Chapter 8
“We are such good sisters,” Maria says.
“What?” I ask distractedly. I heard her, but my brain is a second late processing her words.
My brain has been a second late for the last week or so.
Ever since that conversation with Brayden, my mind has been working in overdrive.
Sponsorships. Money that would make the next four years a little bit easier, setting us up for an even bigger payday after the Olympics.
And all for keeping my head down, skating my best, and not telling anyone that Brayden and I aren’t a couple.
The second episode of KELLYNCH: The First Family of Figure Skating aired the other night and they haven’t exactly dropped the love triangle plotline.
The way they edited it, anyone watching would easily assume that Brayden and I were together despite Elisa’s obvious feelings for him as we all train at the same rink.
And since we hadn’t exactly gone out of our way to contradict it yet, the viewers are eating it up—at least I think they are, based on my now nearly hundred thousand followers and their constant messages about how much they love us.
“I said that we are such good sisters.”
“Yeah, we really are.” I use my elbow to lever the glass door open and Maria, who has a hand free, opens the door behind it.
We’re up at five in the morning to make sure we see Elisa’s first Olympic skate live.
The Games kicked off less than a week ago now, and tonight—Beijing is twelve hours ahead of us—is the final night of the team figure skating competition.
She’ll be on the ice for Team USA in the ladies’ free skate.
The rest of the team wanted to watch too, so we asked our coaches to push back our training times, which was easy enough to do since no one else has access to the rink.
It’s nice and almost feels like a routine now to come to Kellynch House and hang out with everyone. Even being around Freddie is easier now. Sure, we barely talk, but I can also be in a room with him now without feeling every nerve ending in my body vibrating in anxiety.
And that’s fine. It makes everything so much easier.
Inhaling the scent of breakfast wafting out from the kitchen, I call out, “Whoever decided today is a bacon day, I will love you forever.”
I’m so glad someone else thought to get breakfast going while Maria and I picked up coffee.
I think I’d probably burn anything I tried to cook this morning.
I’m a nervous wreck. So much is hinging on Elisa’s success at the Games.
I can’t imagine how nervous she must be right now.
Then again, it’s Elisa. She’s probably not nervous at all.
Walking into the kitchen, Freddie’s at the stove, staring at me, mouth slightly open and a spatula hovering over the frying pan. His eyebrows are up and practically disappearing underneath the lock of slightly too long hair falling over his forehead.
Oh, shit.
“Forever’s a long time,” he says softly, and I just blink at him stupidly, having no idea what else to say. His expression doesn’t change, however, and then he’s looking back at the bacon like it called his mother a dirty word.
“There’s bacon?” Maria asks, following right behind me, nudging me out of the way so she can get through the kitchen archway and put the coffee down on the island.
“Turkey bacon,” Freddie calls back over his shoulder, and then focuses on it again.
I unload my own cartons of coffee and pour myself another cup.
“Almost done?” Riley says, coming into the kitchen, still in her pj’s and her hair wrapped in a pretty silk scarf that matches. She doesn’t look like she just rolled out of bed, at all.
“Actually done,” Freddie says, as she sidles up next to him and grabs a plate, holding it out to be filled. He smiles down at her while she gazes adoringly back up at him.
“Thank you,” Riley says.
I have to look away. It feels like a private moment, something I shouldn’t be seeing or hearing. Ah, and there they are again, all those nerve endings vibrating, and a stomach twist this time too.
Jealousy sucks.
“Uh, Adriana?” Ben asks from behind me.
“What?” I ask, maybe a little more sharply than necessary. He raises an eyebrow at me, then after a quick glance over my shoulder, his expression softens a touch.
Oh God. He knows. I mean, of course he knows that Freddie and I used to skate together.
Everyone knows that, even though no one has said anything—but that look.
That was the look of someone who understands exactly why I just snapped at him for seemingly no reason at all.
Someone who knows why I’d be tense around Freddie and Riley.
Why else would he be looking at me like that?
Ben grimaces and motions toward the door. “There’s a camera crew here who seems to think they’re filming us today.”
That snaps me out of it. “Excuse me, what?”
He’s right.
The film crew that left us a couple of weeks ago is back with their boom mics and their cameras and their ridiculous storyline about me and Brayden and Elisa. They’re also back with a contract signed by my dad.
“Hey,” Brayden says, arriving in the middle of the chaos that is the crew’s setup. “I thought this was done?”
“Apparently not. They want our reactions to Elisa competing.”
“Yeah,” a guy wearing a headset with a radio clipped to his belt says, shoving a clipboard with a consent form at Brayden. He’s eighteen and can sign for himself. “We need you to sign here, bro, if you want your face on camera.”
“Sure,” he says, signing it and handing it back.
Just like that. No hesitation.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” I say, biting my lip.
The headset-wearing man is approaching everyone else with consent forms, their coaches signing them for anyone who doesn’t have a parent around.
“Hey,” Brayden says, his hands landing on my arms, rubbing up and down, like he does before we go out to compete. “This is what we talked about, right? I know you haven’t decided one way or another, but this is the kind of thing that will help us for the next four years.”
He’s right. Some more airtime now and maybe more companies will want us to do social media ads.
Charles showed us the agreement with the first one and it’s more than enough that I won’t have to give lessons for weeks after we get back from Worlds.
And that was for one pic with the company tagged in it.
We haven’t even done it yet and part of the payment is already in the bank.
After practice we’ll take some pictures with the stretch band the company that contacted Charles sent us and we’ll post. It’ll maybe take ten minutes and then another month’s worth of lessons will be in my account.
Maria is already signing her consent form. It’s sort of moot because Dad already gave his permission, but it’s nice that they pretend, I guess.
“Okay,” I say, reaching for the clipboard my sister passes to me, and sign my name.
The crew arranges us on the couch and the seats are oddly close to how we sat a couple of nights ago to watch the most recent episode of the same show they’re filming right now.
Riley, Katya, and Gillian file down the stairs definitely not looking like they all woke up less than an hour ago, and Maria begs Gillian to let her borrow some makeup.
I don’t bother. Maybe if I don’t wear makeup everyone will think I’m not hot enough for Brayden and some of this stuff will stop.
Do I really want that, though? I promised Brayden I’d think about it, really consider letting the world believe…
well, whatever they’ve probably assumed about us up until now and use those assumptions to cash in. Would it really be so bad?
When I take a seat, my leg bounces up and down over and over again until Brayden reaches out and grabs my knee to make me stop. I don’t want to hate this, but I do. It would be living a lie. A lie of omission, but still a lie.
I leap out from under his hand. “I’m going to grab another cup of coffee. Anyone want any?”
A chorus of yeses follows. Good. That’ll keep me busy.
“I’ll help!” Riley calls out, and follows me into the kitchen.
I pour out ten cups of coffee and then five more. It’s now barely after seven in the morning, and who knows what time the crew got up to be here. They deserve caffeine too.
“This is so exciting,” Riley says. “I can’t believe I’m going to be on TV.”
“You’ve been on TV before, for competitions.”
“It’s not the same thing,” she says, her eyes bright and her smile wide. “Think, maybe all those people who are obsessed with you and Brayden will love me and Freddie too!”
“They for sure will. You guys are awesome together and speaking of, how are things with Freddie?” I kind of hate myself as I ask the question, but I can’t help it.
“Good,” she says. “He’s so super sweet and supportive and he’s so cute, but he won’t make a move. I don’t know what else to do except, like, throw myself at him at this point.”
Grimacing, I shrug. “He knows you like him?”
“No! At least, I don’t think so. I don’t know. Maybe?” She bounces on her toes. “Help me. I don’t know what to do.”
Swallowing back the urge to tell her she should wait around for literally ever, even if Freddie O’Connell never, ever expresses interest, I suggest, “You could tell him? Though,” and I hate myself as the words start to pour out of my mouth, “are you sure that’s something you want to do?
Mixing your partnership on the ice with romance? It’s a lot. Things could go wrong.”
“You’re right,” she says, and then seems to come to some kind of decision in her head.
“I need to be sure he likes me first before I tell him, that way there’s no way for things to get messy.
” I want to interrupt her there and tell her there’s no guarantee they won’t anyway, but she’s still talking.
“You’ve seen us together. Do you think he likes me? ”