50. Adrian （Epilogue） #2
“Théo's going to be incredible,” Nicky said simply. No jealousy. No bitterness. Just the honest assessment of someone who had loved Théo once and respected him always. “But so are you. All you can do is leave everything you have out on the ice.”
“Have I ever held back?”
“Not once in your life.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head, careful not to disturb the braids. “Now stop fishing for compliments and finish your eyeliner. You're on in twenty.”
I caught his hand before he could pull away.
Turned in the chair and looked up at him—this man who had given up his own Olympic dream while still supporting mine, who had found a different path to the ice that didn't require destroying himself, who stood at the boards now not as a competitor but as the person I loved, steady and present and proud in a way that had nothing to do with medals.
I pulled him down and kissed him. Slow, deliberate, tasting like lip balm and the peppermint tea he'd been drinking all day. His hand cupped the back of my neck and held me there for a moment, fingers tenderly stroking the hair at my nape.
“I love you,” I said against his mouth.
“I love you too.” He pulled back and straightened up and gave me the look—the one that was all Nicky, all quiet fire. “Now go make them remember your name.”
◆◆◆
The music started—Cam's voice filling the arena, raw and aching, the new 3xit single about loving someone enough to let them break you. My brother had written it about his father. I was skating it for Nicky.
I don't remember much of the skate itself. That's how you know it was good—when the program takes over and your body does what it's been trained to do and you exist somewhere outside of thought, somewhere between the music and the ice and the roar of ten thousand people.
I remember the quad flip. The height. The hang time that seemed to suspend the laws of physics. Landing so clean the blade barely whispered against the ice and the silence in the arena—that split second of collective disbelief—before the eruption.
I remember the step sequence. Cam's voice cracking on the bridge, singing about holding on even when your hands are bleeding, and my body answering with everything I had.
Every edge, every turn, every movement pulled from somewhere deeper than muscle memory.
I wasn't performing. I was telling the truth in the only language I'd ever been fluent in.
I remember looking toward the boards mid-program—just a flash, a fraction of a second—and seeing Nicky. Hands clasped under his chin, tears already streaming down his face, watching me with an expression that made me feel invincible.
I remember the final spin. The deceleration. The last note hanging in the air like a held breath.
The stillness.
And then the noise.
◆◆◆
The scores came up and Nicky's hand tightened around mine in the kiss and cry. Miller was on my other side, professional and composed, but I could see the smile he was fighting.
The announcer was reading off the numbers but I couldn't hear anything over the roar of the crowd.
I wasn't looking at the screen. I had come into the free program in first place and Théo Beaubien had delivered the skate of his life before I took the ice—a flawless, transcendent program that had brought the arena to its feet and made even me, grudgingly, admit that the man could skate when he got out of his own way.
And he'd done it with every camera in the building pointed at him for the wrong reasons.
The Renaud story had dragged Théo's name back into the spotlight.
He'd handled it with a grace I wasn't sure I could have matched.
Refused to comment publicly. Let his skating speak for itself.
Walked into the Olympic arena with the weight of someone else's scandal on his shoulders and put down a program so clean, so emotionally devastating, that by the final note nobody in that building was thinking about Renaud or scandals or anything except the man on the ice.
I respected the hell out of him for that. I'd never tell him, obviously. But I did.
The only thing that mattered was that I had poured everything onto that ice. Every drop. Every bruise. Every morning I'd walked into a rink and chosen this life over the easy one waiting for me in Vancouver. Whatever number they put on that screen, I had left nothing behind.
The cameras were on me, waiting for the reaction—ready to capture my elation or disappointment as the standings were announced.
But I wasn't looking at the cameras.
I was looking at Nicky.
He was crying—openly, unashamedly, tears running down his face and dripping onto his Team Canada fleece. But he was smiling. That real smile, the one without performance or composure or any of the armour he'd spent his life building. The one that was just for me.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too,” he whispered back, voice wrecked.
I didn’t give a fuck about the score.
Because my gold was sitting right next to me. Holding my hand. Looking at me like I was his whole world. Golden hair catching the arena lights, blue eyes bright with tears, that perfect pink mouth curved into a smile so full of love it made my chest ache.
I cupped his face in my hands—right there in the kiss and cry, in front of the cameras and the commentators and ten thousand people including both our families—and I kissed him.
Not a quick peck. I kissed him the way I'd wanted to since the first morning in Paris. Slow and tender, his tears warm against my palms, his fingers curling into my costume. Like a promise. Like a prayer. Like something to treasure.
I didn't need a medal to tell me what I'd won.
I already had everything.