5. Adrian
The terrace door slid open behind me and I smelled him before I saw him. Sandalwood, cinnamon, and weed.
Cam had been generous enough to open up his apartment to me on zero notice.
The move to Toronto had happened fast—Coach Allen’s retirement, the scramble for a replacement, the flight east with my most precious possessions crammed into two suitcases.
I hadn’t had time to process any of it. One week I was training in Vancouver at the rink I’d skated at since I was twelve.
The next I was in Cam’s apartment, training under a coach who communicated through strategic disappointment, sharing ice with skaters who clearly distrusted me.
Cam had been home a total of three days since I arrived—studio, travel, wherever it was that rockstars disappeared to.
I’d been bumbling around the neighbourhood on my own, learning which coffee shops were tolerable and which intersections to avoid, spending most evenings vaping on this terrace and watching the sun go down.
I should probably go out. Have fun. Get laid.
Do something other than sit here replaying the expression on Nicky’s face when he’d realized I was training at his rink.
He dropped into the lounge chair beside mine without ceremony, pulling a blunt from somewhere inside his hoodie. Quiet except for the distant traffic below, the soft snick of his lighter, his slow exhale. I took a drag from my pen. We both watched the last of the sun bleed out over the skyline.
That was the nice thing about Cam. No performance required. We hadn’t grown up together, not really—he was seven years older, had spent most of his life in Toronto with his dad while I was in Vancouver with our mom. The mom who had left him. Left his dad.
For mine.
It was the kind of thing that should have made us awkward, or resentful, or at least careful around each other. Somehow it hadn’t.
Growing up, we saw each other twice a year. Once over Christmas, then a few weeks in the summer when we weren’t in Europe. When we hit our twenties, we started hanging out more frequently, meeting up in different cities, building a friendship.
He was the lead singer and guitarist for 3xit.
They had just wrapped an international tour, come home to a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album, and were building a sophomore album from scratch.
The pressure of that—being right on the edge of the kind of success that changes everything, knowing the next thing you put out either confirms you or exposes you—had been written into the lines of his face since I arrived. He looked tired.
I understood that kind of pressure.
The sun sank below the skyline without disappearing entirely, that suspended moment where the light goes amber and the city softens at the edges.
“How was New York?” I asked.
“Same depressing shithole it always is. How was Toronto while I was gone?”
“Same depressing shithole it always is.”
He scoffed, flicking ash in my direction. “Vancouver elitists.”
I shrugged, took another drag. He took another hit. Neither of us felt the need to fill the silence. When the last of the amber light finally gave way to the flat grey blue of early evening, he spoke.
He turned his head to look at me. “How are things really going?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Lots of trouble to get myself into in a new city.”
“You could find trouble in an empty room. I'm sure mom's worried about you being out here on your own.”
That was generous of him. She was probably too busy redesigning the Hong Kong penthouse or traipsing along Alberni Street with a shopping bag in each hand or having brunch at the Saint Clément to notice I'd left Vancouver.
Let alone worry about where I'd ended up.
Even when we were in the same city, we barely overlapped—me in my apartment in Mount Pleasant, her and my dad in their West Bay mansion.
“She's got her hands full at home,” I said, keeping my eyes on the skyline. “She doesn't need to add me to the rotation.”
“Adrian—”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, Cam.”
“That’s not the flex you think it is.”
I shrugged. Cam and I had grown up on opposite sides of the same woman’s choices.
His dad—the one she’d actually loved—had poured everything into raising him.
Showed up to every gig, every school talent show, every shitty open mic night in a dive bar that smelled like spilled beer.
My dad had written a cheque and made it someone else’s problem.
“You’re not alone,” he said. Simple. Not a lecture, not a production. Just offered without condition. “You know that, right?”
“Yup.” I took a drag, watching the vapour disappear into the night sky. “I’ve got you to nag me about eating vegetables and flossing.”
He snorted and I heard him settle deeper into the chair. My brother knew when to let things go. We didn’t grow up with the closeness of shared bedrooms and common history. It was something more deliberate. Chosen.
“How's the new coach?”
“Bit of an uptight prick.”
“You have a problem with authority.”
“I liked Coach Allen just fine.”
“Yeah, 'cause he let you do whatever you wanted.”
“I was his only senior skater. It was efficient.”
“And how are the other skaters feeling about Adrian Zhao joining their ranks? I'm sure you’ve pissed off a few people just by showing up.”
I thought about perfect Prince Nicky. The way he'd looked at me in the tunnel like I'd personally pissed in his cornflakes.
“Have you heard of Nico Fontaine?”
“Canada's golden prince? I haven't been living under a rock, Ade.”
Nico Fontaine was the poster boy for Canadian figure skating.
Golden hair, blue eyes, the kind of face that belonged on a magazine.
A Disney prince who had somehow also developed a quad Lutz.
And even had a sweet as pie demeanor to match.
The press loved him. The fans loved him. The federation loved him.
But nobody was that perfect. And I had seen the cracks.
I think you should put a shirt on.
Dream on. That careful, controlled voice with something hot flickering just underneath.
There was a temper in there. A real one, buried deep under years of practised composure. It only showed at the edges—the set of his jaw, the flush creeping up the back of his neck, the way he went dead still right before he said something with actual bite. The guy was too nice for his own good.
And I wanted to poke at it until something real came out.
Cam scrunched his face after I didn’t continue with my train of thought. “What about him? I thought he was like your enemy or something.”
“Enemy? He’s not a fucking comic book villain.”
“Oh, so you're the bad guy?”
“Have you seen Nico? Guy's basically an angel. Face like a cherub.”
He raised a brow. “So you like him?”
“God, no. He's such a kiss ass. Calls his own uncle Coach like we don’t all know he’s a nepo baby. It's so…”
“Respectful?”
“Lame.”
Cam laughed—smoke billowing out of his mouth. “You're threatened by good manners. That's embarrassing for you.”
“I'm not threatened. I'm annoyed. Different thing.”
“Sure.” He took another hit, smirking. “So he's polite and angelic and you can't stop talking about him.”
“You asked about how the other skaters felt.”
“And you brought up his angelic face unprompted.”
“I was making a point.”
“Uh huh.” He stretched his legs out, way too pleased with himself. “Is he really as pretty in real life as he is on TV?”
“I'm not doing this.”
“Does he have a halo too or—”
“I hate you.”
I shoved him and he tipped sideways, laughing as he righted himself.
“You love me.” He grinned, steadying his blunt. “Maybe not as much as you love Nico—”
I shoved him harder and this time he went down, the lounge chair scraping against the terrace tiles. He grabbed my arm on the way down and pulled me with him, and we were both on the ground like idiots, wrestling the way we used to when we were kids.
“Get off me, you're heavy—”
“Say you're sorry—”
“For what? Telling the truth?”
I got him in a headlock. He elbowed me in the ribs, hard. His blunt and my vape had rolled somewhere under the chair and neither of us gave a shit.
“Uncle,” he gasped, tapping my arm. “Uncle. Jesus. You're way stronger than you look.”
“I'm an elite athlete, asshole.”
I let him go and we both collapsed onto our backs, breathing hard, staring up at the darkening sky. The city hummed below us. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed and faded.
“I'm glad you're here,” he said after a minute. Quiet. No joke underneath it.
I swallowed. “Yeah. Me too.”