Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dean
By the time I reached the hotel, Milan’s February cold had worked its way through my coat and into my bones, but the lobby hit warm the second the doors slid open, heavy with coffee and polished wood and the low murmur of travelers dragging suitcases across marble floors.
None of it held my attention for long. I spotted Mom near the windows, one hand wrapped around a coffee cup, the silver pot sitting untouched beside her.
She looked exhausted.
She stood the second she saw me. “Oh, sweetheart.”
And then she had both arms around me.
I hugged her hard enough to lift her off the floor, relief hitting me hard now she was physically here in Milan and not just a voice through a phone line.
She laughed against my shoulder. “Well, you’re definitely still my son. Nobody else hugs me like they’re trying to rearrange my spine.”
I didn’t let go of her immediately.
I hadn’t realized how much tension I’d been carrying since Dad’s hospital scare until that moment. Mom must’ve felt it too because when I finally pulled back, she swallowed.
“He’s okay,” she said in a low voice before I even had time to ask. “Still stubborn. Still arguing with nurses.”
Relief washed over me. “Oh, thank God.” I knew she wouldn’t have lied to me, and Dad had sounded great over the phone, but seeing her face as she said the words hammered it home.
“And he’s still insisting he’s going to be in that arena Friday night whether anyone approves it or not.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, absolutely.” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently, surviving a cardiac event has only made him more dramatic.”
A laugh escaped me, shaky but real.
I joined her on the couch, the window overlooking the street while hotel guests drifted around us, speaking half a dozen languages.
Mom reached for my hand. “You look tired.”
I rolled my eyes. “I hate to break it to you, but so do you. And as for me…Olympics? Duh.”
Her eyes flashed. “Jet lag may be kicking my ass right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kick yours if you sass me like that again.”
I chuckled. “How is it you can always make me feel like I’m still ten years old?”
Mom grinned. “It’s a gift. And of course you’re tired. I imagine Mark Winton has had you on the ice non-stop.” Her eyes narrowed in that perceptive maternal way I usually hated because she didn’t miss a thing. “But it’s more than that.”
I looked away toward the street outside. “I’m fine.”
“That answer has literally never convinced me once in your entire life.”
I snorted.
She squeezed my hand. “Dean.”
The concern in her voice hit harder after the week we’d had.
“I’m okay,” I assured her. “Just… a lot happening at once.”
She bit her lip. “Your father scared you.”
The bluntness of it knocked the air out of me for a second.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
Mom nodded as though she’d expected that answer. “He scared me too.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment after that.
Then because I needed the conversation to move somewhere less emotionally catastrophic before I accidentally cried in the middle of an Italian hotel lobby, I grasped at the first distraction available.
“Did you know Claire’s here?”
That worked like a charm.
Mom brightened. “Claire Tyson?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, I always liked Claire.”
I groaned. “Everybody likes Claire.”
“Well, that’s because she’s delightful.” Mom leaned back with a smile. “Also, I should tell you—I’ve become extremely well informed about your Olympic social life.”
My stomach dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”
She laughed at my expression. “One of my students follows everything happening here.” Her mouth twitched. “Kyle Gordon. He’s seventeen, way too dramatic, and deeply invested in figure skating gossip.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’s been showing me updates for days.” She raised her eyebrows. “Did you know there are entire social media compilations of you looking emotional in Italy?”
Heat climbed into my face. “Mom.”
“What?” She seemed delighted. “Apparently the internet finds you very compelling right now.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “I don’t wanna know.”
“Oh, I think you do. Because this will amuse the hell out of you.” Her grin widened. “Kyle showed me one post that said—and I quote—‘Every time Foster looks at Davorin he acts like he’s in the final scene of a romance movie.’ Or maybe not those exact words, but you get the idea.”
I nearly inhaled my own tongue.
Mom burst out laughing.
“Oh my God,” I muttered.
“There was another one about eye contact violating international law.”
“Please stop talking. I’m begging you.”
She was cackling now, tears gathering in her eyes. “Dean William Foster, are you blushing?”
“No.”
“Oh, dear Lord, you are.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling while she recovered enough to sip her coffee.
The terrifying thing was I’d seen the posts. All of them. The jokes. The edits. The speculation. At first it had seemed ridiculous, then funny… and then increasingly dangerous.
Mom set her cup down, still smiling. “About this Luka Davorin…” Her tone was way too casual.
Every muscle in my body became hyperaware. “What about him?”
“Oh, nothing.” Her tone stayed light, but I knew her too well. “He seems important to you.”
I forced myself to shrug. “We became friends here.” There was a knot in my belly. It wasn’t a lie, not really.
It just wasn’t the whole truth.
“Mmm.”
That sound contained years of maternal skepticism.
I pointed at her. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing where you know stuff.”
She blinked. “I don’t know anything,” she remonstrated. “I just know my son.” She tilted her head, a gesture I knew so well. “And something about you feels… different.”
For a moment, I couldn’t think of a single safe response.
Because she was right. I was different.
I hadn’t completely transformed overnight. I hadn’t become another person.
But everything felt clearer now, not because I suddenly had all the answers, but because I’d finally stopped arguing with the ones I already had.
Mom watched me carefully for a second, her eyes growing more thoughtful.
“You seem happier.”
The simple honesty of it derailed me.
I looked down at the table. The smile arrived before I could stop it.
Apparently I wasn’t nearly as subtle as I’d thought because Mom noticed instantly.
Of course she did.
She squeezed my hand again. “Well, whoever or whatever is responsible for that look on your face…” She smiled. “I think I’m grateful to them.”
The roughness in her voice told me more than the words had.
I squeezed her hand back.
God, I was glad she was here.
Luka
The second summons came less than three hours after the first.
This time no liaison approached me publicly. There was no polite request, only a message waiting on my phone when I went to the locker room after practice.
Conference Room B. Immediately.
No signature, no explanation.
For a moment I simply stared at the screen. My stomach dropped.
The first meeting had been bad enough. A second meant they were not finished.
Questions clamored until I couldn’t think straight.
What have they found?
Who has spoken to them?
Has someone seen something?
My pulse started climbing.
I locked my phone and then unlocked it again, as though the message might somehow change if I looked twice.
I don’t know why, but in that moment I needed Dean—or perhaps some instinct told me I would need him when this was over.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I opened our messages.
Can I see you?
The text looked inadequate the moment I sent it. A few seconds later, I added a single word.
Please.
The reply arrived almost instantly.
Of course. What happened?
My fingers shook as I typed.
I do not want to discuss it here.
I pocketed my phone.
Time to go.
My pulse remained steady as I walked back beneath the arena through the same lower corridors I had already begun associating with dread. The air was alive with Olympic momentum and adrenaline.
I felt separated from all of it now, as though I were already moving inside a different reality from everyone else.
The room waiting for me this time was smaller. There was no folding table, no attempt at comfort.
Director Vasiliev stood near the far wall speaking quietly with another federation representative I recognized vaguely from media management. Sokolov remained seated, his expression unreadable as always.
All three men looked at me when I entered.
No one smiled.
The last fragile piece of hope I had carried into the room vanished.
The door shut behind me with a soft click, and Vasiliev gestured toward the chair opposite them. “Sit.”
I obeyed, trying not to let my rising panic show. The silence stretched long enough that I became aware of the hum of the fluorescent lighting overhead.
Then the media representative spoke.
“You were seen.”
I tightened my jaw. “Seen doing what?”
The man tilted his head. “You tell us.”
A trap, simple but effective.
I kept my breathing steady. “I’ve done nothing inappropriate.”
Technically true. My pulse spiked anyway. The fact that I had to qualify it in my own head did not feel encouraging.
Sokolov exhaled quietly, and what hit me was that it wasn’t a sign of impatience, but disappointment.
“Luka,” he said, his voice low, his tone almost reasonable. “This is not only about what is true.”
Of course it was not.
“It is about perception.”
The word settled heavily into the room, joining the others I knew so well. Perception. Image. Narrative.
Always narrative, never reality. Never what people actually felt, only what they could be made to represent.
The media representative stepped closer, his posture relaxed in a way that felt calculated. “You understand what you represent here.”
Not a question. It was never a question.
I held his gaze. “Yes.”
“And you understand,” he continued, “that certain narratives—if they gain traction—can damage not only you, but your partner, your federation, and your country.”
Each word placed carefully, deliberately. I felt Mila’s name inside the sentence even without it being spoken aloud. That was intentional too.
Pressure worked best when shared.
My throat tightened, but not because they frightened me.