Chapter 9
“Where do you want these?” a burly guy wearing a flannel shirt and a black skull cap asks as he and his partner move the massive space heater into the house, struggling to keep it up off the ground.
I cringe while holding the front door of the house open for them, still in my training clothes, gross and sweaty from early morning practice. “Um, up those stairs and then, um, up the second flight of stairs to the roof.”
He gives me an incredulous look, but then with a grunt, he and his partner move past me, tracking slush and mud across the floor.
Tonight’s the night. After the disaster of the team competition, Elisa is taking the ice in the individual ladies’ free skate.
Just two days ago she completely nailed her short program and she’s sitting in second place, right between the two Russian girls.
My older sister is one performance away from winning an Olympic medal and there was no way the show was going to let us watch it without their cameras there to catch our reactions.
It seems like that’s what our lives have become in the last week, training and then sitting down to be filmed watching other people skate. Oh, and posting on social media to keep up the hype from the show, which still hasn’t dropped that love triangle storyline.
There’s something almost comforting about it, though, all of us together, focusing on skating, determined to make sure we do better than the people who came before us, a weird sort of semi-existence outside of reality, like a bubble where we’re being held in suspense.
After Team USA’s disappointing fifth-place finish, none of the individuals or couples have been able to secure a medal, but Elisa has a chance to change that tonight.
Hence, the space heaters being brought up to the rooftop of our house, where we’re having a viewing party for the team, our coaches, and a few dozen other people, including some NFSC executives and sponsors who didn’t make the trip to Beijing.
The only reason my head isn’t exploding is because the NFSC is footing the bill for this one, though that didn’t stop Dad from calling all the way from China to make sure not a single detail was overlooked.
He might be on the other side of the world, but the NFSC doesn’t mess with Kellynch without Dad’s say-so.
I grab a mop from the hall closet, wanting to get the congealed winter gunk off the entry’s floor, and I’m just about to get started when Camille walks in and raises an eyebrow at me.
“No,” she says.
“No?”
“No,” she affirms and reaches out, taking the mop from me. “Last I heard the girls were coming over to get ready together.”
“So?” I ask, shrugging. “I’ll grab last shower. It’s fine.”
“No,” she says again. “Go up there now. They should be here any minute and I swear you are going to sit back and enjoy yourself tonight. Nothing else. No hosting or cleaning up after everyone or dealing with—” She’s cut off by the return of the space-heater movers, who leave even more gunk in their wake as they head out to their truck to retrieve another one.
“Camille.”
“Adriana,” she snaps, and then takes a deep breath. “Go, have fun. You deserve it. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, eyeing that gunk.
“I worry about you. You do too much, take too much on yourself. Maybe part of that is my fault. You remind me so much of your mom, but I need to remember more that you’re not her. You’re sixteen years old.”
“With a professional athletic career,” I remind her, but the compliment isn’t lost on me. Camille loved Mom like a sister.
Camille nods. “That’s fair, but you still deserve to feel sixteen sometimes.”
“Would you want to feel sixteen?”
“Oh, hell no, but that’s the point. You want to look back when you’re my age and know that for sure! So go upstairs, get dressed up, have fun tonight, and maybe even kiss a cute boy at some point?”
“Cam—”
“I’m just saying.”
· · ·
“Thanks for letting us raid your closets,” Katya says, and Gillian nods, holding up one of Elisa’s dresses against her. It came out of Maria’s closet, but I recognize it immediately. My little sister giggles and shrugs when I turn to her with an eyebrow raised.
“Don’t go too crazy,” I say. “Even with the space heaters, it’s still like barely above freezing outside.”
Riley emerges from Maria’s bathroom. “So?” She’s got on a pair of black leather pants and a bandeau top that shows off how hard she works on her abs, with a short leopard-print winter coat on top of it.
“Freddie is going to die when he sees you like that,” Gillian squeaks.
“Oh, and you and Adriana match!” Katya says, motioning to the leather leggings I’m wearing.
I’ve got a black long-sleeved lace top on.
It’s the outfit Elisa put together for me when we shot our family Christmas card last year, all black outfits, which didn’t quite match the holiday spirit, but apparently the style fit the aesthetic of the cards she’d picked out.
“Let’s take a picture,” Riley says, bounding toward me, and we pose quickly for her to snap a selfie she posts with a cute caption about how we’re twinning. It’s only a second or two later that she lets out a short shriek. “Freddie liked it. Like immediately. I think tonight is finally the night.”
“You’re going to tell him how you feel?” I ask, glancing around the room. Everyone else’s eyes are trained on Riley, who is still staring at her phone.
“Yep! It’s the perfect time to do it. It’ll be so romantic with all those lights you have hung around the rooftop and Boston across the river all lit up in the dark.”
“It’ll be perfect,” Gillian says, and the rest of them giggle in response. She’s right. That would be perfect.
My phone buzzes and I glance at it quickly, a handy excuse to not react to what Riley said.
“Brayden’s here,” I murmur, and the room goes quiet. “What?”
“You and Brayden,” Katya says.
Gillian lets out a giggle. “Yeah, are you ever going to spill? Like, I know you didn’t want to talk in front of the boys, but it’s just us now.”
“It’s not that…I…just…”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Riley says. “But I would like to discuss the way he looks at you because, girl, it is fire.”
“Yeah,” I admit, and it’s not even a lie. Brayden does have a way of looking at you like you’re the only girl in the world and he’s completely uninterested in anything else in the universe. “He is very good at that.”
“So, what else is he good at?” Katya asks, but I just roll my eyes and they burst into a fit of laughter, letting me off the hook.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it, but I’d always shoved him into this box in my head—he’s my partner and my friend, but anything else wasn’t even the slightest bit possible.
Except, maybe the universe is pushing us together. I’m not sure if I believe in fate or signs or whatever, but lately it feels like I’m being pulled to him, the way the show has framed our relationship, the way the entire world seems to be reacting to us, and then him suggesting we pretend.
All of those things feel like I should just give in to the inevitable. But that’s not how things like this are supposed to go, is it? Isn’t love supposed to be a thing you know, a thing that feels right? You either want to be with someone or you don’t.
My phone buzzes again. Brayden, getting impatient. I stride to my bedroom door, throw it open, and he’s standing there, hand raised and ready to knock. The girls behind me let out another chorus of giggles.
“Ladies,” he says, winking over my shoulder at them before looking down at me, a slow grin spreading across his face. “And you, you look—”
“Like Elisa picked my outfit.”
He sends me a withering eye roll and I laugh, sliding past him, grabbing his hand as I go. “Let’s go.”
There’s already a small crowd gathered on the rooftop when we make it up the stairs.
Music is playing softly in the background, and strings of lights hang from post to post, brightening up the space.
Without Dad here to direct traffic the party is way more low-key than almost any we’ve ever had at Kellynch, aside from the cameras moving around the space shooting footage of all the guests.
At the far end a large projection screen is set up for when the competition starts up in a few minutes, with a view of the river and Boston’s skyline rising in the distance, the space in front of it lined with tables and chairs so everyone can sit, eat, and watch.
The space heaters, pushed back against the brick half-walls surrounding the roof, are actually keeping the air comfortable.
Still, my sleeves are only thin lace, not enough to stop a chill running through me.
If I’d been in charge of everything, I would have moved the party inside, but that was the point Camille was trying to make earlier. I’m not in charge. This isn’t my responsibility. I’m just supposed to have fun and cheer on my sister tonight. And that’s what I plan on doing.
The group around us has swelled to include the other boys, all of whom have scrounged semiformal outfits together, button-downs and dress pants, but they look underdressed compared to the girls.
I wonder if this is what a high school dance feels like.
I’ve always figured they’re awkward as hell, completely nerve-racking, and that maybe girls took them a little more seriously than the guys. I guess some things are universal.
There’s a bartender in the corner and I spy what looks like a coffee machine. “Anyone want drinks?” I ask, but no one seems to hear me, so I slip away, wanting something hot to stave off the cold.
The cup is warm in my hands and I hold it close, inhaling the scent. My addiction is real, because my entire body buzzes a little at the incoming caffeine.
“What are the odds,” Brayden says when I make my way back toward the group that’s formed a small circle near one of the massive heaters, “that you let me add a little something to that drink?”