Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Luka
I expected an argument the second we stepped into the corridor.
Mila kept walking.
That unsettled me far more.
She didn’t speak as we left the arena, and I followed her through the streets without asking where we were going.
Cold air burned in my lungs. Traffic rolled past in blurred streaks of light.
People moved around us bundled in scarves and winter coats, anonymous and unconcerned while my entire internal balance threatened to come apart under the surface.
Then I saw the café ahead and understood immediately.
Neutral ground.
No federation officials. No coaches. No Velkaryan team staff drifting through the background pretending not to observe everything.
“How do you know this place is open?”
“Because unlike you,” Mila muttered, pushing open the door, “I occasionally leave the rink.” She hesitated for half a second before answering. “I’ve been here before.”
The café wasn’t empty. A few people looked up as we walked in. One phone appeared, then another.
I barely noticed.
Mila chose a table near the window and sat down. I chose the one facing her.
She waited until the server had taken our order. Then she folded her arms.
“What happened between you and Foster?”
There was no point pretending I misunderstood the question.
I rested my forearms against the table and stared at my folded hands for a long moment before answering.
“It stopped being simple.”
Mila stayed silent.
That silence worked better than pressure ever would have.
“At first I thought it was distraction,” I admitted. “Then curiosity. Then something I could ignore.” I met her gaze. “I was wrong.”
“How long?”
I frowned. “How long what?”
“How long has this been happening?”
“Since Worlds last year.” Saying it aloud made the timeline feel suddenly absurd. “We barely interacted. We didn’t even speak properly.” My throat tightened. “But I noticed him.”
A simple statement that didn’t even scratch the surface of what I’d experienced.
Mila absorbed that without visible surprise, which meant she had probably guessed already. “And Milan made it worse.”
“Yes.”
The coffees arrived. I wrapped both hands around the cup after the server left, more for the heat than the drink itself.
“And you never told me,” Mila said.
“I thought it would disappear.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No.”
The noise of the café swelled around us before fading back into the background again.
Mila leaned back in her chair studying me carefully, and I realized with a strange jolt that she looked tired. The exhaustion sat around her eyes in ways I had somehow missed for weeks.
“That’s why you’ve been missing things,” she said eventually. “You never miss things.”
I almost argued before stopping myself.
Because she was right.
“And what about him?” she asked.
I wrapped my hands more tightly around the coffee cup. “I don’t know.”
“You must know something.”
I stared into my coffee. “He notices me.” A humorless breath escaped me. “Constantly.”
Mila waited.
“He approaches me. He keeps closing distance.” I paused. “And when I give him opportunities to step back, he doesn’t take them.”
That was the closest I had come to saying it plainly.
Mila took a slow sip of coffee before speaking again. “You sound terrified.”
“I am.” The answer came easily. The next words didn’t. “You’ve been struggling too.”
Mila raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Usually you require direct impact with a wall before noticing other people.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ve been so busy thinking about myself that I missed it.”
For the first time since we’d sat down, she looked away.
It was only a small movement, but Mila almost never looked away first.
I thought about the late training sessions. The unexplained absences. The conversations she kept redirecting whenever they drifted toward her life outside skating.
Slowly, the pieces rearranged themselves.
“Who is she?”
Mila glanced down, her fingers tracing the edge of her cup in a movement that was nothing like her usual precision. Finally, she raised her chin and looked me in the eye. “You know her. You just didn’t… know.” She took a breath. “Donna DeLuca. The physio on the US team.”
“When did this start?”
“Three years ago, at Worlds.” She gave a short laugh. “Which sounds insane when I say it aloud.”
“And nobody knows?”
Her expression hardened. “If the federation knew, I would not still be skating.”
The blunt certainty in her voice made my stomach knot.
“So it’s a long-distance relationship?”
She managed a chuckle. “Very long distance.” There was no dramatic edge to her words, no performance, and somehow that made it all the more real.
“Is this where I say I’m happy for you?”
She laughed, and the sound was sharp enough to have heads turning in our direction. “There are times when I’m happy about it. Unfortunately, those moments are often overshadowed by… other factors.”
She didn’t need to elaborate.
I had to smile. “That explains the improvement in your English.”
Her cheeks pinked. “Let us say I have a much wider vocabulary.” She paused before adding, “She’s here.”
I stilled. “In Milan?”
She nodded. “She’s been here the whole time. Different schedules. Different rinks.” She took a breath. “We meet in her room in the Village. We don’t… overlap where anyone can see.” She swallowed, and I caught a glimpse of raw emotion. “When we can overlap long enough to pretend it isn’t temporary.”
I let that settle before asking, “What does Donna know about us?”
“Everything,” Mila said simply. “About what people think we are. About why we let them think it.”
“And she’s okay with it?”
Another hard swallow. “She hates it, but she understands why it exists.”
“And yet she stays with you.”
Mila’s smile reached her eyes, her face glowing. “Yes. Which scares me more than if she didn’t.” She traced one finger around the rim of her cup before looking at me again. “I’m tired, Luka.”
I had heard Mila angry before. Frustrated. Determined. Exhausted after training.
I could not remember hearing her sound defeated.
“I’m tired of planning my entire life around hiding.”
I looked at her differently then. So much I’d missed.
“I should have noticed,” I said in a low voice.
“You had your own disaster happening.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
Her expression softened. “No. Probably not.”
I stared down at my coffee for a moment before speaking again.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” The words created an ache in my chest.
Mila huffed. “That part I noticed.” She reached across the table and took my hands in hers. I knew how it would look, but I didn’t stop her. I needed that connection.
I stared at our joined hands.
For years, Mila had been the one constant in my life. The one person who knew what the federation demanded, what Sokolov expected, what it cost to survive inside that system.
The one person I never had to explain myself to.
“For years I thought I understood my life.”
Mila waited.
“Now I’m not sure of anything.”
“That’s terrifying for you.”
“Yes.”
“And exciting?”
I looked away. Heat crept up the back of my neck.
Beneath the fear, beneath the panic and confusion and everything else, there was something I hadn’t wanted to examine too closely.
Hope.
That was answer enough.
She said nothing for a moment, and then she straightened in her chair.
“We have four days before the Team Event.”
I already disliked where this was heading. “Mila—”
“We train. We keep our heads down. We do not hand anyone a reason to start asking questions before competition.”
“You mean I go back to pretending.”
“I mean we survive long enough to skate.”
The words hit hard because they were true.
She leaned forward again, her eyes fixed firmly on mine now.
“I’m not telling you not to see him. I’m telling you to understand the risk before you decide he’s worth it.”
My pulse raced.
“And what if he is?”
Mila held my gaze for several long seconds. “Then this stops being theoretical.”
People laughed nearby. Cups clinked against saucers. Somebody near the counter dropped a spoon.
None of it reached me. The rest of the café seemed very far away.
Then Mila spoke again, more carefully this time. “You’re already making decisions.”
I frowned. “About what?”
“About how much of this you’re willing to risk.”
The answer rose immediately. I didn’t give it.
Mila watched me for a moment.
“You keep talking as though you’re standing at the beginning of something,” she said quietly. “But you’re not.”
I looked away, but she tightened her grip on my hand, pulling me back to her.
“You think this is still a question of whether you should walk toward him.”
Her gaze remained steady. “Luka, you’ve been doing that for days.”
The café noise faded into the background.
I stared at my coffee. I couldn’t argue with her.
Every opportunity to create distance had somehow become another conversation,
another reason to stay, to return to him.
Mila exhaled softly. “Just be honest with yourself.”
“About what?”
Her expression softened. “About the fact that you’re no longer trying to avoid this.”
She paused. “You saw the photos. The woman from the café.”
“That proves nothing.” I didn’t believe that as much as I wanted to.
“No,” Mila agreed. “It doesn’t.”
The café noise swelled briefly around us. Cups clinked. Someone laughed near the counter.
Mila wrapped both hands around her coffee. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“I know.” And somehow, that made this harder.
“But before this goes any further, you need truth. Not whatever story you’ve built from half-finished conversations.”
I looked down at the table. “And if I find out?” My throat tightened. Part of me already suspected the answer.
Mila studied me for a moment. “Then at least you’ll know.”
Silence settled between us.
Then her eyes narrowed. “You’re going to find him.”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t need to.
Mila let out a long breath. “Then be smart.”
I almost laughed at that. Smart had disappeared from this situation days ago.
I stood, pulling my coat back on. “Thank you.”
“For the coffee?”
“For seeing me before I was ready to.”
Her expression softened. “You’re my family, Luka.”
I nodded. Then I stepped back into the freezing Milan air.
Training schedules. Federation pressure. Olympic expectations. I should have been thinking about any of them.
I found myself thinking about Dean Foster.
About the way he kept stepping closer.
About the fact that every opportunity to push him away had somehow become another reason not to.
Mila was right.
Something had already changed.
The frightening part wasn’t that I could see it now.
It was that I wasn’t sure I wanted it to stop.