Chapter 9 #2
Then Mila said, “Where exactly are you right now?”
My stomach tightened. “I am here.”
“With me physically, yes.” She kept her eyes ahead. “Mentally is another issue.”
“We are five days from competition.”
“That is not an answer.”
I looked at her. Mila’s expression remained calm, which was usually a bad sign.
“You stopped listening halfway through the meeting.”
“I heard every word.”
“That is not what I said.”
My jaw tightened. “I am thinking about skating.”
“No, you are thinking about something else.” We walked a few more steps before she added, “I need to know whether it becomes our problem.”
The word our hit harder than the rest.
“There is no problem.” The answer came out sharper than I intended.
Mila stopped. So did I. Athletes moved around us in both directions, paying no attention.
She studied me for a moment before nodding. “Fine. Then keep it off the ice.”
Before I could respond, she continued toward the locker rooms.
I watched her go.
I should have followed her. I always did.
Instead I remained where I was, staring down the corridor long after she disappeared from sight.
Because for all my irritation, Mila was right.
I knew exactly what was distracting me.
What frightened me was how little that knowledge helped.
Dean
Stop watching him. Someone’s gonna see.
Cameras sat everywhere around the rink now, tucked into corners, tracking warmups, catching behind-the-scenes footage for Olympic content packages nobody would remember in six months except the athletes unlucky enough to become internet discourse for a week.
Add in phones, social media accounts, fan edits, slow-motion analysis threads—
Yeah. Bad time to develop a fixation on another skater.
And yet here I was again, leaning against the boards watching Luka skate alone.
Only a handful of athletes occupied the ice, most of them running isolated elements while coaches watched from the boards. I should have been doing the same.
Luka was skating at the far end of the rink. At first, I watched the way I always did, taking in technique, edge quality, timing, the things skaters noticed automatically.
He pushed into a step sequence and accelerated enough that the ice seemed to disappear beneath him.
It was effortless.
I found myself following the line of his movement across the rink.
Luka never skated small. Even when he wasn’t performing, there was a certainty to the way he occupied the ice, every turn extending fully, every edge driven with conviction, no hesitation or second-guessing.
The weird thing was how different it looked from the rest of him.
Off the ice, he was careful.
On it, he took up every inch of space he wanted.
He drove through a deep outside edge, shoulders opening as he crossed the rink, and for a second, I forgot I was supposed to be doing anything except watch.
Jesus.
The transition into the jump was almost unfair. Compression, release, and suddenly he was airborne, higher than he had any right to be.
My attention locked onto him.
The rotation snapped into place. The landing followed a heartbeat later, clean and solid, his blade biting into the ice before carrying him seamlessly into the next movement.
No—he flowed into it, as though the jump had never truly ended.
There was no visible transition between one element and the next. The momentum simply continued, pouring through his body and into the ice beneath him.
I found myself watching the line of his edges instead of the element itself. The way he covered the rink. Every movement seemed to begin before the last one had finished.
Most skaters fought the ice a little, even the best of us. There were always tiny corrections, small negotiations between body and blade.
Luka didn’t look like he was negotiating. It was as if he knew exactly what the ice would do before he touched it.
Another turn, another edge, and now his shoulders opened as he crossed the rink, power rolling through him in controlled waves.
God.
No wonder people watched him. The confidence in it was almost unsettling.
For those few minutes, there was nothing hesitant about him. None of the caution that seemed woven through everything he did away from the ice.
This was the same man who measured every word, who seemed to think three steps ahead of every conversation.
Out here, none of that existed.
He simply moved, unstoppable and mesmerizing, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I watched him flow across the ice through another sequence, another turn.
Then Luka lifted his head.
Sweat darkened the hair at his temples. His breathing was heavier now, chest rising and falling beneath the fitted training shirt.
The effort had stripped something away. For once, all I could see was Luka.
My stomach dropped.
Hard.
Then he smiled.
It wasn’t aimed at anyone, and I didn’t even think it was deliberate. A jump landed exactly where he wanted it, and satisfaction flashed across his face before disappearing again.
The sight hit me with surprising force.
My pulse lurched.
Jesus.
That was new.
Luka pushed into another pass. His hair had come loose from whatever battle he’d fought with it earlier, damp blond strands falling across his forehead before he shook them back. His breathing was heavier now, color high in his cheeks from the effort.
My gaze caught on the curve of a smile that had already vanished, on eyes brighter than they had any right to be beneath the harsh arena lights.
My stomach dropped again.
Harder this time.
What the hell?
The feeling hit with more force the second time. My breath caught in my throat. Something shifted low in my stomach.
I pushed away from the boards, propelling myself towards the far end, as though distance would somehow help.
Before I could examine the reaction too closely.
Across the rink, Luka remained completely unaware of the crisis unfolding in my nervous system.
Maybe it wasn’t a crisis.
Maybe that was the problem.
For one brief, deeply unsettling moment, my reaction had nothing to do with skating. More than that, I wanted something I couldn’t quite name.
Then Mila and their coach appeared, and Luka shut himself down.
Whatever I’d just witnessed was gone.
Mila joined him on the ice, and moments later, they were running through their free skate program.
I remained at the boards, watching a version of Luka that suddenly felt incomplete.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Their coach prowled nearby with his arms folded across his chest, expression sour enough that even from a distance I could tell he was unhappy about something.
Sokolov. That was his name. The guy always looked one inconvenience away from starting an international incident.
Luka and Mila moved through the opening transitions flawlessly, blades carving deep synchronized curves across the ice while the music swelled around them.
Anyone else watching probably saw exactly what commentators kept raving about online: chemistry, discipline, impossible consistency under pressure.
I saw Luka drive into the next lift entry too hard.
The element still rose cleanly overhead. Mila hit the line perfectly. Rotation stayed centered. Ninety-nine percent of people in the building would’ve called it excellent.
I knew in an instant the timing underneath it was wrong.
Luka overpowered the entry as if he was correcting for instability before instability even existed. His grip tightened during the transition instead of settling naturally, and the exit clipped sharper than intended before he reeled it back in.
Tiny error. Huge tell.
“Off the ice.”
Sokolov’s voice carried sharply enough across the rink that several nearby skaters glanced over before returning to their own training.
For a second Luka remained where he was.
Then Mila released the lift position and backed away, and he followed her toward the boards with the same smooth efficiency he brought to everything else. To anyone watching, it probably looked as though the mistake had already been forgotten.
I knew better.
The moment he reached the barrier, his hand closed around the top of it hard enough for the muscles in his forearm to tighten. A second later he loosened his grip and looked out across the ice as though nothing had happened.
It wasn’t convincing.
Leave it alone.
Whatever was going on between Luka and Sokolov wasn’t my business, and the last thing Luka needed was some American singles skater deciding he could fix problems nobody had asked him to fix.
That should have been enough.
But then I found myself remembering the look on Luka’s face after the lift went wrong. Not the mistake itself, but the split second afterward, before he’d managed to hide the reaction.
By the time I pushed away from the boards, I’d already made the decision.
Luka didn’t look up when I stopped beside him.