27. Nico
The lobby was crowded with athletes and coaches and the particular controlled chaos of competition morning. I saw Sabrina first—she waved from the coffee station, looking amped despite the time difference. I waved back and was calculating the fastest route to the elevator when I saw Théo.
He was standing near the concierge desk talking to his new coach. Théo was nodding at something Miller was saying, coffee in hand, and then his eyes drifted past Miller's shoulder and found me.
He smiled. A real one—small and warm and private, nothing like the one he wore for cameras. I felt it in my chest the way I always felt Théo's real smiles, like a door opening to a room I wasn't sure I was still allowed to enter.
I was crossing the lobby toward the elevator when I heard his voice behind me.
“Nico. Wait up.”
I stopped. Turned. His coach was still by the concierge desk, scrolling on his phone.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Everything okay?”
I swallowed past a lump that had formed in my throat. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I’m sorry if I made things weird last night with Adrian. I forgot you had to room with him and I’m sorry if it caused issues for you. He just gets under my skin.”
If only he knew.
“Uhm, no worries. Adrian has that effect on people. It was fine.”
“Are you just getting back from the rink?” He nodded toward my skate bag.
“Yeah, jetlagged. Figured I’d use that energy for something useful.”
“Are you still having trouble sleeping?”
“No more than usual.”
He was quiet for a beat too long. Studying me. I fought the urge to squirm under his watchful gaze. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem kinda…off.”
“I'm fine. Competition nerves.”
“Nico, if you—”
“I'm fine, Théo.”
He looked like he wanted to say more but then his eyes moved past me—toward the elevator bank—and his expression shifted. A flicker of something crossing his features that I recognized because I had spent three years learning all of Théo’s moods.
I turned around.
Adrian had just stepped out of the elevator—looking infuriatingly at ease.
Pink hair slightly damp from a shower, black training jacket unzipped low enough to show the edge of his collarbone tattoo, ring clad fingers holding his phone.
He looked well rested and carefree. He definitely wasn't replaying last night on a loop and agonizing over what it all meant.
His eyes found mine immediately—a brief, charged contact that lasted less than two seconds—and then his gaze shifted to Théo standing beside me and his expression hardened.
“Morning,” he said, walking past us toward the coffee station. Casual. Breezy. As though last night—
“Morning,” I said and my voice was steady because I had been training it to be steady my entire life.
Adrian walked away. My chest tightened. If he could pretend nothing happened between us then I would too. I forced myself not to watch him go. But Théo was watching me. And Théo saw everything.
“Nico.” His voice had dropped. “Can we talk in private for a sec?” He touched my elbow—light, barely there, a request rather than a demand.
He steered me toward an empty stairwell. We stood in the alcove, out of the lobby's sightline, and Théo looked at me with those dark eyes that had seen me at my best and my worst.
I felt small.
“What's going on with you and Zhao?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Please don’t lie to me.”
“Théo—”
“Don't do the thing where you tell me you're fine and smile and make me feel crazy for asking.” His voice was gentle but immovable. “Is he—Are you—” He stopped. Took a deep breath. “I need to know you're okay.”
The word okay landed in my chest like a stone.
“Why?” I asked and I didn't mean it cruelly but it came out sharper than I intended. “Why do you need to know?”
He flinched. Barely—just a tightening around his eyes.
“Because I care about you,” he said simply. “Because I'll always care about you. And because Adrian Zhao is—” He paused. “He is not careful with people.”
“And you were?”
The second flinch was bigger. I watched it move through him and felt immediately sick with myself.
“I'm sorry,” I said reflexively.
“Don't apologize,” he said firmly. “You're allowed to be angry at me. But please—” His hand found my arm again. “—don't shut me out and tell me you're fine. Not after everything. Not after I almost lost you.”
I looked at him. This person who had dropped everything and flown across a continent to sit in a hospital room with me.
Who had said things get different on their way to getting better because he was too honest to promise better and too kind to offer nothing.
Who was standing in a stairwell in Osaka with dark circles under his eyes and concern written across every feature, still showing up for me despite everything we'd put each other through.
I wanted to tell him about Adrian. The words were right there—pressing against my teeth, demanding to be said.
But what would I even say? I didn't know what Adrian and I were.
Didn't have a name for it. Didn't know if it was real or reckless.
The unknown was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
Because Adrian made me feel like I was allowed to take up space.
Like my anger wasn't something to manage and my wants weren't something to apologize for.
Like I could be messy and sharp and imperfect and he'd still be standing there with those dark eyes, waiting for whatever came next.
Not handling me. Not tiptoeing. Just present.
“I'm handling it,” I said instead. “There's something I'm working through. It's not bad. It's just complicated. And I promise—if things get bad, you'll be one of the first people I call.”
Théo looked at me for a long time.
“Okay,” he said finally. Not convinced. Not pushing. Just leaving the door open. It was so different from the version of Théo that had left Toronto—the one who would have pressed until we both bled—that something cracked in my chest.
He pulled me into a hug. Not the careful, quick one from the lobby. A real one—arms tight, chin on my shoulder, holding on tightly. I let myself sink into it. Let myself remember what it had felt like to be held by someone who knew every broken piece of me.
“Take care of yourself, Nico,” he said into my shoulder. “I’m here whenever you need me.”
“You too.”
He let go. Squeezed my arm once. Walked back toward the lobby.
I watched him go and grieved us quietly.
Not the relationship—that had needed to end.
But the possibility. The version of us that existed in some parallel life where we'd met each other whole, where the pressure hadn't warped us, where love hadn't become another thing we used to hurt ourselves with.
That version deserved to be mourned, even if it had never existed outside my imagination.
And now I was standing in a stairwell wondering if I was doing the exact same thing again—reaching for someone who burned too bright, mistaking intensity for intimacy, confusing chaos for connection because chaos was the only language my heart seemed to speak.
That was a problem for my therapist's couch, not a competition morning.
I stood in the alcove for another thirty seconds, steadying my breathing. Through the wall I could hear the muffled sound of the lobby—athletes, coaches, the hum of competition morning carrying on without me.
I straightened my shoulders. Adjusted my expression. Pulled the mask back into place. And walked back into the lobby.