I smiled to myself as I read through the messages slowly, rubbing the palm of my hand over the top of each of my hands. I didn’t need to look down to know that the red R and black L I’d been reapplying every day, were still there. I hadn’t really been scrubbing my hands that hard. It was probably going to be months until I could wash them off completely. I had thought about just settling for forming my fingers into L-shapes to tell me which side was what, but it took too long, so Sharpie colors and letters it was going to be… for a while.

I typed out a reply, because knowing them, if I didn’t, the next time I looked at my phone, I’d have an endless column of JASMINE on there until they heard from me.

That didn’t mean my response had to be what they wanted.

Me: Who is Ivan Lukov?

“What are you smiling at, Meatball?”

My shoulders went tense for a second before I reminded myself that this idiot wasn’t worth getting all riled up over. At least not where he could see me react. He didn’t deserve that. Setting my phone next to my knee, I glanced around to see that Coach Lee wasn’t in the room. Huh. I leaned forward, back straight, soles of my socked feet pressed together. I didn’t even give him the benefit of glancing over as he lowered himself beside me for some reason.

“Just checking out pictures of you naked.” I leaned into a stretch even more as my palms walked me forward until my forehead hovered just an inch above the floor. “I needed a laugh.”

His “Hmm” made me smile into the mat, and thankfully he couldn’t see it. “You know what I look at when I need a laugh?”

The smile on my face immediately disappeared. I didn’t reply to his dumbass question.

“Videos of your programs with what’s-his-face,” he answered his own question.

Ass. I turned my head to the side just a little so I could peek at where he was sitting beside me. “I have a video bookmarked of you falling doing a death spiral at the Cup of Russia last year.”

He tried to hide his hiss, but I recognized it immediately. I couldn’t help but smile again. I turned my head back to where it was and shared my smile with the mats. But I should have expected him to have a comeback almost immediately. “You watched that live at home, huh?”

I turned my head to glare over at where he was sitting a few feet away, his legs extended straight out. His head was turned toward me. Of course it was. He was always fucking looking at me, trying to get a reaction. “I was. Did they give you anything for coming in fourth that day or…?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “They didn’t have anything to give me for fourth place. They said something about how they ran out of ribbons after you decided to switch over to pairs.”

I blinked.

He blinked.

Be better. Be better. Be better.

“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” he muttered.

“This next year isn’t going to come fast enough,” I whispered more to myself but a little to him too because why the fuck not?

The corners of his mouth quirked into a smug smile that really made my palm itch. “I’m going to count down the days, Meatball. Believe me. One year, and I’ll probably pay someone to take you so I can get rid of you.”

Something ugly and maybe even hurt bubbled up in my chest for all of a second before I squashed it. One year. I knew it. He knew it. That had been part of it. It wasn’t a surprise. “In a year, I’ll pull my voodoo doll of you out of its box and go back to sticking needles into your black heart.”

His eyelids hung low over his eyes. “The one I have of you is still sitting on my nightstand.”

“I hope your hair falls out.”

He blinked. “I hope—”

“What is wrong with both of you?” Coach Lee hissed from behind us. I tipped my head over a little more to catch her shaking her head as she stood between us, watching us with almost a horrified expression on her face. “I’m a few minutes late and you….” She closed her eyes and shook her head before reopening them. “You know what? Ignore me. I told you not to talk about each other during practice, but you can do whatever you want as long as we aren’t training.”

Neither one of us said a word, but our eyes met.

And I mouthed you suck.

And he whispered back with his pale pink mouth, you suck more.

There was another sigh, but it sounded even more resigned. “My eyes work. I can read your lips. Both of them.”

I didn’t ignore Coach Lee, but all I’d promised was not to say anything. So I didn’t worry about it when I moved my lips at Ivan again. Eat shit.

His tongue tapped at the inside of his cheek. Then he opened his mouth. I’m looking at it.

“Whatever we have to do to make this work, remember?” Coach Lee emphasized, obviously still watching us.

Ivan and I were both staring at each other as we muttered, “Uh-huh.”

Whatever we have to do were infamous words to live by.

It wasn’t like I was going to regret them but…

Goddamn.

It was going to be close.

“Again!”

“Again!”

“Again!”

“No! Again!”

If I never heard the word “again” in my life, I would be totally fine with it. Totally fucking fine. Because starting over from what felt like scratch—it wasn’t really scratch but it seemed like it—was a giant pain in the ass.

Mostly because it was Ivan I was doing this with. Ivan, who I could tell was getting just as aggravated.

It wasn’t until Coach Lee dropped her head back and sighed at the ceiling that she finally changed her words. “Okay, that’s it for the day. Your speeds stopped getting better half an hour ago, and your timing has only slightly improved. We’re wasting time at this point. It isn’t going to get any better.” She shot us both a look that was pretty damn accusing, like she didn’t understand why we were running out of energy.

I wasn’t used to this anymore. This basic exhaustive shit that I hadn’t done since I’d first gotten paired up with The Piece of Shit four years ago.

Fuck me.

Despite the ice bath I’d been taking every night for the last week, everything still hurt. My ribs. My entire abdomen. My shoulders. My wrists. My quads. My back.

The only thing that didn’t hurt was my ass, and that was only because my butt cheeks hadn’t become unused to falling on them. That, and one of them had less nerves still working than the other one did. I was pretty sure I’d killed those nerves while I was trying to work on my 3Ls—my triple Lutzes—back in the day.

I’d been icing my lower back multiple times a day, icing my knees, my hips… everything. It was only a matter of time, I knew that, until I got used to it again. At least I sure as hell hoped so. There was a reason the younger girls quit figure skating before they were legal. Your body’s ability to recuperate took longer and longer every year you got older, and the fact that I’d done more damage to it in twenty-six years than most people would do in double that amount, didn’t help.

Her fingertips were rubbing at the bridge of her nose when she sighed and said in a low voice, “Let’s go over a few things before this afternoon, since we still have time.”

Was she in a bad mood or…?

“Let’s meet in the office in fifteen,” Coach Lee called out, huffing in exasperation as she turned around and walked away.

Yeah, I wasn’t imagining it.

I mean, I didn’t think practice had gone that bad. It hadn’t been the best one yet, but it hadn’t been the worst either. Things had gotten better with every day that went on.

Ivan’s demeanor hadn’t changed, and neither had mine. We didn’t talk to each other unless we were talking to Coach Lee at the same time. We didn’t argue when she gave us instructions or when one of us gave the other a pointer….

It took everything in me to keep my mouth shut, and I bet it took him the same amount of effort too.

But we did it. Because we had to.

That and she hadn’t left us alone again.

“Well then,” I muttered to myself, rubbing at my hip bone with the palm of my hand to ease the ache there from the position I’d been holding doing camelback spins—where you pretty much contorted your body to form a tear drop shape by pulling the heel of your boot toward the back of your head. It had been a hell of a lot easier when I’d been sixteen. Now… it was harder, and that was bullshit.

Without waiting for Ivan, or even turning around to look at what he was doing at that point, I skated to the exit to the rink, put my skate guards on, and then headed toward the changing rooms so I could get dressed and get this meeting over with. Maybe I’d get out of here earlier than normal and could squeeze in another table at work. I made it to my locker, ignored the icon blinking on my phone until later, rubbed myself down with a baby wipe like I’d been having to do every day now that I didn’t have time to shower, got dressed, and put on just enough makeup to look decent.