37. Nico
I had fallen down the Adrian rabbithole. It was hard not to be consumed in our own little bubble. The days were tortuous, circling each other at the rink without being able to touch. But the nights were ours.
After another exhausting day of training, we were at my apartment—I was making lemon chicken while Adrian set the table—when there was a knock at my door.
We looked at each other. I wasn't expecting anyone and it was too late to be a delivery.
Another knock. More insistent.
Adrian motioned toward the bedroom, the universal sign for should I hide?
“Nicolas Dominic Fontaine, you better open this door or I swear to God, I will kick it down.”
Shit. Kat. I had forgotten to return her text from three days ago and I had hastily hung up during our last FaceTime because Adrian was coming back with takeout. I shoved him toward the short hallway leading to my bedroom and smoothed back my hair and plastered on a bright smile.
I opened the door. Dark hair scraped back in her perpetual bun, pale blue eyes blazing, long wool coat over an oversized turtleneck, dark jeans and combat boots that looked like they could do serious damage to my front door.
She was frowning, holding a half empty bottle of vodka and a pint of lemon sorbet—the only two things she kept stocked in her freezer.
“What the fuck, Nico? I haven't heard from you in days.”
“I'm sorry. I've been really busy with—”
“I was fucking worried. I almost called your mom.” She jabbed the vodka bottle at me. “You don't get to disappear on me. Not after everything. That's not how this works.”
“Kat, I'm fine. I promise. I should have texted you back.”
“Well I’m here now. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
She shoved her way past me into the apartment, eyes already scanning—the two place settings, the candle I'd lit on the counter, the coat that was clearly not mine draped over the armchair—and then she froze.
Adrian was standing in the hallway leading to the bedroom. Barefoot. In a tank top and sweatpants. Hair still damp from the shower he'd taken 20 minutes ago.
I shot him a look that I hoped communicated what happened to hiding with sufficient intensity. He gave me a small shrug that said she was going to find out eventually with zero remorse.
The silence lasted approximately two decades. Kat’s eyes moved slowly over Adrian and her grip shifted slightly on the heavy glass bottle like she was deciding whether she needed to wield it as a weapon.
“You're Katerina Smirnova,” Adrian said, recovering first. “I saw you dance in Vancouver. Your fouettés in Swan Lake were insane—thirty-two in a row without travelling. Disgusting, honestly. If I had that kind of control in a spin, I’d be unstoppable.”
Kat's eyebrows rose a fraction. She looked him up and down—the pink hair, the tattoos visible on his exposed arms, the bare feet. He was clearly very comfortable here.
“Call me Kat. And you're Adrian Zhao,” she said coolly. “I saw you skate in Toronto. Landed five quads. Very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“You still finished second though.” A beat. “Behind Nico.”
Adrian laughed—genuinely delighted, the kind of surprised bark that meant someone had actually caught him off guard. “I don't mind finishing behind Nico. Or on top of him. Depends on the night.”
“Adrian!” I smacked him on the arm, my face flaming.
Kat cackled gleefully. Then she looked at me, tilting her head. I braced for impact.
“So this is why you're avoiding me?” she asked.
“I wasn't avoiding you.”
“So you two are a thing now? Not just hooking up?”
Adrian raised his brows at me, surprised that I had told Kat about Osaka at all. “Yes, it's official.”
She rolled her eyes. “How long?”
“Since Paris.”
She gasped. “Since Paris? And you didn't tell me?”
“It's complicated.”
“It's always complicated with you.” She looked at Adrian again, then back at me, then set the vodka on the counter with a decisive thud. She shoved the pint of sorbet she'd been carrying into my chest. “Fine. I'm staying for dinner. And you're telling me everything.”
“Dinner’s almost ready. I'll get another plate,” I said, escaping to the kitchen to put the sorbet in the freezer and take the chicken out of the oven.
“Excuse me, I’m going to grab some glasses.”
Adrian followed me, positioning himself between me and Kat's sightline. “Are you okay, Nicky?” His voice was low, just for me. “I know you didn't want anyone to find out.”
I looked at him—this man who had just been confronted by a fierce Russian ballerina wielding vodka but whose first instinct was still to make sure I was all right.
“Yeah, of course.” I squeezed his hand. “It's Kat. We can trust her.”
He searched my face for another second, making sure. Then he nodded, kissed my forehead and grabbed two glasses from the cabinet, and went back out to charm my best friend.
Within five minutes, Kat and Adrian were sitting crosslegged on my living room floor, sharing the vodka while I finished making a salad to go with the chicken.
I could hear them talking—really talking, not the polite small talk of strangers but the rapid, engaged conversation of two people who had immediately recognized something familiar in each other.
“—the training regime is barbaric,” Kat was saying. “Madame still uses a cane. She says it's for keeping the beat but I have bruises that say otherwise.”
“At least she's direct about it. Renaud just stares at you until you apologize for existing.”
Kat snorted. “Sounds about right. Nico's been bending himself into knots to please that man for over a decade and look at how he treats his own nephew.”
“I’m right here,” I called from the kitchen.
“Good. Pay attention!” Kat called back.
“He didn’t tell Nicky I was coming to Toronto.”
“Yeah, that was a fun story. Why did you come to Toronto, Adrian? I’m sure you had your pick of coaches after yours retired.”
“I have a half brother, Cam. He grew up here and offered to let me move into his apartment. And where was I going to live? Ottawa? Fuck that. I mean Toronto is no Vancouver…”
“Oh God, you’re one of those. Well Vancouver is no Moscow.”
“Not all of us were born to be Russian primadonnas.”
“Thank fuck for that, I have enough competition already.”
“Amen to that.”
They clinked glasses.
“Dinner's ready,” I called.
Neither of them moved.
“I'm glad I came over,” Kat said, swirling her glass. “Nico would have hidden you from me for months if I'd let him. He hoards the good things because he's convinced they'll go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Adrian said.
She studied him for a long moment. Then she pointed her glass at him. “I like you. But if you hurt him, let's just say I have two very big Russian brothers and I've heard it's hard to skate with a broken leg.”
“Dinner,” I said again, louder.
Kat waved me off without looking. Adrian poured her another glass of vodka with a wink. “Noted, Ms. Smirnova.”
I plated the food and brought it to them on the floor because apparently we were doing this picnic style. I sat down between them and Kat let me take one bite of chicken before launching into her interrogation.
“So. Paris. The city of love.” Kat tucked her legs beneath her and leaned forward with the intensity of someone settling in for a very long story. “How was it?”
“I told you about the fall during my short program.”
“I don't care about that fall. I want to hear about this.” She waved her fork between us. “You. Falling. For him. Your biggest rival. The man you once described to me as—what was it—'a walking migraine with good bone structure.'”
“I never said good bone structure.”
Adrian grinned. “I know at least one bone you don’t seem to mind.”
“Keep it PG, mister.”
“Not on my account.” Kat shifted closer. “Tell me more.”
“You know how it is,” I said, trying to steer the conversation somewhere less mortifying. “Tension. Proximity. Passion.”
“Sexy as fuck skaters getting undressed in front of you in hotel rooms,” Adrian added helpfully.
“Ooh, I like where this is going.”
“No! I mean, yes, that does happen but—but we were just hanging out, watching TV—”
“Boring,” she whined.
“And I kissed him.”
Kat's eyebrows shot up. “You kissed him? You made the first move?”
“Why is that so shocking?”
“Because you're you. You once waited three months to hold Théo's hand.”
“Different circumstances.”
“Different boy.” Kat looked at Adrian with renewed interest. “What is it about you that makes Mr. Cautious throw caution to the wind?”
Adrian shrugged but there was nothing casual about the warmth in his eyes when he glanced at me. “I'm irresistible. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I muttered.
Kat was looking between us with an expression I couldn't quite read—amusement layered over something softer, something that looked almost like relief.
“And then what?” she pressed.
“And then I told him I wanted more than just hotel hookups,” Adrian said.
Simpler now, the jokes falling away. He looked down at his plate, pushing a piece of chicken around with his fork—a rare moment of self-consciousness from someone who was never self-conscious about anything.
“I've never been in a relationship before. Never wanted one. But Nicky makes me want to be better than I am. He makes me want to deserve the way he looks at me.” He glanced at me, quick, almost shy. “So I asked him to give me a chance.”
The room was very quiet.
“Holy fuck,” Kat said softly. “That is romantic.”
“I have my moments,” he said with a wink.
We finished dinner while Kat bemoaned her latest terrible date—some hedge fund manager's son who'd taken her to a Michelin starred restaurant and spent the entire evening talking about his father's yacht.
“He called it a vessel,” she said, disgusted. “Unironically. And then he asked if I was flexible no less than six times.”
“Because you're a ballerina?” I asked.
“Because he's a pig.” She stabbed a piece of chicken. “The only reason I stayed through dessert was because they had a crème br?lée that was genuinely life changing.”
“Priorities,” Adrian said approvingly.
“A girl has to eat. Especially when a man is paying for the privilege of boring her to death.”
They argued about whether the lemon sorbet counted as dessert or a palate cleanser.
Kat told Adrian about the time I'd tried to choreograph a program to a Tchaikovsky ballet and nearly knocked myself unconscious on a death drop.
Adrian told Kat about my water bottle placement compulsion and the fact that he moved it three inches twice a week just to watch me frown.
Kat laughed so hard vodka came out of her nose, which made Adrian laugh, which made me laugh, and then we were all on the floor of my living room wiping our eyes and catching our breath.
Kat left around eleven, slightly unsteady in her combat boots, pulling me into a fierce hug at the door.
“I like him,” she whispered in my ear. “He's good for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She pulled back and held my face in her hands the way my mother did—searching, assessing, making sure the person behind the smile was actually okay. “You look lighter. Happier.”
“I'm trying,” I said. “He makes me feel like it's okay to ask for things. That's new for me.”
“Good, because you deserve the world, Nico.” She kissed my cheek, waved at Adrian over my shoulder, and disappeared down the hallway.
I closed the door and leaned against it. Adrian was sprawled across my living room floor surrounded by empty plates and an empty bottle of vodka, pink hair fanned against the carpet, looking up at me with that expression—soft, open, warm.
“Your best friend is awesome and a teeny bit scary,” he said.
“Yeah, she’s the best.”
I crossed the room and dropped down beside him, pressing my face into his neck. His arms came around me, automatic, like breathing.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“For what?”
“For being you. For letting her in. For—” I waved a hand at the scattered plates, the empty glasses, the mess of an evening that had somehow become one of the best nights I'd had in months. “All of it.”
“Nicky.” He tilted my chin up. “This is the easy part.”
He kissed me—slow, tasting like vodka and sorbet—and I melted into him the way I always did when we were alone. His hands slid under my shirt, warm against my back, and the ease of it, the rightness, still caught me off guard every time.
My oldest friend and my boyfriend. In the same room. In my life. Both of them real, both of them staying.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't pretending to be happy.
I was just happy.