Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dean
Dinner with my parents lasted almost two hours, long enough for the restaurant staff to stop pretending not to recognize me. By dessert, Mom had confiscated my medal because too many strangers kept drifting toward the table with congratulatory smiles and phones half-hidden in their hands.
“It’s going in my purse,” she announced after the fourth interruption. “You can survive ten minutes without staring at it.”
Dad snorted into his wineglass. “You sound like you’re grounding him.”
“I might,” she replied. “Olympic champions clearly require supervision.”
The restaurant glowed with low amber light and polished wood, every table crowded, conversations folding over one another in Italian while waiters moved through the narrow aisles balancing wine bottles and plates of pasta.
Dad looked good tonight, but that didn’t stop me from glancing often at him, just to check.
Eventually, he caught me at it.
He pointed his fork at me. “Stop monitoring me like I’m a faulty heart valve. They wouldn’t have cleared me to travel if I was about to keel over beside the tiramisu.”
Mom let out a wry chuckle. “If you want to worry about anyone, spare a thought for the poor cardiologist. He looked ready to chain him to the hospital bed when your father announced he was flying to Italy no matter what anybody said.”
Dad looked deeply pleased with himself. “And yet here I am. Miraculous recovery.”
“You bullied your recovery into submission,” Mom corrected.
I laughed, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck while warmth pressed against my skin from the packed restaurant and the wine, and the simple surreal fact that only a few hours ago, I’d stood on Olympic ice listening to the American anthem play for me.
Olympic champion.
Every time the thought surfaced, my brain still stalled around it.
The team had wanted a celebration tonight, but nobody argued when I said I wanted dinner with my parents instead. There’d be time later. Nathan and Brooke still had their event coming up. Harper too. The Games weren’t finished with us yet.
Mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “We’re proud of you, sweetheart.”
The sincerity in her voice hit hard, because I understood what it had cost both of them to get me here. Early mornings. Missed weekends. Years of skating bills that should’ve terrified any sane parent.
“Thanks,” I managed.
Dad ruined the emotional moment by reaching for another glass of red wine.
Mom’s gaze narrowed. “Should you be having another?”
He gave her a mock glare. “Hey, wine is good for you. It says so in the Bible. You know, a little wine for your stomach? Isn’t that how it goes?” God, he looked smug.
She snorted. “And when that was written, water was often polluted, so they used wine as a remedy for ailments or to purify drinking water.”
Dad blinked. “And how come you know all this? You’re no Bible scholar.”
“No—I’m a teacher.” She winked at me. “We know everything.” Then she schooled her features. “Doesn’t the Bible also lecture about not getting drunk on wine, because it leads to debauchery?”
Dad snickered. “Ooh, I wouldn’t mind a bit of debauchery tonight.” Mom gasped, and he grabbed her hand. “But only with you, honey.”
I laughed. “You two are unbelievable.”
He smiled. “Now there’s my Dean.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been right here for the last two hours.”
Dad leaned back in his chair, studying me over the rim of his wineglass with the kind of sharp observation I’d inherited from him whether I liked it or not.
“Yeah, and you’ve been distracted all night.”
“I just won Olympic gold. I’m allowed to look a little fried.”
“Mm-hm.”
The sound carried exactly enough skepticism to make my mother laugh. “Ignore him. You’ve spent two straight weeks under Olympic pressure.”
I hadn’t lied. Exhaustion sat deep in my bones. But underneath it ran another current entirely, one that kept tightening every time my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Luka.
Every time it wasn’t him, I tried not to be disappointed.
“Are we interrupting your plans?”
I blinked. “What?”
Dad’s lips twitched. “What your mom is trying to ask is if there’s someone waiting for you. You know, back at the Olympic Village?”
Heat climbed up the back of my neck. “There’s nobody waiting.”
It wasn’t technically a lie. Luka wasn’t sitting in my room right now counting minutes, but he was there in every other way that mattered.
My mom exchanged a quick glance with my dad before looking back at me, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, there definitely is someone.”
Before I could get a word out, Dad interjected, “We notice stuff like that. We’re observant. Comes with being a parent.”
“And you’ve spent the entire evening looking at your phone every six minutes,” Mom added.
“I have media obligations.”
“Mm-hm,” both of them said simultaneously.
God.
I leaned back in my chair with a groan while they laughed together, and the familiar warmth between them hit me hard. Thirty years together and they still looked at each other like high school sweethearts.
I almost told them, about Luka, about all of it. I could practically feel the words on the tip of my tongue.
Okay, there is someone.
I’m in love with him.
Then fear followed immediately behind the impulse.
Not of them, though. I didn’t think they would stop loving me.
The fear sat somewhere farther ahead, tangled up with Luka and his federation and the brutal reality waiting for him outside these stolen Olympic weeks.
Saying it aloud would make it real in a way that couldn’t be pulled back afterward, and Luka already carried enough risk without me adding to it recklessly.
So I smiled and let the conversation move on.
Then my phone buzzed, and I grabbed it, my pulse picking up.
Claire: OMG you were amazing. I was crying when they put that medal around your neck. Think we can meet before you leave Milan?
I smiled as I typed. Another coffee? Definite possibility.
I’ve got tickets to the exhibition gala. If you hear someone screaming when you hit the ice, that’ll be me.
Mom’s cough snapped me back. “Now I’m really getting the feeling we’re interrupting your social life.”
I chuckled. “That was Claire again. She was there tonight.”
Dad beamed. “Claire Tyson? Your mom said you two had caught up.” There was a hopeful gleam in his eye, and I knew exactly what it meant.
“No, Dad, we are not getting back together.”
He blinked. “I didn’t say a word.”
Mom snorted. “You didn’t have to. Dean has moved on.” Her gaze alighted on me.
“Dad, I’m done.” And I needed to change the subject.
He nodded, then looked around for the server.
Eventually the bill arrived, and by the time we stepped outside the restaurant, the temperature had dropped sharply. Mom tucked herself against Dad’s side beneath the awning while we waited for their taxi, streetlights reflecting gold against wet pavement.
“You should come back to the hotel with us,” Mom said. “At least for an hour. We’ve barely seen you since we arrived.”
Dad nodded toward the road. “There’s a couch in our suite. And significantly fewer journalists lurking in the hallway.”
I hesitated.
Dad caught it instantly. “Oh.”
I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pockets. “I just want a low-key night.”
Mom studied my face with the same sharp attention she used on struggling students who insisted they were fine while very obviously not being fine. “Dean.”
That nearly broke me.
I wanted to tell them everything suddenly.
The secrecy had started wearing grooves into me these past few weeks, carving out space where honesty should’ve been.
But Luka’s face rose immediately in my mind—careful in public, constantly measuring who might overhear him, carrying years of fear so instinctively he probably no longer noticed himself doing it.
I wasn’t going to make his life harder because I wanted relief from hiding.
“I’m okay,” I said.
Dad watched me another moment before nodding. “Right. Convincing performance. You should consider acting if skating falls through.”
I laughed despite the clenching in my stomach.
Then he reached over and squeezed the back of my neck, the gesture so familiar it punched straight through my chest.
“Whoever’s got you this distracted,” he said, “I hope she’s worth it.”
The answer came so fast inside my head, it hurt.
He is.
I swallowed the words before they could escape.
Then I caught Mom watching me again, and I got a severe case of goosebumps.
Thankfully, their taxi pulled up moments later. Mom kissed my cheek before climbing inside, and Dad paused beside the open door long enough to look at me one last time.
“Get some sleep, Olympic champion.”
I grinned. “I’ll try.” And then they were gone.
I stood there for a moment after the car got swallowed up in traffic, cold air biting against my face. And before I could overthink it any longer, I headed for the Metro to go to the Village.
Toward Luka.
My room looked like a celebration nobody had started yet.
Flowers crowded the desk beside unopened champagne bottles. My medal lay on the nightstand catching stray light from the lamps, and every time I glanced at it, part of me still expected the whole thing to dissolve like a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation.
Messages flooded my phone faster than I could clear them. Interviews. Sponsors. Teammates. Reporters.
I stopped reading any of it.
When the room got too quiet, I scrolled on my phone for my favorite playlist, and music made its way into every corner, low and slow, while I paced barefoot between the bed and the window trying unsuccessfully to settle. Luka would come eventually. I knew he would.
The knock came after midnight, and my pulse jumped instantly. I crossed the room barefoot and opened the door, just as ‘Glory Box’ began playing.
Luka stood in the corridor, his gaze darting from side to side.
He’d changed out of his federation gear into dark jeans and a charcoal sweater. The scent of shower gel and shampoo still clung to him.
Then he smiled, and I swear, my insides turned to mush.