfully. “But you’re still a mudak.” Also true.

“But you love me,” he points out.

Even more true. Who wouldn’t love him? Sometimes I marvel at how he is so impossibly easy to love. Sometimes I think everyone he meets must fall a little bit in love with him. My solnishko . Pure sunshine.

I try to fight the growing smile on my face, and fail miserably. “What makes you think I care about you?”

Bryan throws his head back and just laughs , that gorgeous, gorgeous laugh, and he pulls me into a hug, wrapping his arms just above my shoulders because he’s so annoyingly tall.

“Good question,” he says into my ear, and I can hear the grin in his voice even before he drops his arms to dip me so deeply my head grazes the floor, then kisses me to the point that everyone in the audience screams in delight. He picks me up off my feet into the air, whooping and laughing.

“We’re going to the fucking Olympics!”