Chapter 7
The common area of the Kellynch House has a huge U-shaped sectional sofa in front of a big TV. Our camps are built around group activities, so a viewing room to watch training footage and, of course, movie night for the campers was a must, at least according to Dad.
Brayden and I slide into the last empty seats at the end of one of the couches and it feels like everyone is looking at us, which, maybe they are.
Maybe Freddie and Riley came back in here and told everyone what they walked in on…
or what it looked like they walked in on.
Katya and Gillian are whispering to each other and glancing over at us.
Ugh, why do I even care?
Brayden seems totally unaffected by it, sitting back on the couch. I try to do the same, but my eyes keep flickering from him to Freddie, who is chatting with Ben, completely unaware of my discomfort. Obviously. If neither of them is bothered, I shouldn’t be either. Right?
But then Maria leans over and Katya and Gillian are giggling and yeah, they definitely know.
The best distraction is when the opening credits start to flash on the screen.
Dramatic music plays over black-and-white footage of Dad and Mom and then finally Elisa skating, and a quick flash to Maria and me, both with our partners gliding along the ice and then a black screen where the words KELLYNCH: The First Family of Figure Skating flash in graphic letters that look like they were made of ice shavings.
The show is pretty standard to start. It gives an overview of our family history.
Mom and Dad’s success, their marriage, the arrival of the three of us, and then Mom’s death.
The room around me becomes tense for a moment, but thankfully the screen shifts to some training footage almost immediately.
A lot of it is background stuff anyone could google about Kellynch and how the NFSC has struggled to put out gold-medal-winning performances at Worlds and the Olympics in recent history.
Then an interview with Elisa where they ask about her own lack of international success, especially compared to our parents.
“Well, I plan on surprising a lot of people,” she says to an interviewer off-screen, and then it cuts to her training her triple axel and falling.
Oh, she is not gonna like that.
The rest of the room seems to agree with my thoughts. There are a couple of groans, and Brayden, sitting next to me, actually lets out a laugh. I turn to glare at him and he manages to cover it up with a cough.
“What?” he asks, smiling down at me, and I shake my head.
There’s an interview with Dad where he’s his usual charming self, but then the episode takes a sharp turn.
“What do you say to the people who believe that Kellynch isn’t what it once was?” an interviewer asks.
Dad scoffs at the question. “It is still the finest rink in the country, and we’ve housed more champions in the last twenty years than some nations have ever produced.”
“None in the last five years, aside from the junior titles your middle daughter, Adriana, and her ice dance partner, Brayden Elliot, have brought in, beyond that…”
“We’ll see what happens in Beijing, shall we?” Dad says, downplaying our ice dancing wins, as usual.
I can feel every eye in the room turn to me, but I keep my gaze trained on the screen and swallow down the lump in my throat as the footage shifts again.
Elisa is in the foreground of the shot working on some choreography, but the camera slides over her shoulder, her image out of focus as it clearly narrows in on Brayden and me all the way across the ice.
I’m in his arms, legs wrapped around his waist while his hands support me in the center of my back.
I’m leaning out, arms stretched back over my head.
Camille’s off to the side coaching us through how we’ll disentangle ourselves from the move and continue to skate. I remember that day clearly.
I fell.
A lot.
This isn’t one of those moments, though.
This was when we finally nailed it. There’s nothing in the world like that feeling, when you’re achy and sore and on the edge of giving up and then you hit and it’s perfect.
Once I’m standing firmly on my feet again, Brayden and I high-five and he slings an arm around my shoulder for a celebratory squeeze.
Real-life Brayden chuckles and does the same thing, pulling me closer to him.
“And what’s your relationship like with Brayden Elliot?” the interviewer asks as the screen flashes to Elisa again.
She shrugs coyly. “I don’t kiss and tell,” she says, the smile following it all that needs to be said.
Brayden snorts, and then from across the couch Maria says, “What are the odds you do?”
Shrugging with his usual nonchalance, Brayden pulls away from me, sits forward on the couch, and says, “Three.”
“Oh!” Ben and Jimmy yell together. One out of three.
The odds are very good we’re about to get details of something I’ve never, ever wanted to know.
I begged Elisa back then to not mess around with Brayden, but Elisa does what she wants, so I settled for just asking them to keep me the hell out of it.
One. Two. Three. Maria puts out a one, he puts out a three. “Better luck next time, Little Russo.”
And then the footage is back and it’s Brayden and me working through some choreography, our bodies pressed against each other, one of my legs sliding over his as he dips me low toward the ice.
I swallow and I can feel where this is going before the next question is even asked.
“And your sister doesn’t mind? They seem very close.”
“Adriana?” Elisa says, laughing at the implication. “No, they’re definitely just partners. He thinks of her like a little sister.”
Beside me, Brayden stiffens, his arm tensing against mine, and I’m guessing he might have said that to her at some point, but maybe it wasn’t entirely true.
My mind flicks back to just a few minutes ago.
No, definitely not entirely true. Brayden and I are partners and we’re friends, but we are not siblings.
The footage flickers back again. Brayden and I are leaving the ice, his arm around my shoulder again.
The cameras aren’t close enough to pick up what we’re saying, but we’re laughing, and he plants a kiss on the top of my head before we step through the gate.
I go first and head straight for the locker room, but the camera catches him standing there, watching me go.
The show breaks for commercial, and silence reigns in the room, somehow suffocating even the obnoxious detergent ad blaring from the speakers. Their eyes are still all on me…on us. I can feel their stares, and finally I work up enough courage to look away from the screen.
“Elisa is going to freak,” Maria says, the one to break the silence.
“It’s not that bad,” Jimmy tries to insist, but no one backs him up.
“I can’t believe they did that,” I say, anger bursting out of me and totally overpowering the embarrassment I was feeling seconds ago. “What? They didn’t think they had an interesting figure skating angle, so they what? Decide to come up with a bullshit love triangle? Are they serious? Ugh.”
“It’s fine,” Charlie says. “No one takes what happens on these shows seriously anyway. Like, everyone knows it’s fake.”
“Uh, do they?” Jimmy says, swiping through his phone. “Brayden is starting to trend in Boston.”
“What?” Brayden asks, and shifts beside me as he digs in his back pocket for his phone.
I glance over at his screen as he pulls up his account and yep, there it is, except his is set to show trending topics in the United States, and there’s his name, and below it there’s Elisa’s, and then below hers…my name.
“How many people do you think saw this?” I mumble, but it’s a dumb question. Enough to get us trending. Enough for the vast majority of them to believe what they saw.
More than enough.
“So, what are the odds Elisa saw this?” Brayden mutters.
· · ·
“I saw someone compare us to the Kardashians. It’s awesome!” A blurry version of Elisa squeals through video chat. “This is definitely going to get Nike on board.”
I didn’t really sleep last night, and now it’s five in the morning, five in the evening Beijing time, and Maria and I are in her bedroom, on a call with my older sister and my dad.
Actually, it’s mostly Elisa. Dad’s in the background, wandering in and out, checking different ties against the suit he’s wearing in a mirror.
“It was really cool to see our family on TV like that,” Maria says. “Charlie and I had a whole featurette!” And they had, toward the end of the episode, when they recapped how our family did at Nationals, before they started filming. “And obviously Adriana and Brayden too.”
“I mean it mostly focused on you,” I add hastily, not needing to rehash it, since she’s very clearly ignoring what actually happened on-screen in favor of how much publicity we’re getting from it, “but I think they were trying to give a lot of background for the audience so they’ll be able to know who everyone is in the next episodes. ”
“Yeah, and social media has completely blown up,” Maria squeaks. “We’re all verified now too, just like you. I have nearly five thousand followers and Adriana has even more and Brayden is at like fifty thousand. The stans are going wild, they’re completely obsessed with him and—”
“How’s training going?” I cut off Maria. Time to not talk about how I now have the same number of followers as her, closing in on twenty thousand and growing. I had to turn off my notifications last night just to get some sleep.
“Amazing!” she says. “And not to name any names, but a lot of falls have been happening during the Russian training sessions. I think you’re going to see yours truly on the top of that podium.”
Maria squeals beside me, and I smile. I love my sister and I want her to succeed, but those Russian girls almost never fall in competition. They’re like little jumping machines that also manage to have incredible artistry and balletic form.