Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Dean
I discovered very quickly that Luka became unfairly attractive when speaking his own language.
It wasn’t something he did intentionally. That was the problem. If Luka flirted in English, I could at least prepare myself for it. Velkaran arrived softer, lower in his throat, all smooth consonants bound up in a musical rhythm that drove me wild every time I heard it.
Especially late at night, when Luka was half asleep and not paying attention.
“You’re doing this on purpose now,” I muttered.
Luka glanced up from his phone. “Doing what?”
“Speaking in a language that gives you an unfair competitive advantage.”
“Over what?”
“Everything.”
“Velkaran does that?”
I nodded. “You make it difficult for me to remember what I was saying, probably because you’re using words that shouldn’t be allowed after midnight.” I pointed accusingly at him. “Especially when you already know what your voice does to me.”
Luka’s teasing, slow smile was adorable. “I said I was hungry.”
I gaped. “That makes it worse. How can something so boring have me wanting all your clothes to disappear?”
He laughed and set the phone aside. He’d stolen one of my hoodies earlier in the evening and now looked comfortable wrapped in navy fabric a little too big for him.
I couldn’t think of a single situation in which he wasn’t attractive.
“You’re hopeless,” Luka murmured.
“There.” I pointed at him again. “That. The voice thing.”
“First it was the impossible skating thing. Now it’s the voice thing?”
“When you switch languages your voice changes.”
Luka blinked. “No, it doesn’t.”
“It absolutely does. It gets...” I searched for the word. “Softer.”
He didn’t seem convinced.
“So teach me some more.”
“We tried this. Remember?”
I nodded. “I did okay, didn’t I?”
He bit back a smile. “You butchered the pronunciation.”
I gasped. “That sounds xenophobic.”
Luka snorted. “No, that sounds accurate.” I threw a pillow at him, and he caught it easily, still laughing. He tilted his head. “Do you really want to learn some more?”
There was enough skepticism in the question to make me laugh.
“Yeah.”
Luka looked at me for a second, as though checking whether I’d change my mind, then shifted closer across the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight until our knees bumped.
“All right,” he said. “Simple phrase first.”
I sat up straighter. “I was born ready.”
His lips twitched. “To use a word you are fond of, you were absolutely not.”
“Wow.”
He chuckled, then said something slow and melodic that I had no hope whatsoever of repeating correctly.
I stared at him. “That sounded fake.”
“It is not fake.”
“You added extra vowels to confuse me.”
Luka laughed again. “Try.”
I attempted it. Badly.
Luka folded forward against my shoulder, laughing while I protested loudly about sabotage and impossible consonants.
“You sound drunk,” Luka informed me.
“Help,” I called out. “I’m being linguistically oppressed.”
“You just told me, very confidently, that my grandmother is a bicycle.”
I froze. “What?”
Luka nodded solemnly. “An elderly bicycle.”
“Oh my God.”
He laughed so hard he nearly fell against me again.
I narrowed my gaze. “This is your fault.”
He blinked. “How? You were the one speaking.” He settled against my side while I wrapped an arm around him.
“Okay. Teach me something real this time.”
For a moment he didn’t answer.
I touched his hand. “Hey. You don’t have to if it feels weird.”
“No.” He went quiet for a second, then turned my hand over in his, tracing his thumb across my palm. “Chyba? mi.”
I frowned. “Okay, that definitely means something emotional.”
Luka’s mouth twitched. “Why?”
“Because you’re looking at me like it matters.”
That earned a laugh. “It means...” Luka paused. “I miss you.”
I blinked. “You miss me?”
Luka nodded.
“You’re literally right here.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him. “That’s not how missing somebody works.”
“It can be.” Luka looked down at our joined hands. “I missed you before Milan.”
My chest tightened.
“Oh.”
His thumb moved across my palm. “I missed you when you were standing three meters away from me.”
There was a lump in my throat.
I tightened my arm around him and pressed a kiss into his hair.
“Teach me how to say it back.”
“Chyba? mi tie?.”
I repeated it carefully.
He nodded, his smile warm. “Better.”
I touched his chin, waiting until he looked at me.
“I’m really glad I found you.”
His gaze held mine, and then he kissed me, unhurried enough that I forgot what I’d been about to say. When he finally pulled back, he said something in Velkaran that I didn’t understand.
This time, I let it stay untranslated.
Luka
“So were you happy with today’s progress?”
I looked at him. “We spent most of the afternoon being yelled at by Mark.”
Dean appeared offended. “Correction. You spent most of the afternoon being yelled at by Mark.”
“You were encouraging him.”
“I was enjoying myself.”
I snorted. “I noticed.”
Dean’s grin should have warned me.
Instead I persevered. “The original version worked perfectly well.”
“Exactly.”
I frowned. “Exactly?”
He nodded. “You’re aiming for perfectly well.”
“That seems desirable.”
Dean groaned and flopped backward onto the pillows. “This is why Mark was rubbing his temples most of the morning.”
“Mark wanted us to stop arguing.”
“Mark agreed with me.”
“No. Mark wanted us to stop arguing.”
Dean jabbed a finger at me. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”
I considered that.
As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point.
“Has he recovered?”
“No.” Dean laughed. “Last time I saw him, he was sitting in front of the schedule, still rubbing his temples.”
“I warned him.”
“You warned him you’d have opinions. What you neglected to mention was how many.”
That was probably fair.
“But Harper winning gold will go a long way to making him feel better,” he added. “Except now she’s totally focused on her skate for the gala, which’ll put him right back where he spent most of today.”
Beyond the windows, snow fell in soft lumps. For a while neither of us said anything.
Then Dean nudged my knee. “You know what your problem is?”
I sighed. “I have a feeling you are about to tell me.” I braced myself. “Go on, then.”
“You keep treating this like a competition.”
I frowned. “It is skating.”
“It’s an exhibition.”
“That is still skating.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “No. It’s a chance to do something you’ll remember in twenty years. That everyone will remember.”
I arched my eyebrows. “People generally remember Olympic exhibitions.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
Unfortunately I did.
Dean pointed at me. “See? That face, right there.”
“What face?”
“The one you get whenever somebody suggests life might occasionally involve things other than training schedules.”
I stared at him.
Dean grinned. “And there it is again.”
“Sometimes you are impossible to talk to.”
“Maybe.” He stretched his arms over his head. “But at least I know what normal people do.”
I blinked. “Normal people?”
“Yeah.” His grin widened. “And that’s the real problem.”
I groaned.
Dean ignored me. “You’ve never had a terrible summer job.”
For a moment I genuinely wasn’t sure how we had arrived there.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again.
“I worked at an ice rink,” I protested.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because skating doesn’t count.”
I gaped at him. “Oh, I think it does.”
“No. Skating is the reason you’ve missed half the ordinary experiences everybody else takes for granted.”
I folded my arms. “I attended school.”
“You trained before school, after school, and during vacations.”
I speared him with an intense look. “That is how athletes train.”
“Exactly.”
I was beginning to dislike that word.
“You’ve never worked in a restaurant.”
“No.”
“You’ve never spent a summer folding clothes in a department store.”
“Also no.”
“You’ve never had a manager named Steve who took his job far too seriously.”
“I have met several coaches named Viktor.”
Dean laughed. “Not the same thing.”
“I fail to see the distinction.”
“I know you do.”
The grin spreading across his face made me suspicious.
Experience suggested that was rarely a good sign.
Dean’s eyes widened. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“You actually don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Luka.” He sat up on the bed. “You’ve never grocery shopped properly.”
I looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve never stood in a supermarket at eleven at night trying to decide whether buying Pop-Tarts in bulk is a cry for help.”
I frowned. “I don’t know what Pop-Tarts are.”
Dean pressed a hand to his chest. “Good God.”
The laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Dean looked unbearably pleased with himself.
He nudged my knee again. “One day I’m taking you on a proper American road trip.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”
“It should.” Dean settled more comfortably against the headboard. “You’ll drink terrible coffee, we’ll get lost repeatedly, and you’ll discover that half the gas stations in the country sell food nobody should be eating.”
“You continue describing unpleasant experiences.”
“That’s because you’re proving my point.”
“What point?”
“You think the destination is the important part.”
“Isn’t it?”
Dean shook his head. “No. It’s everything that happens on the way there.”
I considered that.
He watched me before sighing. “See? Normal people don’t need to think about that answer.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tell me more about these Pop-Tarts.”
His eyes lit up. “Oh, now you’re interested.”
“You made them sound medically concerning.”
“That’s because they are.”
I shook my head. “I am beginning to understand your country.”
“Nobody understands my country.”
“That is reassuring.”
Ten minutes later we were arguing about peanut butter.
Dean maintained that seventeen varieties were perfectly reasonable.
I disagreed.
By the time the conversation reached beef jerky, he was halfway through explaining the cultural significance of gas-station food while I was laughing too hard to interrupt him.
Dean pointed at me. “And this is exactly why you need a road trip.”
“You have not yet provided a single convincing argument.”
“I’ve provided dozens.”
“You’ve described bad coffee, questionable food, and becoming lost.”
“And that’s a road trip.”
I stared at him. “Your country is exhausting.”
The conversation drifted after that. Neither of us seemed particularly interested in sleeping.
Dean
By three in the morning neither of us was asleep.
Snow continued to fall against the windows. Luka lay curled against my side beneath the tangled sheets, one hand resting on my stomach.
“You’re thinking too loudly again,” I said into the darkness.
His laugh reverberated through me. “I was not aware thoughts had volume.”
“Yours do.”
For a while neither of us said anything.
Then Luka shifted. “What are you thinking about?”
“My dad.”
He lifted his head. Even in the dim light I saw concern in his eyes. “He’s fine.”
“I know.”
Luka waited.
I stared up at the ceiling. “When Mom called from the hospital...” I rubbed a hand across my face. “I don’t know. It messed with my head.”
He stayed quiet.
“My whole life’s been measured in seasons.
Four years. Next Olympics. After Worlds.
There was always another deadline after the current one.
” I ran my fingers through his hair. “Then suddenly my dad’s lying in a hospital bed and all I could think about was how many things people put off because they assume there’ll be time later. ”
Luka’s hand tightened on my chest.
“I hated that feeling,” I confessed.
The room was quiet again, the only sounds the snow against the glass and the muted sound of traffic somewhere, despite the hour.
Eventually Luka said, “In my world, we are taught the opposite.”
I looked down at him. “What does that mean?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“If something is difficult, you wait.” His voice was calm. “There is always another competition. Another season. Another reason why now is inconvenient.”
“What if eventually never comes?”
Luka considered that for a moment. “Then you wake up one day and discover you’ve spent years waiting for a better time.”
I rolled onto my side, facing him. I cupped his cheek.
“You’re scared.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “That may be the understatement of the century.”
“Hey.” I waited until his eyes met mine. “You don’t have to go back to being miserable because other people find it convenient.”
Luka shook his head. “You make it sound simple.”
“No.” I brushed my thumb across his jaw. “I think it’s probably the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”
His gaze stayed on mine, and for a few seconds he said nothing. Then he let out a sigh.
“Sometimes I think meeting you ruined my life.”
I blinked.
Luka smiled. “Before you, I knew how to survive.”
There it was, as dry as a weather report, like he’d just informed me of the time.
I laughed. “That’s not usually how people describe falling in love.”
“No?”
“No.”
He moved closer. “I was careful before.”
“And now?”
I caught the twinkle in his eyes, despite the failing light. “Now I spend my nights imagining American grocery stores.”
I laughed so hard I nearly lost my train of thought.
Luka looked pleased with himself.
I stroked his cheek. “You deserve a life that doesn’t cost you this much.”
His smile faded. “What if I cannot have both?”
I waited.
“My country and...”
He stopped there and closed his eyes.
I kissed his forehead. His breathing hitched, and then he buried his face against my throat.
At some point Luka fell asleep for real. I knew because his hand finally relaxed where it rested against me.
I stayed awake a little longer watching the snow.
Listening to Luka breathe next to me.