Ignoring that awful, uneasy feeling in my belly, I blinked one more time, steeling myself for her response—I could handle it, I would handle it—as I asked in a steady voice I could be proud of even while my hands got clammy, “You don’t think I can do it anymore?”

Sometimes I regretted how brutally honest my mom and I were with each other. She might mince her words for my older sister, Squirt, and every once in a while she might try and word things more pleasantly for the rest of my siblings, but with me, she never had. At least not as far as I could remember.

If she said yes—

Her head snapped up so sharply, it eased the ache that had instantly built in my chest at the idea that she didn’t think I could do it anymore. “Don’t fish for compliments. You’re better than that.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course you can do it. Nobody’s better than you, don’t act like you don’t know that. Sheesh.”

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.

“What I’m thinking,” she emphasized, still squinting that one and only eye, “is that I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

Umm….

It was my turn to squint at her. “Why?”

She eyed me back. “You said they asked you to be his partner for next season… what does that mean?”

“It means, just for a season.”

That timeless face scrunched up in confusion. “Why only a season?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. All they told me was that Mindy was going to take the season off.” She had always been pretty decent to me. I hoped she was okay.

My mom’s facial expression didn’t change. “So, what happens after that?”

Of course she’d ask. I just barely held in a sigh and picked the most promising part of what I would get from a partnership with Ivan. “They said they’d help me find another partner.”

Her silence was so stiff and fucking weird I couldn’t help but stare at my mom, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

Luckily, she didn’t make me wait long. “Have you talked to Karina about it?”

“No. I haven’t talked to her in a month.” And it wasn’t like I was going to call her to ask her about her brother. What kind of shit would that be? We never talked about Ivan. Plus, we didn’t talk as much as we used to before she’d started college and got busy with school. We still liked each other and cared about each other, but… sometimes life split people up. It had nothing to do with caring about someone less. It just happened. And it wasn’t her fault I hadn’t been as busy as I was used to. Before that, I hadn’t really noticed much how we’d grown apart.

My mom hummed, and her mouth twisted to the opposite side like she was still in deep thought.

I watched her carefully, ignoring the weird feeling in my belly. “You don’t think I should do it?”

She glanced at me and tipped her head to the side, hesitating for a moment. “It’s not that I don’t think you should do it, but I want to make sure they’re not taking advantage of you.”

What?

“I barely made it last year without getting arrested, Grumpy. I don’t think I can handle keeping my hands to myself if somebody else screws around on you,” she explained, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I blinked. “You were just defending him two hours ago.”

She rolled her eyes. “That was before I heard he might be your partner.”

How did that make any sense?

Then it was her turn to blink. “What I want to know is why you didn’t automatically agree to it.”

All I could do was answer with one word. “Because.”

“Because what?”

I shrugged the shoulder closest to her. I didn’t want to tell her my worry about not winning and everything that would come from it, so I kept that part to myself. “I’m working more hours for Matty now, Mom. I’ve made plans with Jojo to go to the gym twice a week even though he half-asses every workout. I’ve made plans with Sebastian. I’m going out rock climbing with Tali once every other week. I don’t want to just back out on them. I don’t want them to think they don’t mean enough to me.” Especially not when they already assumed I was a flake who didn’t care about them, when it was the total opposite.

Mom’s forehead scrunched up, and her face was a little too watchful. “Is that it?”

I lifted my shoulder again, the lies and the truths clotting up my throat, trying to pour out of my mouth.

She didn’t look like she totally believed me, but she didn’t make another comment, when she normally would have. “So, you’re worried about the time aspect of it?”

I swallowed. “I don’t want to go back on my word. I’ve done it enough.” I hadn’t realized how much I missed them—my siblings, her—but I did. I had. It was just easy not to think about what you didn’t have when you had your mind on other things.

A small, sad smile crossed her mouth, but she knew better than to try and baby or coo at me. But the words that came out of her mouth next went totally against the expression on her face. “That sounds like a bunch of BS to me, Grumps, but okay. We can focus on one thing at a time for now.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Talk to Matty about your hours. You weren’t working that many before and he was surviving. Talk to your brothers and your sister. If you start training again, you can still spend time with them, Jasmine. All they want is to be with you, it doesn’t matter what you do together.”

My stomach clenched in frustration, but probably mostly guilt at her words.

“They don’t each need six hours a week from you. They don’t even need three. Just some. Not even every week either, I bet.”

I grit my teeth to keep from wincing, but I wasn’t sure it worked.

She knew what I was thinking and feeling but didn’t give a shit because she kept going. “You can have a life outside of figure skating. You can do anything you want, you know that. You just have to make it work.”

How many times had she said those exact same words to me in the past? A hundred? Thousand?

I swallowed but didn’t shift my gaze. “What are you trying to say?”

She slid me another look. “You know what I’m trying to say. You can do whatever you want in this life, Jasmine. But I want you to be happy. I want you to be appreciated.”

My nose started to sting, but I couldn’t help but hang on to the caution in her voice. “So you don’t think I should do it?”

The woman who had gone to every single competition she’d ever been able to afford, who had always made sure I had a ride to every lesson I’d ever needed to take, who had cheered me on even when I sucked, cocked her head to the side and raised up a shoulder. “I think you should do it, but I don’t think you should sell yourself short. There’s no one else he could ask that’s better than you. Even if it’s only for a year. He’s not doing you a favor by asking. You’re doing him the favor. And if he’s dumb enough to screw this up somehow—” She smiled. “—I’ll be your alibi if something happens to that fancy car of his. I know what it looks like.”

I didn’t want to smile at her offer, but I couldn’t help it.

My mom’s face softened, and she touched my cheek with her fingertips. “I know you miss it.“

Miss it? This swell of emotion, or some shit awfully close to it, made my throat close up, and just like that, I wanted to cry. Me. Wanting to cry. It had been a long time since I’d thought about doing that.

I more than missed it—competing. Figure skating in general for a purpose. For the last year, I’d felt like a part of me had been ripped away without my consent one night while I hadn’t been expecting it. And since then, every night, it was like I waited for it to be returned to me. But it hadn’t been.

And my eyes must have agreed with how much I missed it because they started to burn as I sat there. And if my voice cracked, neither one of us paid attention to it, and I told her the truth that she didn’t need to hear, “I’ve missed it so much.”

That beautiful face fell, and her fingertips turned into her palms as she cupped my cheek. “I want my normal, happy grumpy old woman back,” she said carefully. “So if he tries to do something like that son of a whore….” Mom hooked a thumb out and brought it up to her neck, dragging an imaginary line across it, her smile as weak as the coffee Ben made.

I smiled at her as one tiny tear welled up in my right eye, but fortunately the bastard didn’t jump out and shame me. My voice did sound watery though as I practically croaked, “Have you been watching The Godfather again?”

She raised her red-blonde eyebrows and smiled her creepy, crazy woman smile she usually only brought out around her exes. “What do I always tell you?”

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Besides that. We always do what we gotta do in this family. You’ve always tried harder at everything than any of the rest of your brothers and sisters combined, and I never wanted that for you, but it’s never stopped you from anything. I’d tell you, ‘no, don’t jump on the bed,’ and you’d wrap a sheet around your neck to jump off the roof instead. Maybe you make terrible decisions sometimes—”