Ivan: “What do you think you’re doing? Do you want to get healthy or what? Stop walking around so much.”

Me: [Trying to walk normal—but failing—across his living room with a new brace on] “Leave me alone.”

Ivan: “I’m never going to leave you alone. Come sit your stubborn-ass back down, and I’ll get you whatever you want.”

Chapter 21

I was pretty positive I hadn’t imagined the words coming out of the wonderful doctor’s mouth, but I needed to be sure.

“So… I’m cleared to skate again?” I asked her. Because I had to be sure. I needed to be sure.

The doctor nodded, smiling, looking at me like she understood how much was hanging in the balance and how much her words would mean to me. “You’re as healed as you can be.”

Excitement, relief, and nerves all barreled through me. But I had to ask. Just one more time. “For sure?”

The doctor’s smile grew wider as her eyes slipped to the side briefly before saying, “Yes.”

A hand landed my shoulder, rough, giving it a shake I could feel to my teeth, and I couldn’t help but beaming up at Ivan. He already had his other hand at my side, and I smacked my palm against his, linking my fingers through his and giving him a shake. His head moved forward, his chin landing on my shoulder, cheek to cheek. His chest to part of my back.

“We’ve got this, Meatball,” he said, hugging me, telling me with his body that we were going to be able to do Skate North America, the next competition we—he—had been invited to.

We were going to be able to do it.

We were going to get another chance.

Chapter 22

It was a good thing that no one had told me taking eight weeks off right at the beginning of the season was going to be easy, because it hadn’t been.

It absolutely hadn’t been.

The past two weeks had been the most exhausting two weeks of my life, and that included the month that I had been going back to the LC to work out until midnight. But this time, I hadn’t been alone. I’d had my best friend with me the entire time.

And I had enjoyed every sweaty, grueling, frustrating, painful moment.

Especially right then, as I stared out the window of the van that had picked up Ivan, me, and six other pairs teams with their coaches, to take us to the facility where we would be competing at tomorrow. Relief like I didn’t know I had in me, flooded my lungs, freeing them, as I took in the giant building with banners located around it. SKATE NORTH AMERICA, NOVEMBER 23-26. One of them even had Ivan—by himself—right after landing a jump the year before.

We were here and it was real.

We were ready.

Ivan had been quieter than normal over the last few days, while we’d done as many last-minute corrections as possible back at the LC. We had caught a flight to Lake Placid two days before, just in case the winter weather took a turn for the worst, but it hadn’t. Skate North America only offered one day of official practice, so the past two days, we had just taken advantage of the giant conference room the WSU—World Skating Union—had booked for everyone with the same plans as us.

And when we hadn’t been in the conference room, Ivan, Coach Lee, me, and the Simmons husband and wife team—our choreographers—had taken a taxi trip around, walked the downtown area, visited the Olympic museum, eaten lunch out, and then gone back to our rooms. At least until Ivan had showed up to my room to see what my view was like and we’d ended up ordering takeout and eating in there while we watched a show about cats from hell, and he’d told me about the three cats he’d had up until a year ago, when the last one had passed away from old age.

I didn’t need to tell Ivan that this trip was different from every other trip I’d ever taken before, by myself and with Paul. But I thought he knew. I was excited—and I was nervous for the first time ever—but the excitement overwhelmed the rest.

And we were here. One step closer. One last thirty-minute practice away from the beginning of the end that I was trying so hard not to focus on.

We had just climbed out of the van when Ivan grabbed my hand out of the blue.

I glanced at him, not frowning but wondering what the hell he was doing. It wasn’t like I minded it. I didn’t. I grabbed his hand for random reasons every once in a while. But, I still didn’t know why he was doing it. And it amped up my nerves a kick more.

“What is it?” I asked, when I took in the expression on his face as he turned his body to face mine.

Pulling my hand, he tugged me to the side to let the other teams we had ridden over with pass. We were all in Group B with practice times. Ivan’s breath puffed white in the bitter Michigan air, and I shivered, trying to figure out what the hell was happening and why it had to be happening outside. Those bright blue eyes were focused on my face when the man who had driven me to every physical therapy appointment after he’d barged into my room so many weeks ago said, “I need you to promise me something.”

This was going to be bad, wasn’t it?

“It depends on what it is,” I replied, worrying, trying to rack my brain for whatever the hell was so serious he wanted a promise out of me first.

That perfect face with its perfect skin and structure didn’t sigh or give me an exasperated expression that he usually would have. “Promise me, Jasmine.”

Shit.

“Not before you tell me what it is. I don’t want to break my promise.” I frowned, dread quickly filling my stomach cavity.

Chances were I would probably do whatever he asked but… what if he asked me not to fuck up. Or not to make a scene if he introduced me to the next partner he had lined up, if he didn’t go back to Mindy. We hadn’t talked about the future at all. Not once.

Shit.

Ivan’s eyes roamed my face, slowly. His breathing slowed and his too-calm features, relaxed even more. Then, he sighed, glanced up at the sky for all of a moment and then back down at me with a swallow that made his Adam’s apple bob. “Please, promise me. I’m not asking you for anything you aren’t capable of.”

I must have made a face, because he tugged at the hand he was still holding.

“Promise me, Meatball. You know you can trust me,” he said, not making it a question but a well-known fact.

And he’d be right.

But still, I hated that he was trying to use that against me. I didn’t want to break a promise to him. Not ever. But I also didn’t want to do something I probably wasn’t capable of… like smiling at the person he was going to replace me with in a few months. I glanced away, and it was probably my imagination that the air grew colder by the second. I shivered. “Fine, I promise. What is it?” I asked, hearing the attitude in my voice.

The smile he gave me in response, slow and smirkish, put me at ease a little, but just a little. “Promise me that if you see Paul and Mary, you won’t try to start a fight with him—”

The fuck? That’s what this was about? Paul and Mary?

Get the fuck out. I hadn’t thought about either of those two assholes in months. Not since he’d talked me into doing the photo shoot.

My scoff was so loud, it genuinely aggravated my throat. “Oh come on, that’s what you want me to promise you? You think I’m going to go out of my way to fight with him and risk getting in trouble?”

He blinked, and his hand gave mine a squeeze. “You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say that you should save it up until after the competition, then go for it. We’ll kill them with our scores, and then you can give the knockout punch.”

I opened my mouth, and then I closed it.

Those gray-blue eyes lingered on my face even as his eyebrows went up, and he covered the top of my hand with his other one. “Is that a deal?”

I could only blink before I managed to get out, “What do you think?”

And his smile was just… ugh. “I think Lake Mirror across from the hotel is pretty convenient.”

“You’ll be my alibi?”

Ivan scrunched up his nose. “I know your sisters are here and all, but I thought you’d want me to help out. I’m stronger than they are. We wouldn’t have to leave a trail.”

What I wanted was him forever, but I’d take what I could get.

“Deal,” I said.

He grinned. “One more thing.”

Damn it.

“I want to know because you never told me, but what do you have against Mary McDonald?” he asked. “I want to know why we hate her.”

Why we hate her. Ivan. Fucking Ivan. All I could do was shrug so that I wouldn’t say anything else I had no business sharing. “When we were younger, before I was even in pairs, she used to talk shit about me behind my back. You can ask Karina. Mary didn’t know Karina was my friend, and she talked about my weight, made some really racist, asshole comments about me being half-Filipino, and she was just a bitch in general.”

Ivan blinked. “Did you say anything to her?” The question had just come out of his mouth when he snorted. “That’s a stupid question. Of course you did.”

I tugged on his hand. “You already know I did. I told her the next time she talked about me, I would open a can of whoop-ass on her.”