His arms were steel around me, his face and his mouth and his whole head over mine and to the side like he could block me and protect me.

“You’re enough. You will always be enough. Hear me?”

But I kept on crying into him, his button-down shirt getting wet beneath my face, and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t help it. I cried like I hadn’t cried… ever.

Because there were a million things wrong with me, and the one thing that wasn’t, was one of the biggest things that disappointed my dad… and everyone else I loved.

Ivan cursed. He hugged me tighter. He cursed some more.

“Jasmine,” he said. “Jasmine, stop. You’re trembling,” he let me know, as if I couldn’t feel it for myself. “You said once in an interview that you skated because it made you feel special. But you’ll always be special. Figure skating or not. Medals or not. Your family loves you. Galina loves you. You think Galina wastes her love on people who don’t deserve it? Lee admires you so much she texts me in her car to tell me how good she thinks you are. You think she feels that way about just anybody? You have more heart in you than anybody I’ve ever met. Your dad loves you too in his own fucked-up way.”

His head dipped down to my ear and he whispered, “And when we win a fucking gold medal, he’s going to be watching you, thinking he couldn’t be prouder of you. He’s going to walk around telling everyone his daughter won a gold medal, and you’re going to know you did it without him. That you did it when so many people didn’t believe in you, even though those people don’t matter. The ones that matter are the ones who have always known what you’re capable of.” He swallowed so loud I heard it. “I believe in you. In us. Regardless of what happens, you will always be the best partner I’ve ever had. You’ll always be the hardest working person I’ve ever known. There will only ever be you.”

I sobbed into him. These fucking tears just purging themselves from me. His affection, his words, his belief were just… too much. They were too everything.

And I was so greedy, I needed them. I needed them like I needed to breath.

“I’d give you every ribbon, trophy, medal, anything at my house or at the LC if it meant something,” he told me. “I’ll give you anything you want if you stop crying.”

But I couldn’t. And I didn’t. Not for every medal in the world could I stop. Not for any and every figure skating honor I’d been dreaming about for half my life, could I have stopped.

I just kept on crying. For my dad. For my mom. For my siblings. For myself.

For not feeling good enough. For not feeling enough. For doing what I wanted to do despite all the noes and the eye rolls and all the things I’d had to give up along the way. All the things I’d lost that I might someday regret more than I already did.

But mostly, I cried because while I didn’t care what most people thought of me, I cared too much about the people whose opinion I did value.

Ivan held me and kept on hugging me the entire time I stood there, letting out things I didn’t even know I had in me. It might have been a couple of minutes, but considering I’d only cried two other times in the last ten years at least, it was probably more like half an hour that we stood outside the restaurant, ignoring the people going in and out. Watching us or not watching us, who the fuck knew.

But he didn’t go anywhere.

When the hiccups weren’t so bad, when I finally began to wind down, and I felt like I could breathe again, one of the forearms draped horizontally across my spine moved. The flat of Ivan’s hand went to the base of my spine and slid upward, making small circles there, one, two, three, four, five, before it made its trek back down and up.

I hated crying. But I didn’t realize I hated being alone more.

And I wasn’t going to overanalyze Ivan being the one bringing me comfort, being the one who understood me better than anyone else in that restaurant.

Slowly, and way more timidly than necessary when there was no sense of personal space between Ivan and me—when he’d seen more of me than any man and touched me more often than anyone else probably ever would, and hugged me more than anyone before him—I wrapped my own arms around his waist and hugged him back.

I didn’t tell him thank you. I figured he would take my hug for what it was. A thank you and a thank you and a bigger thank you that was so large and pure, my mouth couldn’t have done it any justice. It was always my mouth that got me into trouble, but actions couldn’t lie.

In the middle of making a circle with his palm across my shoulder blades, Ivan said—not asked—“You’re all right.”

I nodded against him, the tip of my nose touching the lean, powerful pectoral muscle in front of it. Because I was all right. Because he’d been right about all the things he’d said. And a lot of me knowing I was going to be okay was because he believed in me. Ivan. Someone. Finally.

I sucked in a strangled breath, feeling shitty but not totally pathetic anymore. Some part of my brain tried to tell my nervous system that I should feel embarrassed, but I couldn’t. Not even a little bit. I’d never thought my sister was weak because she cried over the most random shit.

My dad had hurt me.

And baby and adult Jasmine had never known what to do with that.

“You want to leave or you want to go back inside?” he whispered, still rubbing my back.

I didn’t have to think about it as I stood there, not moving a muscle besides keeping my arms around the narrow waist in front of me. And when my voice came out hoarse and strangled, I sure as hell didn’t let myself feel any shame. Maybe part of all this was my fault, but some of it was my dad’s too. “Let’s go back inside.”

Ivan made this amused sound, his face still against the top of my head. “That’s what I thought.”

“It’s already awkward in there, might as well make it more awkward,” I said roughly, not totally feeling it.

The chest beneath my cheek shook, and the next thing I knew, Ivan was leaning back, those strong palms cupping my temples with those long fingers curling around the back of my head. He didn’t blink. He didn’t smile. He just looked me right in the eyes, his expression serious as fuck, and he said, “I might want to kick your ass sometimes, and I might tell you that you suck when you screw up and when you don’t, but you know it’s only because someone needs to keep you in check. But I meant what I said. You’re the best partner I’ve ever had.”

And a hint of a smile, tiny, tiny, tiny, stretched the corners of my mouth.

At least until he kept talking. “But I’m never going to admit that again, so you better remember it for a rainy day, Meatball.”

And just like that, the tiny little baby smile on my face stopped in midgrow.

Ivan gave my head a gentle shake, his own mouth curling open, fully and totally. “And if your dad talks to you like that again, or says some shit like we aren’t real athletes, we’re going to have a problem. I was being nice because he’s your dad.”

I nodded, because it was the only thing I could do right then.

He dropped his hands, his eyes never straying from mine, and I dropped my arms too, leaving an inch of distance between us.

“I will always have your back, you know that,” he stated, sincerity staining his tone.

I nodded again because it was the truth, but also because he had to know I had his back too. Always. Even in a year, when he was skating with someone else. Always.

I didn’t have to say “let’s go inside.” This man knew my body language better than anyone already, so when we both turned toward the doors of the restaurant at the same time, it wasn’t surprising. I wiped at my eyes as he opened the first door for me, and then the second one. Did I know I looked exactly like I’d been crying for close to half an hour? Yup.

And I didn’t give a shit.

When the hostess started to beam at Ivan and me, and then abruptly stopped, I didn’t avoid eye contact. I just looked at her. Chances were my makeup was running, my eyes had to be puffy and red, and my face might have been swollen too. But I kept on walking.

And when Ivan’s hand slipped into mine, for all of two seconds, giving my palm a squeeze before sliding right back out like it hadn’t been there to begin with, I swallowed and kept my head held up just as high.

Sure enough, the awkwardness at the table was noticeable even from a distance. The only person whose mouth was moving was my sister Ruby’s, and from the expression on her face, it didn’t even seem like she knew what she was talking about, but everyone else, including my dad seemed to be staring a hole directly into their plates. I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t make me feel good that I’d ruined dinner.

I hadn’t meant to.