Chapter Fifty-Five

KATYA

I t's Thursday. The day of the free skate. The biggest day of our lives.

“Grab me tighter,” Bryan says into my ear as we stand around in front of about fifty news crews and maybe fifty times as many people, waiting for the Japanese team to get their scores back.

It takes me a second to process what he’s saying over the screaming in my head, the sound of Tatyana’s threats threatening to tear my skull apart. You’re nothing, suka. Nothing! So he does it for me, taking my hand and squeezing it so tightly between his that I have no choice but to focus on the circulation being cut off in my fingers.

“Is this how you used to feel?” I ask, trying my best to get the words out despite the crushing lack of oxygen in my chest, to keep my smile plastered on.

“I used to throw up before every competition until Lee started shoving antacids down my throat,” Bryan tells me, still with a death grip on my hand that would earn anyone else a swift kick in the knees but, coming from him, is indescribably comforting. “Then I stopped, just because that chalky crap was way worse than the nerves.”

I choke out a laugh. “I did that too. Tatyana encouraged it.”

“I hate her,” Bryan spits. Then his eyes go wide at the same time as mine do. “Oh. Uh. I’m sorry, I know it’s still—”

“I hate her too,” I blurt out, and Bryan lights up, a huge grin splitting his face.

“We hate her!” he yells, shaking our hands in celebration, and I burst out laughing as he cheers and hollers and forces me to jump along with him, and I don’t even notice the weird looks of everyone around us.

“For the record, you and your psycho ex-coach are completely different types of psycho,” Bryan says after we’ve both calmed down, and I raise an eyebrow.

“Um, explain.”

“Hear me out. So, like, everyone used to think you were crazy, right?”

“Um, thank you?”

He snaps a finger in front of my face. “Exactly.”

I roll my eyes, snaking an arm around his waist and leaning into him. “I think you’ve lost your mind, solnishko .”

“Old news, sunshine. Really, though. People call you names because you’re good and you know it. Kinda. We’re still working on the self-appreciation part, but progress. They call her names, because she’s a supervillain and doesn’t bother hiding it.” He slides me a smirk. “Trust me, alright? You’re nothing like her. And you definitely don’t need her. So we’re going to prove that to everyone tonight.”

I exhale heavily. “Thank you. I needed that.”

He squeezes my hand. “I know.”

“No need to gloat, Young.”

“But it’s just so fun !”

I don’t know why I’m grinning back at him. It just encourages his stupidity. “You are insane. I love you.”

Bryan leans down to kiss me on the cheek. “Love you too, my equally insane partner.”

He makes all of this so much more fun.

Lian comes up next to us, clearly out of breath. “I am so sorry, guys. This place is a maze, it took me forever to find a bathroom.” She inhales sharply, before her familiar, stern game face slides into place. “Alright. This is it.”

Bryan and I glance at each other. He grins. “That it is.”

Our coach looks right at us. “I have no doubts in the two of you.”

“None? Not even a little one? An itty-bitty baby-sized doubt?” Bryan jokes, and I elbow him.

“Thank you,” I tell Lian. “And I agree. We’re going to do this, and we’re going to win.”

I’m half-expecting her to tell us to lower our expectations again—which, admittedly, wouldn’t be an unreasonable request—but she doesn’t. Instead, she nods.

“Go kill it. I’ll be waiting in the kiss-and-cry.” Lian looks over at said location, where the scores for the Japanese team are currently flashing onscreen. I don’t look at the number, but they look disappointed. I ignore the sadistic twinge of pleasure and pull in my focus. “Pass me your stuff. You’re on.”

We take off our guards and hand them over, warmup jackets long since discarded, and wait by the door.

“And now, our next skaters…”

I take a deep breath, reaching over and taking my partner’s hand.

“Are we gonna do this, Andreyeva?” Bryan whispers to me, and I look up at him.

We are. I can feel it. “Let’s go kick some ass, Young.”

We skate out.

“From the United States of America, Ekaterina Andreyeva—”

Bryan’s name gets totally drowned out by the sound of the audience erupting, so loud I can literally feel the ice vibrating under us.

“I’m choosing not to take it personally,” he says into my ear, the grin palpable in his voice, and I giggle from sheer nerves. Because holy shit.

“ Idi , Katya!” they’re yelling, and this is probably a first, Russian spectators cheering maniacally for an American team. I guess we just keep making waves.

Because by the time we’ve gotten off the ice, we’ve broken our own world record.

W e sit in the waiting room for the current podium-holders along with the Japanese and Canadian teams.

It’s almost worse than when you go last, because the whole time, you have a sinking feeling in your stomach that, at any moment, you’ll be kicked out of your seat to make room for the person who just outdid you. Especially when you come in second after the short program, so the only one with a real shot at beating you hasn’t gone yet.

But at least I’m not sitting here alone anymore—paranoid, terrified, constantly glancing behind my back. I want to win, of course; I want to stay sitting here.

But there’s time. There’s always time.

“Yasha,” I say urgently, and he whips his head to look at me, blue eyes wide in anticipation.

Like it’s the first time, I see how pretty his lashes are. How pretty he is. Every time I look at him, it’s like the first time I did, at the flushed boy with the messy curls bursting through the office door. Only now, I know him. And he knows me.

I smile, reaching for him. “No matter what happens, I’m proud of us. Really, really proud.”

He smiles back, and all I see is sunlight. He takes my hand, squeezing it. “I’m proud of us, too.”

“The scores for Sofia Magomedova and Aleksander Sorokin.”

We tighten our grip on each other’s hands, take a deep breath—