Chapter 23 #2
“Yes. And I need to change clothes, so thank you for the tea, but you can go now.”
Mila studied me for several long seconds, and I felt the weight of that scrutiny. Then her eyes widened. “You are nervous.”
“I am not nervous.”
“Liar.
I looked away, which was apparently all the confirmation she required.
“Oh my God.” I jerked my head up in time to see her slow smile unfold. “I have waited years for this moment.”
I narrowed my gaze. “What moment?”
She pointed at me. “Luka Davorin is having an emotional crisis over sex.”
“I am not having a crisis.”
“You look pale.”
“That is just my face.”
Mila snorted into her tea. “You’re also doing a lot of denying.”
I hesitated, and before common sense could stop me, the question escaped.
“Your first time,” I said, carefully enunciating. “Was it with a man or a woman?”
Mila blinked, then placed her tea on the desk.
“Wow.” Her eyes sparkled. “As the Americans say… that was not on my bingo card for today.”
My cheeks were on fire. “Forget I said anything.” I straightened. If she would not leave, then I would take refuge in the bathroom.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
Mila stared at me in open astonishment. “This is the first conversation we have ever had about this.”
“There is probably a reason for that.”
“Yes, because the last time I suggested one of the Czech ice dancers was flirting with you, you nearly had a nervous breakdown.”
I gaped at her. “I did not.”
Mila looked me in the eye. “You dropped your water bottle, missed the bench when you tried to sit down, and spent the entire warm-up glaring at him every time he came within three meters of you.”
“In my defense, he was extremely obvious,” I muttered.
Mila laughed. “Poor Pavel looked terrified by the end of practice.”
“He kept touching my shoulder!”
“That is generally how flirting works.”
I groaned.
Mila’s laughter eased as she looked at me again. “You really are nervous.”
I exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh no.” She pointed at me accusingly. “Luka, if you are about to ask me for practical advice, this conversation is over. We are biologically incompatible and I refuse to turn this into an anatomy seminar.”
“No!”
The word came out so horrified she burst out laughing again. “Oh, this is magnificent.”
“I regret ever starting this.” I covered my eyes for a second. “I just…” God. Even saying this aloud felt impossible. “I only wanted to know if you were as nervous as I feel now.”
Silence.
I looked up, to be greeted by warm, compassionate eyes. “Oh.”
I gazed at the floor. That felt safer.
“Then you and Dean…”
“We have done… things.” My throat tightened around the admission. “Not much. But this is…” I searched helplessly for the word.
“Bigger?”
I nodded, and the room went quiet again.
Mila studied me for a long moment before speaking again. “My first time was with Stefan.”
“Him? I thought you had taste.” I groaned. “Must you remind me that he even exists?”
Mila snorted. “You hated him on sight.”
“And with good reason. He wore sunglasses indoors.”
“He thought they made him mysterious.”
It was my turn to snort. “They made him look like a nightclub magician.”
That dragged a laugh out of her.
God, I had forgotten how much we used to mock Stefan together after competitions.
“He was beautiful,” Mila admitted. “But he knew it, and that was the problem.”
I sat in the chair, my legs stretched out, the tea in my hand. “I remember him spending twenty minutes arranging his hair before the Gala in Budapest.”
“Twenty-five,” Mila corrected. “And then he expected applause because he brought me a protein bar.”
I laughed harder at that.
“He wasn’t cruel,” she said after a moment. “Just… deeply convinced that enthusiasm counted as emotional intelligence.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It should.” Another snort. “The man thought foreplay meant complimenting himself in my ear.”
“Oh my God.”
“Exactly.” She dissolved into laughter again. When she had control of herself, she drank her tea. “The worst part was that afterward he looked at me very seriously and said, ‘You’re welcome.’”
My jaw dropped. “No.”
“Yes.”
“That cannot be real.”
“Unfortunately it is tragically real.”
I shook my head. “I suddenly understand your sexuality much better.”
Mila threw a pillow at me, that I managed to dodge. Then her expression eased into something more thoughtful. “The problem wasn’t that he was bad at sex.” She shrugged. “It was that I never felt… seen. He was so busy trying to impress me that he never noticed whether I was actually comfortable.”
The humor drained quietly from the room.
“And Donna?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Mila smiled. “Donna noticed everything.”
I had seen Mila smile before.
Not like this.
“She paid attention,” Mila said quietly.
“Not in a dramatic way, just… naturally. She cared whether I was comfortable. She asked if I was okay. She listened when I answered.” Her smile deepened at the memory.
“And before anything even happened, she made me laugh so much I stopped feeling nervous without realizing it.”
I understood exactly what she meant. Not the details, but the feeling behind it, the safety inside it.
The tightness in my chest eased.
Dean would do those things too. I knew it instinctively.
Mila glanced sideways at me. “You trust him.”
It was not a question.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“And he adores you.” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, it is exhausting to witness.”
“That is not helpful.”
“It should be.” She beamed. “Luka, this is Dean. When he looks at you, even I blush.”
My face was on fire.
Mila laughed at my expression. Then her voice dropped.
“And whatever happens tonight, I promise you one thing. He is going to care far more about you being okay than whether everything is perfect.” She bit her lip thoughtfully. “Do you want to know the most important thing I learned?”
“Of course.”
Mila leaned forward, her cup held between her knees.
“It is supposed to feel good,” she said simply. “Not perfect, not cinematic, and definitely not technically impressive.” Her lips twitched. “You may both be elite athletes, but this is one situation where nobody is holding up score cards afterward.”
I laughed.
“Intimacy isn’t a performance.” Her voice was quieter.
“It’s just two people paying attention to each other.
” She stood then, carrying her empty cup toward the trash.
At the door, she paused and looked back at me.
“One last thing,” she said, her tone casual.
“If he hurts you emotionally, I will kill him.”
I blinked.
She nodded. “Donna will help me. She has great upper body strength and surprisingly few moral objections when I’m upset.”
Laughter burst out of me, and Mila smiled at the sound.
“You deserve to feel safe too, Luka.”
The words followed me long after the door closed behind her, and in the silence that fell, I realized a few things.
I knew how to earn approval.
I did not know how to believe I deserved care.