Chapter 2
The party is in full swing by the time I make it back down the stairs, showered and changed from my skating gear into the blue dress Elisa picked out.
My sister’s taste is too expensive, but it is good.
The silky fabric swishes pleasantly about halfway down my thighs, and my hair is up in a ballet bun since I didn’t have enough time to blow-dry it.
A yawn takes over my face and I try to hide it behind my hand. Didn’t have enough time for a nap either.
There are tons of faces I recognize: Elisa’s friends, Dad’s friends, sponsors, agents, officials from the National Figure Skating Coalition and the United States Olympic Federation and the film crew, their cameras taking in the dizzying spectacle of an Olympic send-off fit for a queen.
Music pumps through the speakers of the sound system, an instrumental jazz compilation that seems familiar, but I can’t name.
Servers are loaded down with trays of drinks and appetizers that look way fancier than the usual mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers we sell at the rink’s concession stand.
Puff pastry probably stuffed with lobster and drizzled with truffle oil and whatever expensive things Elisa and Dad thought were necessary.
I’m about to take the final step and enter the fray when two hushed voices drift up into the stairwell. I can’t see them—they’re off to the side of the stairs and definitely can’t see me. One voice is almost as familiar as my own, though.
“And a mortgage won’t be hard to get?” Dad asks, though it doesn’t really sound like much of a question.
“The property itself is worth quite a bit, plus a house in this area, considering the school district and its proximity to Boston? If you ever had to sell, you’d more than recoup the cost.”
A mortgage. The place we live. The place we train. My home.
That was the one comfort of the last few years as the bills kept piling up. We owned the house and the rink and the property free and clear.
Have things gotten so bad that we have to risk that?
My skin prickles and a wave of uncomfortable warmth slides through me.
I swipe my palms over the silk of my skirt, but then clench them, my fingernails digging into my palms. This stupid dress.
This ridiculous party. All of it completely unnecessary, and meanwhile, we could lose everything. The blood is roaring in my ears.
Their voices fade as I try desperately to calm down.
I need a glass of water, cold water. Spotting the bar on the other end of the room, I make a beeline for it, and the bartender raises his eyebrows when I only ask for ice water, but he puts it in front of me and I chug it down and ask for another.
The bartender snorts this time. He’s probably used to people throwing back tequila and vodka like this.
I finish the second glass and then take a long, deep breath and let it out slowly.
I need to get myself under control. There are cameras everywhere and even more eyes. People who know me well enough to know with one look that something is very wrong.
“I have to tell you to smile on the ice enough, do I have to do it off the ice too?”
I turn to my left, where my coach, Camille Radinski, is standing beside me, a drink that definitely isn’t water in her hand.
There’s a bright pink umbrella stuck through the orange slice sitting on the lip of the glass with a fizzy pink concoction inside.
Camille’s been my coach forever, but she’s been in my life even longer than that.
She and my mom were best friends. She’s my godmother, Elisa and Maria’s too, but they’ve never been as close.
“This is one hell of a party,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Your mom would have loved it.”
I huff in disbelief. Mom wouldn’t have loved how insanely expensive it was, but then again, if Mom had planned this, it wouldn’t have ever gotten to that point.
“You forget, Adriana, I knew her better than anyone, even you. She loved a good party.”
“Shouldn’t they save it until they get back? You know, maybe after she actually wins something.”
Camille purses her lips, a sure sign that she agrees with me but doesn’t want to say something bad about my dad in front of me.
Elisa’s got a good chance to medal in Beijing.
It would make way more sense to have a party once she does, and maybe then we could actually afford it.
Olympic medals mean sponsorships, big companies with money to throw around.
And that’s what could finally get us out of this crunch.
Dad wouldn’t have to mortgage the house and—
“Think, though,” Camille says, pulling me out of my thought spiral, a skill she’s honed in the decade we’ve worked together. “Four years from now, we’ll be having a send-off party for you.”
“No.” I shake my head. Parties like this one are not my thing. I’m not even sure I’d want one if I won a medal. The very idea makes me nervous, and I wipe off a sweaty palm on the skirt of my dress.
“Celebrating is important, Adriana, especially something as huge and life altering as your first Olympic Games. If Elisa wasn’t headed to Beijing, I would have insisted on a party like this one for you and your teammates going to Paris.”
“Paris,” I repeat, unable to keep the smile off my face. “It will be, by far, the biggest and coolest place I’ve traveled to for skating.
“Indeed,” Camille says, and takes a sip of her drink, humming in appreciation of whatever the pink fizz tastes like, and her pause sends my mind veering back toward where it was before.
“Did you know Dad is thinking about mortgaging the house?”
Camille coughs, a hand flying to her nose, where I suspect some of the fizz ended up. “He told you that?”
“I heard him say it,” I hedge, not really needing a lecture about eavesdropping to derail this conversation.
“That’s really not something you should be worrying about,” she says, but her brow is furrowed, and her mouth sets itself into a thin line. Confusion.
She didn’t know. That means Dad didn’t tell her, which means he doesn’t want her opinion because he knows it’s a shitty idea.
“We can’t let him do this,” I say, my panic rising again. “We could lose the house, the rink, everything.”
“Adriana, breathe. None of this is your responsibility. I’ll talk to him, okay?”
A knot in my chest loosens. Camille can always get through to Dad. She’s really the only one he listens to anymore.
“Now smile, your sister is coming over,” Camille warns, her eyes focused over my shoulder, and I turn to see the crowd parting as Elisa slides toward us in her bright winter white jumpsuit, blonde hair shining over her shoulders.
She flashes a smile at Camille before turning to me. “Is Brayden here yet?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Ugh, I wanted to make sure he was here for the toast, so the cameras could get a shot of him. Be a peach and go to the kitchen and tell them to hold off for another hour or at least until Brayden shows up?”
Her tone rises at the end of her sentence, but it’s not a question.
“I’ll…” Camille starts, but I shake my head.
“Thanks,” Elisa says before her eyes catch on something over my shoulder. “Oh! Those are the reps from Nike! I should go talk to them.”
She’s gone before either of us can respond.
I roll my eyes at Camille before placing my empty glass on the tray of a passing server and make my way through the throngs of people toward the kitchen, at the back of the house.
Servers in black pants and matching button-down shirts are practically sprinting back and forth through the archway, emptying their trays and filling them again while a frenzied caterer barks orders.
“Hi,” I say, trying to get her attention, but she clearly doesn’t hear me as she rearranges a platter of stuffed mushrooms before offering it to me without looking.
“Uh, no, sorry,” I say, not taking the tray, and she turns, blinking at me in confusion.
“I’m Adriana, Elisa’s sister. She said to hold off on the champagne flutes for now.
She’s still waiting for a few people to show up. ”
The caterer goes red in the face. “We poured the flutes already. The drinks will go flat. How am I supposed to…” She trails off, staring into the distance like I’ve destroyed all hope that her night will go smoothly.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, biting my lip, trying to figure out a solution that won’t send Elisa into apoplexy. “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
Pulling out my phone, I tap out a message and hit send, hoping against hope that the recipient will see it soon.
A buzzing sound almost immediately responds.
I whirl around, and across the room there’s Brayden leaning against our kitchen table, a charming grin spread across his face, a champagne flute already dangling from his fingers.
He’s tall, easy to see in the crowd of servers bustling around the room, with a head of shaggy sandy-blond hair, broad shoulders, and a frame of lithe muscle, strong enough to lift me as we travel across the ice.
One curl is falling charmingly over his forehead, the only thing marring his clear olive skin, as his blue eyes twinkle at one of the servers.
She’s a blonde too, with a French braid holding back her hair, and she’s hanging on his every word.
And then he smiles, and I swear I can hear the girl’s sigh all the way across the kitchen.
“Forget it,” I say, turning back to the caterer. “You can start now.”
“Get those flutes on trays and get them circulated,” the caterer orders, and the servers, even the one who was giggling at Brayden, snap to it.
“Hey,” I say, moving toward my partner, on the ice, anyway. “You made it.”
“I said I’d try.”
“You said you had a thing, and that usually means you’re busy…till breakfast.”
His eyes twinkle at me while he shrugs, unbothered. “Her sorority had a party, something with the pledges. No boys allowed.”
“BC? BU? Emerson?”
“MIT, actually,” he says with a smirk. “Even the genius girls love me.”