Chapter 17 #2
“I really hope so.” Dmitrii gave him a quick smile as he got up onto his skates, making sure that he had them laced right and they felt good.
Still with that smile, he walked across the mats to reach the gate to the ice.
This time there hadn’t been the same hesitation to get his skates on or to step onto the ice.
Tyler had been gone for a few days, so he had missed so many improvements.
Dmitrii’s confidence had been growing each day.
Every session he had with Dr. Aubrey focused on how much more confident he was.
He skated around the rink as he warmed up before he got instructions from his coaches.
This was familiar. The feel of the ice under his blades, the chill of the air, the hum of the air conditioning – all of this was so familiar.
Practice started with some basic edgework. The fluidity was slowly returning. He didn’t look like someone just learning to skate anymore. His pre-accident grace wasn’t back, but this was such an improvement.
Dmitrii knew Tyler was watching him. That fact, strangely, didn’t make him more self-conscious. If anything, it made him feel a little better. Once he had warmed up, he skated back to the coaches to see what they wanted. He wasn’t sure if it would be jumps, but would probably be jumps.
Coach Truskel had all of her focus on him as she tried not to miss even the smallest detail of how he was performing on the ice. “Okay, your edgework and transitions are all looking so much better. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good?” He tried to give a smile. Here, it seemed people were always expecting a smile, so he tried.
“I want to run you through your free skate again. Your doctor said that having a comparison, now that it’s been about a week, might be good.”
Dmitrii was nodding. This was the first program Tyler had seen in person, even if the program had been an absolute disaster. He was certain he was doing better, even if it had only been a week. “I’m ready.”
As Coach Truskel and Coach Williamson skated over to the gate to start his music, Dmitrii tried to clear his head. He could do this.
Waiting for the music to start, he held his starting pose as if he were in some sort of fancy costume instead of old leggings and a T-shirt.
He looked up at the ceiling and saw the wrong nation’s flag hanging there.
As the first notes sounded, he moved into the beginning steps of the program.
With one hand at the small of his back and the other extended, Dmitrii moved into the step sequence as he began a waltz with an invisible partner.
His edges were sharp and his mind clear as he built up speed from the step sequence.
Dmitrii knew he could just mark the jumps, but he had to push himself.
Compared to his skating before the accident, it wasn’t much.
The double Toe was clean, and his transition into the double Salchow was almost exactly how he’d have done it when those jumps were both quad attempts.
His spin was better, more fluid and faster.
As he exited the spin, he built up his speed while maintaining the illusion of performing a waltz.
His posture remained straight, not rigid, but formal.
Having skated in Russia, dance training had been mandated from such an early age.
As he moved through the program, his longest combination jump loomed closer and closer.
If he were actually competing, the jump would be one of his highest-point elements.
For a foolish moment, he actually considered seeing if he could manage all the rotations he could do before the accident.
Instead, he only did the jumps as doubles (a double Flip, Euler, double Salchow), but he landed them near perfectly.
Just one more jump and then the camel spin.
The straightness of the lines for that spin matched so perfectly with the formal waltz feel of the entire program.
This program had been choreographed with him as Prince Charming skating across the ice with his invisible Cinderella.
His mind kept returning to Tyler when he should have been concentrating on his skating.
He knew how much potential this program had, but he didn’t want to be dancing with some Cinderella – not with Tyler right there.
Distracted, he launched himself into his triple Axel.
He was already in the air before realizing he had taken off as if this would be a triple.
There was no way that Dmitrii was ready for that jump.
He hadn’t practiced it. He wasn’t even ready for a double, and as he tried to correct in the air, he felt his heart race and his vision darken.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not in front of Tyler.
Somehow he landed, his pick digging in too hard and his free leg spinning much too fast as he ended up with a hand down on the ice and his skates both lodged in the ice by their toe-picks. He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t panic. No, he had to focus. One sound, his music, as Prokofiev’s composition played on. One taste, the cherry on his lips. One touch, the way Tyler’s lips had felt – no, that wasn’t now, but he wished it was.
Dmitrii straightened. He was behind in his music now, but he continued with the program.
Picking up where he should be in his choreography, he continued through the program as if his heart wasn’t racing and his limbs weren’t sending prickling electricity through his body.
Even though he had missed a jump combination, he still had time.
He could do this. He exited his choreography section a measure early, knowing he could make a quick on-the-fly change from a Toe-Loop to a Toe-Loop combination and then continue into his normal program with a Lutz-Toe before taking on a standalone Lutz jump.
That would still be a valid jump layout.
It had been messy, but as he entered his final spin in a much less energetic leap than he was capable of, he realized that was actually his first program since the accident with all the required elements.
It was a mess, and he had almost had a full panic attack in the middle of it, but it had been a complete program.
Dmitrii felt shaky as he skated over to where Coach Truskel was already moving towards him. She couldn’t hide her concern. “Are you okay?”
“Da.” He wasn’t completely aware of everything, but he felt her reach out and take a hold of his arm to guide him over to the boards along the edge of the rink.
Tyler was right there with a bottle of water, the worry the man was feeling crystal clear on his face. Coach Williamson reached out to check the wrist Dmitrii had landed on when he had almost fallen on the unplanned triple Axel.
As he was slowly coming back to reality, Dmitrii gently took the water from Tyler, touching the man’s hand a little more than necessary. “I did it.”
“You did.” Coach Truskel agreed.
Coach Williamson was the one to say it. “You tried to do a triple Axel.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I was just … that’s how the program goes, and I was going up before I realized and everything started to just black out but I landed it.
” Yes, it had been landed technically as a ‘fall’ since he had completely stopped and not just a ‘hand down’.
But it had been landed. Maybe it would have even been downgraded, maybe just marked as under rotated, but it was clear what the intention had been.
“You kept it together though.” Tyler’s words were soft as he said them, and only then did the coaches realize Tyler had come running over as well.
“Thanks. I … I just feel drained.”
“If you’re not up for dinner…”
“No, I think I’ll be fine.” Suddenly Dmitrii’s eyes widened as he looked from one coach to the other, realizing they were right there.
He tried to cover up what he said, but the words were much too fast to be believable.
“Umm, Tyler knows a restaurant, and he thought I’d like it, so he’s being a good host and taking me …
” Dmitrii trailed off. He had only made that worse.
Any chance of playing this off as two guys grabbing some food was gone.
“It’s fine.” Coach Truskel’s voice was soft as she smiled at him. “I think that’s as far as we should push on the ice today. I want to add some off-ice work tomorrow, so be here an hour earlier. You’re good for today though.” Then she looked at Tyler. “Keep an eye on him, okay?”
“Of course, Coach.” It was nearly impossible for Tyler’s smile to get wider than it was as he reached out to take Dmitrii’s arm to help him off the ice and to a bench.
He didn’t wait at all; instead, he dropped to a knee to start untying Dmitri’s skates for him.
“We’re a little early, but I had a really great idea of something to do before? ”
Dmitrii smiled as he looked at Tyler. Yes, both of the coaches could see all of this, but Tyler was being so sweet that there was no way that Dmitrii was going to stop him. “Maybe a little fresh air first?”
“I’ll happily play nurse.” Then Tyler called out to both coaches, saying he’d see them tomorrow before leading Dmitrii out of the arena and over to his car.
The second they left the air-conditioned rink, they were both hit with how hot the day was.
Without a cloud in the sky, the sun beat down on the both of them as they made their way to the car.
The second Dmitrii sat down in the passenger seat, he felt the heat from the black vinyl through his leggings.
“Oh shit, I was going to change. I brought jeans and a nicer T-shirt.”
“It’s okay. How about I take the long way to your hotel and we stop there so you have a chance to change?” As Tyler turned the air conditioning onto max, he reached over to place a hand on Dmitrii’s thigh. “You were amazing today.”
“Thank you.” He sighed as he turned to look at Tyler. Damn, that man was gorgeous. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you being so nice to me though.”
“I like being nice to you. You don’t take it for granted.” He leaned over to press a kiss to Dmitrii’s cheek. It was just a quick peck before he shifted the car out of park and drove out of the parking lot.
Dmitrii let himself fall into silence as he watched Tyler. This was so nice. The car was quickly cooling down, and the day was absolutely beautiful. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“This is going to sound weird.” That did not stop Dmitrii from explaining.
“Two therapists ago, I was taught this way of coming out of a panic attack where you try to ground all your senses. So think of one thing that you can touch, and one thing you can smell, and one thing you can hear, and you know, like that.”
“That actually kind of really makes sense?”
“So that’s why the cherry lip balm, so I always have a taste that I can focus on.”
“I like that. Plus, I think it tastes good too.” As he drove, his hand moved back to Dmitrii’s thigh, just resting there as he kept contact.
“Well, today for touch, the first thing my mind did was the memory of kissing you, and I was just … this sounds so stupid.”
“No, it does not sound stupid. Stop being so hard on yourself. It sounds sweet. So you thought about kissing me?” Tyler was clearly making no effort to hide how happy that made him.
Dmitrii felt himself blush at that. “And, well, it reminded me that you were watching, so I kept doing my program because I wanted to show you I had improved.”
“That is not at all stupid. That is one of the sweetest things I have heard. The takeoff of that Axel was really nice. I … I saw the moment you pulled back the jump, and I was so worried you were going to get hurt again.”
“Normally, I am good at falling without hurting myself too badly. Well, most of the time I am pretty good at falling.”
“I’m pretty good at falling, too.” There was something in the way Tyler said that word that made Dmitrii pause.
“I’ve never seen you fall?”
“Yes, you have.” Tyler’s smile became a little more enigmatic at that as he took a left onto a road that Dmitrii had never seen before. “The hotel is just a little ways down here.”
Dmitrii kept watching Tyler, trying to make sense of what he had said, but knowing he was missing something.
The road they had been on soon became the road to his hotel once they passed over the highway, and they had pulled into the parking lot and he still hadn’t figured out what Tyler meant.
Together they walked through the hotel lobby to get to Dmitrii’s room.
Instead of pulling out the clothes Dmitrii had shoved into his bag, he grabbed a different pair of jeans from his suitcase and then walked over to the closet to grab a button-up shirt.
“I’m just going to change real quick and put some methyl salicylate cream on my wrist.” There was no place for actual privacy unless you stepped into the bathroom, so that’s what Dmitrii did.
His mind kept running over what Tyler had said.
He hadn’t seen Tyler fall. He hadn’t seen him skate much, and there hadn’t been any falling.
There was something in how he had said that word that kept bringing it back up in his mind.
He hadn’t seen Tyler fall. Then he paused, half dressed as he looked at himself in the mirror.
No, there was no way Tyler had meant that.
The only other time he knew that ‘falling’ was used in English was when a person meant they were falling in love.