Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Dean
My room should have felt like a reset.
Training stayed at the rink where it belonged, and once the door closed behind me, my brain stopped running programs on repeat long enough to recover. Shower. Food. Review notes. Reset. By the time I dropped onto the bed, the noise in my head had usually burned itself out.
Today it had followed me out of the arena and all the way to the Village.
Forty minutes after leaving the rink, I was still replaying a conversation that should have been over.
The anthem.
Montreal.
I don’t know what I’d be allowed to like.
And then there was Mila.
Jesus.
My phone buzzed against the bedside table hard enough to snap me out of it. I ignored it for all of three seconds before it buzzed again.
With a sigh, I pushed away from the window and grabbed it off the table, unlocking the screen automatically.
The name hit first.
Claire.
For a second my brain stalled hard enough that everything else disappeared.
Then I opened the message.
Please tell me you’re actually in Milan right now and not stuck in airport purgatory somewhere.
That dragged a real smile out of me before I could stop it.
I’m here. Wait. Here? Why are YOU here?
The typing bubble appeared instantly.
Long story. Flight disaster. At least one airline employee probably hates me now. Can we meet?
The answer came without hesitation.
When?
I started pacing before she even replied, restless energy redirecting itself into a different lane entirely now that my brain had finally found another target.
ASAP. I need caffeine and a person I actually like.
Yeah. That sounded like Claire.
I hit call instead of texting back.
She answered immediately. “Please tell me that was you replying and not some Olympic scam account pretending to be Dean Foster.”
I laughed despite myself. “Depends. Are you asking me for money?”
“Not yet.” I could hear noise somewhere behind her. “So you are here.”
“Last time I checked.”
“Good. Because I’m exhausted, under-caffeinated, and currently questioning every decision that got me onto an international flight this week.”
“You flew to Italy without a plan?”
“I had a plan. Then the airline apparently decided chaos was more spiritually fulfilling.”
That sounded about right too.
I grabbed my jacket off the chair while balancing the phone against my shoulder. “Where are you?”
“Hotel near the Forum. There’s a café around the corner with servers who are way too attractive. Tell me you know it.”
“I’ve been there.”
“Excellent. Meet me in thirty?”
“Make it thirty-five unless you want me arriving half-frozen and homicidal after public transit.”
Claire snorted. “Fine. But if you’re late, I’m ordering for you.”
“That feels threatening.”
“Excellent.”
I could practically picture the look on her face.
“Then we’re good.”
“Hey,” she said after a second, her voice a little softer. “It’ll be good to see you.”
The sincerity underneath it caught me off guard more than the joke had.
“Yeah, you too.”
“Okay, hurry up. The espresso here tastes promising and I need somebody to complain to in person.”
“You flew across an ocean for better coffee?”
“I flew across an ocean because my life lacks restraint.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Shut up and get moving, Foster.”
The line disconnected before I could answer.
For a few seconds I stood there with my phone still in my hand while the room settled around me again.
The earlier tension hadn’t disappeared entirely, but the angle of it had changed. Somehow Claire had hijacked my attention.
It was a familiar experience.
I shrugged into my jacket, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door.
By the time I reached the corridor, the replay loop in my head had eased enough that I could finally think forward instead of backward.
Not completely.
Luka still lingered there beneath everything else,
The brief smile I’d managed to coax out of him. The glimpse of the person hiding underneath all that restraint, impossible to dislodge now that I’d seen it.
But as I stepped outside into the Milan evening and headed toward the Metro, another thought slipped in alongside it.
Claire had always seen through me faster than most people.
Which meant I had roughly thirty-five minutes before she started asking questions.
Claire was already halfway through a cup of coffee by the time I arrived.
“You look terrible,” she announced.
“Hello to you, too.”
“You were expecting a hug first?”
“I was hoping for basic human warmth.”
Claire grinned and stood, arms opening without hesitation.
I stepped into the hug, and the familiarity of it hit harder than I expected. Same perfume, same easy confidence. Same sense that Claire noticed far more than she ever admitted outright.
I sat in the seat opposite her, and she slid a coffee toward me. “Caffeine. You’re welcome.”
I picked up the cup, took one sip, and blinked. “You remembered my order.”
Claire appeared offended. “Please. I remember your order, your Starbucks ranking system, and the fact you alphabetized your playlists in college.”
“That happened once.”
“You made categories.”
“In my defense, there were a lot of playlists.”
“There were spreadsheets, Dean.”
There was no point in arguing that one.
For the first time all day, my shoulders loosened.
“What brings you to Milan?”
She gasped. “That’s all I get for flying all this way to watch you finally win a gold medal?”
I gave her a searching glance. “You really came to watch the Games?”
Claire bit her lip. “Okay—the shopping might have played a teeny tiny part. Plus the fact that a whole heap of friends were coming here, and someone pulled out at the last minute.”
I guffawed. “Ah, now it makes sense.”
“What interests me more is that look I saw when you walked over here.”
“What look?”
“The one you used to give me before I’d ask what was going on.”
“Nothing to report.” I leaned back in my chair.
Claire waited.
Unfortunately, she was very good at waiting.
Finally, I sighed. “There’s a guy.”
Claire nodded. “Okay.” Then she frowned. “Wait.” Her eyes widened. “Guy?”
“Yes.”
“As in man?”
“That would be the implication, yes.”
“So what’s the problem with this guy?”
I looked down at my coffee. There it was, the question I couldn’t answer.
“I don’t know.” For a moment I watched steam curl upward from the cup. “I keep catching glimpses of who he is.”
Claire’s expression softened.
“And then he disappears again. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on him, something doesn’t fit.”
“Such as?”
I hesitated.
Claire had always possessed an almost supernatural ability to sit quietly until people filled the silence.
I filled it for more than five minutes. When I stopped long enough to drink my coffee, she went quiet.
Yeah, that right there was a red flag.
“You know what’s interesting?”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Not particularly.”
“You haven’t told me a single thing about what he looks like.”
I frowned. “Why would I?”
“Because that’s usually the first thing people mention when they’re interested in someone.”
“I’m not interested in him.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m not.”
Claire ignored that. “You’ve spent the last five minutes talking about what he doesn’t say.” She stirred her coffee. “You keep describing moments.”
“What does that mean?”
“Most people describe a person.” She pointed her spoon at me. “You describe the spaces between things.”
I stared at her. “That was unhelpfully cryptic.”
“You notice when he pulls away.” She shrugged. “That’s not usually what people pay attention to.” She tilted her head. “What about when you’re not around him?”
I frowned. “What?”
“When you’re not with him.” Her gaze stayed on mine. “Do you stop thinking about him?”
I leaned back in my chair and stared out the window again.
The answer came far too quickly.
At last, I swallowed. “No.”
Claire waited.
“Not really.”
For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then she wrapped her hands around her cup.
“I think you’re used to being the one who decides how conversations go.”
“That sounds manipulative.”
“It isn’t.” She shrugged. “You’re friendly. People trust you. They open up.”
“And?”
“And this guy isn’t.” Claire watched me for a second. “You keep reaching for something and finding a wall instead.”
The irritating part was she wasn’t wrong.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe my ass.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
“You lead,” she said simply. “Not in an obnoxious way, more a… stabilizing kind of way.”
“I’m a skater,” I told her in a dry tone. “Leading edges are kind of the point.”
She laughed again. “No, I mean with people.” Then she leaned forward. “When we dated, you were always the one deciding things without realizing it. Where we went. When we left. How problems got solved.”
“I asked what you wanted,” I retorted.
“You did, totally. But you’d already started steering the ship.”
I blinked. “I didn’t know I was doing that.”
“I know.” Her voice was gentle. “That’s why it wasn’t a problem. It’s just how you move through the world.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “And that was… bad?”
“Not bad,” she said quickly. “Just not what I wanted.” She shrugged. “I like steering my own ship.”
I thought back through years of interactions all at once and immediately hated how accurate that sounded.
Claire watched understanding dawn across my face and laughed outright. “Oh my God, you really didn’t know.”
“No, I did not.”
“Well.” She settled back into her chair looking deeply entertained now. “This conversation just became way more interesting.”
“That sentence makes me nervous.”
“It should.”
I groaned and dragged both hands down my face. “Claire.”
“Most people react to you.”
“React?”
“Yeah. They push back. Or they go along with whatever you want.” She shrugged. “This guy doesn’t sound interested in doing either.”
The air caught in my lungs hard enough that I stopped moving altogether.
Because she was right.
I’d spent days trying to work out why every interaction with Luka felt slightly off balance.
Claire went very still, then stared at me for a second. “Well.”
I laughed once under my breath, though there wasn’t much humor left in it now. “Yeah. That’s about where I’m at too.”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then Claire reached across the table and tapped the back of my hand. “You know the really funny part?”
“I’m terrified to ask.”
“You keep calling this confusion.” Her eyes held mine.
“And?”
“Dean.” She laughed softly. “I’ve known you for how many years?”
Something about that question immediately made me wary.
“You don’t get confused.”
Then she smiled.
I had the distinct impression the conversation had stopped being about Luka several minutes ago.
We left the café together and drifted into the evening crowd, shoulder to shoulder while Milan surged around us in waves of headlights, voices, and impatient traffic.
Claire slid her sunglasses back into place as we stopped near the curb.
“You’ll be fine.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious, Dean.” She nudged my arm. “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
I wished I felt that certain.
“You always talk like you know the ending before everyone else.”
“Please. If I knew the ending, I’d have bet money on it by now.” Her mouth curved. “Although I do think there’s a strong chance of you standing on a podium while I embarrass you publicly.”
“That sounds threatening.”
She pointed at me. “Huge banner. Your face. Possibly glitter.”
I stared at her. “You haven't.”
“Not yet.” Her grin widened. “But now that I’ve seen your reaction, I’m considering it.”
I laughed.
Her hand brushed my cheek. “Try to keep your head in the game, okay? I’d hate for existential longing to ruin the aesthetic.”
I caught her wrist before she pulled away. “Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime.”
There was no way I was letting her go without asking the one question that had been burning through my mind.
I kept hold of her wrist. “Claire? Why aren’t you weirded out by this?”
“By what?”
“The conversation.”
“The conversation about Luka?” Claire looked delighted. “Dean.”
“What?”
“You think I spent three years dating you and somehow missed the fact that you occasionally develop intense and slightly alarming fascinations with people?”
I stared at her. “That’s a terrible description.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Besides, you talked about him for an hour.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Actually it does.”
I narrowed my eyes.
Claire’s expression was unexpectedly gentle.
“Dean, if I’d spent the last hour talking about somebody the way you’ve been talking about him, you wouldn’t have assumed I was having an identity crisis.”
That stopped me.
“You would’ve assumed they mattered.”
We hugged once more before parting ways. I watched her disappear into the crowd, then turned back toward the arena.
You would’ve assumed they mattered.
Claire always did know how to leave a conversation lodged under my skin.
The lobby of the arena was bustling with athletes, some on their way to practice, others flushed from their exertions. I headed for the rink, went through the doors—
And stopped.
Luka stood alone beside the boards, one hand resting against the barrier while he looked out across the empty ice. I recognized the expression in a heartbeat. Every skater knew that place, the moment before competition when you stopped seeing the rink and started seeing the program.
His head lifted.
Our eyes met.
Surprise crossed his face before he could hide it, but it was gone a second later. The change was so fast most people wouldn’t have noticed.
I’d started noticing.
For a moment neither of us moved.
I should have nodded and kept walking.
Except I found myself wanting another glimpse behind the walls. Another chance to see what happened when Luka forgot to be careful.
My feet had already started moving when voices echoed across the rink.
“Luka!”
Several athletes in Velkaryan jackets emerged from the opposite corridor.
Luka’s posture straightened. Whatever I’d been seeing a moment earlier vanished behind the version of himself everyone else seemed to get. One of the athletes clapped him on the shoulder, and he answered. By the time they steered him down the corridor, he hadn't looked back once.
I remained where I was for another second, watching them go.
Then I headed for the locker rooms.
The disappointing part wasn’t missing the conversation.
It was realizing I’d wanted one.