Chapter 23
Bash
When Bash had gotten home to Amsterdam, he had been expecting a serious, somber mood.
He wasn’t disappointed. Gerard Koning was bedridden in his room in the Koning’s large mansion.
Sophie Koning spent most of the day drinking and worrying.
Lotte was back from Groningen for the time being and spent most of her time sitting in one of the drawing rooms, on her laptop, worrying.
A constant cycle of doctors came and went, but there was very little they could do.
The damage to Gerard’s heart was too much, they told the Koning family.
He hadn’t listened to the constant advice, and now he was paying for it.
He was just lucky that the most recent heart attack hadn’t killed him the moment it happened.
Some days, Bash sat with his father, who was mostly unresponsive in his bed.
He would talk to Gerard, sometimes, monologuing because Gerard couldn’t answer.
It was the most he’d talked to his father in ages.
He told Gerard about school, about how his classes were going at Bellford.
He told him about hockey and how he was finally feeling like himself again on the ice.
Most importantly, he told Gerard about Adonis. About how Bash was confused about what to do. How he was pretty sure he had feelings for Adonis—more than just “liking” him. How he was afraid he was falling in love with Adonis, and he didn’t know what to do about that.
Gerard had nothing to say in response. He drooled occasionally, and Bash took that as confirmation when he asked a question.
On a day that Gerard was particularly unresponsive, Lotte knocked on the door. “Hoi,” she said. Hey.
He smiled up at her, as much of a smile as he could manage. “Hoi.”
“Wil je naar de Olympische Spelen kijken?” Do you want to watch the Olympics? “Je vriend Adonis staat op het punt op te treden.” Your friend Adonis is about to perform.
Bash sat up a bit straighter. He’d told Lotte almost everything about Adonis.
Lotte’s love life might be a constant mess (she and Prince Gustav were currently in the midst of a much-publicized tiff), but she gave pretty good advice.
She’d settled adamantly on the idea that Bash needed to tell Adonis how he felt, though the problem was that Bash couldn’t articulate even to his sister how he felt.
“Wanneer?” Bash asked. When?
“Over tien minuten.” In ten minutes.
Bash stood, stretched, and stifled a yawn. He hadn’t been very active since going home. He missed the ice rink. He missed the gym. His body needed them both.
The Koning house had a massive home theater. The maids had prepared snacks, and Bash and Lotte sprawled in two lounge chairs, beer and wine in hand. Lotte commandeered the remote and flipped to the Olympic channel.
“Juichen we voor Adonis?” she asked. Are we cheering for Adonis?
“Of course,” Bash said in English.
She groaned. “Maar ik haat Amerikanen.” But I hate Americans.
“He doesn’t count as American,” Bash said. Lotte stuck out her tongue.
First in the performance was Toshirō Sanada of Japan.
The announcers rambled as he did his free skate to an EDM remix of a Brahms piece, and at the end, he was awarded high scores.
Bash squinted at the screen, unsure of what that score would mean for Sanada.
Was that enough for a gold medal? Bronze?
As much as he’d listened to Adonis explain the ins and outs of figure skating scores, he still struggled to figure it out without Adonis’s help.
“Kunstschaatsen is zo mooi,” Lotte said with a sigh. Figure skating is so beautiful.
“Yes,” Bash said. “It is. Heb je Adonis zien optreden?” Have you seen Adonis perform?
She took a long sip of her wine. “Yes. I looked him up online. He’s very talented.”
“Yes, he is.”
Adonis was next.
“Adonis Costa, twenty-two, from the United States,” the announcers were saying.
“New to the Olympics this year, Costa is a fourth-year student at Bellford University in Massachusetts. Costa wowed judges in his short program on Tuesday, winning bronze for Team USA. In an interview with NBC correspondents yesterday, Costa admitted that he is less confident about his free skate.”
The broadcast cut to a clip of Adonis, wearing warm-up clothes, talking to an attractive middle-aged reporter by a practice ice rink.
Bash leaned forward, elbows on his knees, while Adonis spoke.
“I’ve always struggled more with my free skate,” Adonis said, smiling at the camera. “I’m a very technical skater, and the free skate is more about your artistic interpretation of a song.”
The reporter flashed a million-dollar smile. “An amateur like me wouldn’t know the difference. What song are you doing for your free skate?”
It was Adonis’s turn for a million-dollar smile. “That’s a surprise.”
“God, he’s adorable,” Lotte said in English, sighing dramatically. “I hope you marry him.”
Bash threw a piece of popcorn at her. Lotte caught and popped it in her mouth. “Stil. Hij gaat zo schaatsen.” Be quiet. He’s about to skate.
On the screen, Adonis stood in the middle of the ice rink.
All the lights were off except for a single spotlight illuminating him in the center of the ice.
He stood with his shoulders drooping, his head down, his eyes closed.
Instead of wearing the sparkling black leotard he’d worn for his short program, his costume consisted of a ripped white tank top and black leggings.
His arms were bare, and the tank top was cropped short enough to show some of his stomach.
Bash didn’t know much about figure skating uniforms, but this didn’t seem normal.
The commentators agreed. “The song hasn’t started,” one of the commentators was saying, “but Costa already seems set up to do something very different from his short program. Viewers who’ve seen his free skate in other competitions might be surprised, as well.”
“Dit lijkt niet op zijn normale routine,” Lotte said, leaning forward. This doesn’t look like his normal routine.
“How do you know?”
“As I said,” Lotte snapped, “I’ve watched him online. He normally does a Mozart piece for his free skate. Does this look like Mozart?”
Then the song started.
Bash blinked. “Fuck, that’s not Mozart.”
No, it wasn’t. It was “Nightmare” by Halsey.
Lotte laughed. “Look at him! He’s incredible!”
She was right. Adonis was a vision.
He was one with the music in a way that Bash had never seen.
He moved to the song as if the beat were in his blood.
When the camera zoomed in, it showed the rage and the passion on his face.
He was aggressive and beautiful and fluid.
The music crashed through the rink, and Adonis seemed to direct the song with each fluid movement of his body.
The announcers were going crazy, saying that this was something no one had ever seen from Adonis. It seemed that he had done something virtually unprecedented: debuting an entirely new performance at the Olympics.
And what a debut it was.
“This is fucking incredible,” Lotte whispered.
“It really is,” Bash agreed.
The door to the home theater opened just as Adonis reached the crescendo. Sophie stood in the doorway, out of breath and wide-eyed.
“Kinderen, kom onmiddellijk. Jullie vader ligt op sterven.” Children, come immediately. Your father is dying.
Bash and Lotte were on their feet in an instant, drinks spilling on their chairs, popcorn upended. They raced after their mother, just as Adonis’s song finished on the screen and he took an exhausted bow.