41. Adrian
Renaud ramped up the training schedule the last week of December.
Two ice sessions a day, dryland in between, choreography review and video analysis in the late afternoon.
The man ran his program like a military operation—every minute accounted for, every element tracked on spreadsheets that probably had spreadsheets.
Nicky thrived on it. Of course he did. Structure was his love language. He showed up on time, executed his assignments, took notes during video review with a focus that bordered on obsessive. The golden prince in his natural habitat—disciplined, prepared, relentless.
I thrived on it too but for different reasons.
I thrived because Nicky was thriving and watching him skate at full intensity did something to my competitive drive that no amount of training with Coach Allen’s group had ever managed.
He made me want to be better. Not to beat him—though I wanted that too—but to deserve to be on the same ice.
Renaud had us both running our free programs simultaneously—something he did occasionally to simulate competition pressure, the awareness of another skater sharing the ice, the need to hold your focus while someone else was commanding the space around you.
Nicky launched into his opening combination and the sound of his blades was like a whisper—barely there, almost silent, the kind of edge quality that coaches spent decades trying to teach and he made look like breathing.
Clean, precise, beautiful. Every line extended to its full length, every transition seamless, his body moving through the choreography with fluid certainty.
So I answered.
I launched into my quad Lutz—explosive, vertical, powerful. Landed with enough force to send ice shavings scattering across the surface.
He recalibrated from across the rink. A quad toe landed so softly it barely registered, followed by a Biellmann spin that arched his body into a line that was impossibly clean. Answering my shouting with a whisper that made you lean in closer.
We weren't looking at each other but we were absolutely skating at each other—two elite athletes at full intensity, pushing each other to reach for new heights.
It was the most electric I'd ever felt on the ice. Better than competition. Better than any Grand Prix. The air between us was charged with something that had nothing to do with rivalry and everything to do with the fact that we knew each other's bodies in ways that most training partners didn't.
Renaud was watching from the boards, arms crossed, and when we finished he gave a single, satisfied nod.
“Good,” he said. “Use each other. That's why I brought you both under the same roof.”
I caught Nicky's eye across the ice and looked away before I burst into laughter.
◆◆◆
The quad battle started the following week.
I’d been landing the quad flip since I was seventeen—the first Canadian man to do it in competition. It was the element that made judges sit up, commentators start using words like historic, and the federation suddenly decide I was worth investing in.
It was my signature. My calling card. The jump that separated me from skaters with better artistry scores and cleaner packaging.
Coach Allen had helped me build it from scratch but Renaud wanted it bigger. More consistent. He wanted it in the second half of my free program, where the base value got a ten percent bonus, which meant throwing it on tired legs with most of a program already in my body.
I’d been hitting it maybe seventy percent of the time in its new placement.
Renaud wanted ninety before he’d let me put it in for Nationals.
Nicky was drilling his quad Salchow–triple toe loop combo, the element that had been his signature before Aurora.
He'd been landing it maybe sixty percent of the time since coming back, which was impressive by any standard but not good enough for Nationals.
Not good enough for a selection committee deciding who represented Canada at the Olympics.
We were on opposite ends of the rink but we might as well have been circling each other.
I set up for the flip, went up, rotated, landed clean.
Looked over. Nicky had already launched into his Salchow—good height, solid rotation, clean landing.
Then the triple toe loop. He went up and I could see it the moment he left the ice—the axis was off.
He landed it but his free leg swung wide and his arms came out for balance.
Not a fall. Not even a stumble, really. But not clean.
Renaud frowned and scribbled in his notepad.
He didn't say anything. He didn't need to.
The man had turned quiet disapproval into an art form—a weapon he deployed with surgical precision.
It rolled off me like water. I'd been disappointing authority figures my entire life and had developed a healthy immunity to it.
But Nicky? Nicky absorbed that silence like a hit to the solar plexus.
I could see it from across the rink—the almost imperceptible stiffening of his spine, the way his next element came out a fraction too controlled, too careful.
Renaud's disappointment was psychological warfare and even his nephew wasn’t safe from it.
I went again. Cleaner this time, more height. Nicky answered with another combo. The Salchow was gorgeous—textbook, the kind of jump that belonged in a training video. The triple toe loop underrotated. He knew it before he landed, absorbing the error with a tight jaw.
Renaud shifted his weight at the boards. Still said nothing.
Nicky reset. Set up again. This time the whole combination was clean—high, fast, perfect landing, triple toe loop coming out of it like an afterthought. He exhaled visibly and I could see the relief from across the rink.
Then he did it again. Underrotated the toe loop.
And again. Two footed.
And again. Clean, but barely.
The inconsistency was the problem. It wasn't that he couldn't do it—he could, beautifully. It was that he couldn't do it every time, and at this level, every time was the only thing that mattered.
Three in a row for me. Clean, consistent, the flip becoming more natural each time. Meanwhile Nicky was hitting maybe every other attempt, the misses piling up like evidence.
Renaud finally spoke. Just one word, directed at Nicky. “Again.”
It was the tone. Not angry. Not encouraging. Just expectation, stripped of warmth, the coach who had built Olympic medallists demanding the standard he'd set for all of them. The same standard his nephew was currently failing to meet.
Nicky launched into another one. Underrotated.
“Sloppy.”
Clean this time but his landing edge wobbled.
“Commit.”
The third was perfect. Nicky held the landing, steady and sure, and looked toward the boards. Renaud gave a single nod—acknowledgement, not praise—and turned his attention to his clipboard.
I nailed the flip a sixth time and looked over at Nicky. The expression on his face stopped me mid-breath. Pride and fear, all tangled together in those blue eyes. A look that said I'm so proud of you and I'm terrified I can't keep up.
I turned away before my own face gave us both away.
◆◆◆
In the car after practice, he was quiet.
I walked to the rink since it was so close to Cam's.
After practice, Nicky would drive us to his place or mine—Cam was in LA wrapping up their next album so we had the apartment to ourselves.
On nights at his place, he'd drop me off early enough to walk to the rink on time.
On nights at mine, he'd leave first and I'd take an extra leisurely stroll to the rink.
“What's going on in that beautiful head of yours?” I asked, eyes flicking over his face as he focused on the road.
Silence. Then, quietly like he was afraid to speak the words into existence, “What if I'm not ready?”
“You're better than 90% of those skaters on your worst day.”
“The combo is still inconsistent. It's two weeks out and I'm landing it sixty percent of the time and that's not—”
“Shut up.”
He looked at me, startled.
“I mean it. Shut up.” I said it gently. “You're the reigning national champion. You have the highest technical base score of any Canadian skater right now. You landed six clean combos today.”
“Six out of ten.”
“Six out of ten two weeks out is fine. Your body knows this jump, Nicky. You've been landing it since you were a teenager. Whatever your hiatus shook loose, it didn't take your quads. Your brain just hasn't caught up yet.”
“What if it doesn't catch up in time?”
“It will.”
“You don't know that.”
“I know you. And I know that when it matters, when you're standing at centre ice with everything on the line, you're going to land that jump. Because you're Nicolas fucking Fontaine and you don't know how to do anything halfway.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. Just barely. “That sounds more like you.”
“Sounds like I’m a good influence then.”
“Maybe,” he said and the almost smile became a real one.