6. Nadia

Nadia

" N o! Absolutely not!"

The rest of our team – three official members and two alternates – looked enthralled as they watched Anna make the worst mistake a gymnast could make: talking back to Ekaterina Ivanov-Johnson.

The women's coach for the U.S. gymnastics team was in her early fifties, although you'd never know it. She was still as slim and strong as she'd been in her youth, thanks to good genetics and years of disciplined workouts even after she'd officially retired from competition. Her hair was dyed a brassy platinum blonde, cut short in a cute pixie cut that brought out her sharp cheekbones and intense dark eyes.

In her competition days, Ekaterina instilled fear in everyone she went up against. The Russian who now called America her home was hard as nails, strong as an ox, and appeared to only have two emotions: focused and angry. Right now, she was angry. Very angry.

She didn't yell though, instead her voice got colder and firmer, as if she was an angry robot, and her accent got more pronounced. Her eyes were flashing with fury, and her face was so red I was afraid she might stroke out.

"Anna Parker." She always called her athletes by both our first and last names. "Are you defying me?"

One of my teammates gulped so loudly behind me I could hear her. Ekaterina was terrifying on a good day. Right now she looked like she was fixing to murder Anna slowly and painfully before feeding her to the pack of Siberian huskies that the coach and her husband kept on their large estate in Vermont.

"Coach," I said softly, putting my hands out in supplication so she wouldn't murder me too. "You may have noticed that, for some strange reason, Anna seems to hate me. And if I'm being totally honest with you, I'm not very fond of her either. We all need to focus on one thing: winning the gold. If you force us to share a room, it will distract both of us from that important goal."

"You. Will. Share!" Ekaterina said firmly. "You idiots have embarrassed this team and the U.S.A. Your shouting match on the plane is all over social media. The French are snickering about angry Americans with no class. So, you will share a room. You will learn to be friends. And you will learn to work together to help this team win. If not…" she spread her arms wide and gave us a glare that was so terrifying that I caught my breath, "I have two alternates here that I can give your spots on the team. Now go to your room and get out of my sight!"

I'm not ashamed to admit that I scurried into the room we'd been assigned without another word, Anna hot on my heels. As the door closed behind us, it felt like the door of a jail cell. And maybe it was, because sharing a room with Anna was going to be torture.

It was a tiny room with gray cinderblock walls and one window that faced the building across the way. Two beds, two small tables, and a couple of hooks on the wall was all that could fit in the space. It wasn't exactly a five star hotel. There wasn't even a closet.

Tossing my bag on one of the beds, I slumped down and put my head in my hands. Of all the people to get stuck with, it had to be Anna Parker. She'd taken an instant dislike to me the first time we met and her acrimony for me had just grown over the years. Every time our paths crossed, she seemed to hate me more. And I had no idea why. I'd never done a thing to her.

Anna was, in a word, a bully. I also might label her another word that started with a ‘B' but I'd always believed you should kill a person with kindness. After growing up with two people who made being unpleasant an art form, I'd learned a thing or two about dealing with bullies. So I tried to be nice to Anna, tried to befriend her, but her nasty attitude had just made me hate her right back.

I had a reputation to protect, so I'd resisted telling her what I thought about her and her shitty attitude. Instead, whenever I saw her I was overly sweet and overly cheerful, mostly because I could see that it annoyed the shit out of her. And that entertained me.

Until today, when she cracked me in the head and made me lose my temper. I was hungry and tired and the man next to me had grabby hands and an inability to shut up.

So I'd lost it. But our behavior on the plane was unacceptable, and I didn't blame Coach Ekaterina for being angry with us. And the coach was too smart for me to sweet talk my way out of this mess.

No, Anna and I were on the same team, like it or not, and we needed to learn how to get along and work together. Somehow.

"What the shit?"

I looked up to see what Anna was bitching about now. She'd pulled her mattress off to reveal what looked like a giant box.

"Oh no!" I said, getting up to check it out. "They bought the anti-sex cardboard bed frames again."

The cardboard bed frames had first made an appearance during the Games in Tokyo, and there had been so much blowback from the athletes I thought for sure they'd never be seen again. I was all for sustainability, but I also wanted a bed that wasn't going to dissolve if it got wet.

"The joke's on them," Anna said smugly. "I've had sex on way worse surfaces than this."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course you did."

"Let me guess," she said as she replaced her mattress. "You have a boring middle aged boyfriend who only fucks you in missionary on a bed, so you think that's how sex should be."

"Wrong. As usual," I snapped.

Anna plopped on the bed, trying to bounce up and down and finding very little give in the flimsy mattress below her.

"Ah, so you're a virgin. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You give off those repressed vibes for sure."

She looked so smug I just wanted to punch her in the face. And for the record, I'd never punched anyone in my life.

"I guess it depends what you mean by a virgin," I said, going back to my side of the room to start unpacking my stuff. Not that there was anywhere to put it, but at least it kept my hands busy.

"There's usually no disagreement about what a person means when they say virgin," she countered.

"If you're asking me if I've ever slept with a man, the answer is no. If you're asking me if I've had sex, the answer is yes."

I looked over my shoulder in just enough time to see her jaw drop open. I'd surprised her. Good.

"Are you trying to tell me that you're a lesbian?" she asked suspiciously. "Or are we talking about you kissing some sorority girl in college when you were both drunk?"

It was well known in gymnastics circles that Anna was a lesbian – and a slutty one at that. I was pretty sure she'd slept with every lesbian and bisexual gymnast in the country. And their coaches too.

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," I said sarcastically. "I am a lesbian. A person who dates women. A sapphic sister, get it?"

Anna stalked towards me, a little smile on her face. She was classically beautiful, with dark brown hair, expressive brown eyes, full sensuous lips, sharp cheekbones, and the cutest little nose. If her personality wasn't so terrible, I'd find her quite attractive.

"I guess you must be a pillow princess then, huh?" Anna mocked. "Do you like to just lay there and let the other woman do all the work?"

"I'll have you know I like to be in charge during sex!" I snapped as my temper rose again.

"Yeah, sure you do, Princess."

I whipped out a long scarf I'd brought in case we went out someplace nice for dinner after the Games.

"How about I tie you to the headboard and make you beg to come?"

She rolled her eyes and stalked away, still not believing me.

"How about you kiss my ass?" she sniped.

"I'd rather spank it first."