Chapter 4
ISABELLA
Nina stands beside me with her phone unlocked and a neutral expression that reads professional to strangers and threatening to anyone who knows her.
“You’re glowing,” she murmurs without looking at me, eyes scanning the room to make sure we’re three steps ahead of anything that could happen tonight.
“I’m sweating,” I reply, adjusting the cuff of the wildly unnecessary coat I’m wearing, even though I know it doesn’t need adjusting. “Why did I let you convince me to wear this fucking thing? It’s obnoxious and way too much, and it’s hot.”
Nina scoffs and goes back to her phone, but there’s a sneaky smile on her lips, because she’s amused at my expense.
The conference room at Lake Jasper smells faintly of burnt coffee and fresh ice, just like the rest of the rink.
Through the glass wall behind us, one of the training sheets gleams under the fluorescent lights.
Skaters glide through their routines, their blades carving familiar patterns into a surface that, from up here, looks almost forgiving.
This is probably the least fancy event that has ever been attached to my last name in the history of my family being elite athletes.
There are no step-and-repeats, no photographers circling for the best angle of my face, and neither of my parents posted somewhere expecting people to come up to them and shower them in praise.
This is folding tables with paper name tags, trays of store-bought sandwiches and cookies, and a cluster of coaches pretending not to size each other up.
Across the room, Armand Paulsen stands near the windows overlooking the rink, hands folded in front of him, smile calibrated to polite interest. He spots me almost immediately. His gaze holds for half a second too long before he starts walking in our direction.
Nina doesn’t look up from her phone. “He’s coming over.”
“I see him, Nina,” I say, and I try to swallow my laughter. Sometimes it’s hard to forget that we are sisters and grew up in rooms like this.
Armand shakes my hand with the warmth of someone who has never fallen on ice in his life.
“Isabella,” he says. “So good for you to join us.”
“I—,” I reply lightly, completely at a loss for words. This is my hometown, and this is my rink, and this is my foundation. “It would be strange of me if I didn’t, sir.”
He laughs the same way people laugh when they are deciding whether to take you seriously.
“We are very excited about the incoming class skaters we have here,” he says, lowering his voice just enough that it feels intimate. “Talent development is essential. As long as it aligns with federation structure, of course.”
There it is. The warning wrapped in approval.
“Yes, absolutely,” I say evenly. But I don’t agree with him. And I don’t need to. Not in this room, where the things I’m trying to build are coming to fruition and the effects of my work are very evident in the handful of young athletes from all over the country we are training this session.
“Good.” He nods once. “We can’t be seen favoring athletes outside approved national pipelines, Princess. It complicates international assignments."
Behind him, a young skater, probably in her mid-teens, nearly collides with the doorframe trying to navigate into the room without tripping over her own nerves.
Armand follows my gaze briefly and then returns to me.
“I understand your parents will be joining us later this week? They’ve always understood the importance of what we’re doing here. ”
I smile because the room expects it, because I was trained to. “They understand a great many things.”
He pats my arm as if I’m still seventeen and leaves me with the scent of expensive cologne and institutional control.
Nina exhales softly once he’s out of earshot. “I hate when they use the word align.”
“I know.”
She tilts her chin to the entrance. “They’re here.”
The Argentinian skater walks in first, shoulders slightly too tight in a suit that might have fit him last year but doesn’t quite this one.
His badge hangs crooked against his chest. He pauses just inside the doorway like he’s trying to take in the scale of the room without letting it take him over.
Behind him stands his coach.
Blonde hair pulled back. Black trousers and a simple blouse.
No jewelry. She looks like she dressed to move, not to be photographed.
Her eyes sweep the room once, cataloging everything, including the athletes and the federation officials clustered near the drinks, speaking in hushed tones like they own all the oxygen in this room.
My attention catches on her the way a blade catches on a rough patch of ice. Quick and unavoidable.
For a second, my brain tries to place her somewhere clinical and distant—competition ice, sharp lighting, a worn federation jacket draped around her squared shoulders.
But that version of her is definitely gone.
Time has done something quieter. Softer around the edges, harder at the center. The angles are still there, but they belong to someone who has lived in her body instead of performing inside it.
I feel the recognition low in my stomach.
Nina nudges my elbow. “Don’t,” she murmurs.
“Shut up,” I say quietly, though I’m already walking.
It takes longer than it should to cross the room.
Two coaches from Florida intercept me. A giggly skater stops me, blushes bright red, then asks me for a photo.
A donor who I don’t remember attempts to reclaim our conversation from last season.
I extricate myself with polite nods and promises to follow up, all while Nina nods beside me and takes quick notes on her phone.
By the time I reach them, the boy appears ready to combust.
“Rodrigo,” I say before he can introduce himself.
His eyes widen. “You know my name.”
“You’re hard to miss,” I reply, and then soften it. “Also, it’s on your name tag.”
He laughs, too loud, then glances automatically at his coach.
Cecilia’s gaze has not left my face.
“Cecilia,” I add, measured. “It’s been such a long time since we’ve crossed paths. How are you? I didn’t realize you were coaching.”
It’s a harmless sentence. Neutral. A common combination of words people like us use in rooms like this one.
Her expression doesn’t move.
“I’ve been coaching for years,” she says.
Nina elbows my arm from her spot next to me, and Rodrigo tracks the movement. His eyes shift from his coach to mine, waiting for the next sentence.
“You’re lucky,” I say to Rodrigo. He looks like he might explode on the spot, excitement climbing all the way up his neck. “She was an incredible skater.”
Rodrigo’s eyes shift to Cecilia, then back to me.
“You move like she did,” I continue, keeping my tone light and my media smile on my face. “Same control through the transitions, and you don’t rush the edges. Impressive.”
I angle my body slightly so my attention stays on him, not because I’m avoiding Cecilia, but because I can feel her watching me like she’s expecting a shoe to drop somewhere, and she’s constantly on edge.
“Warm-ups are chaos,” I say to Rodrigo. “You handled it.”
He nods hard, then looks to his coach automatically again, seeking approval.
She doesn’t smile. But her eyes soften a fraction. It’s so small I almost miss it. That tiny movement does something to me.
“Thank you,” Rodrigo adds.
Cecilia’s shoulder brushes his, quick and grounding. Then she looks back at me and the gentleness disappears. “What do you want, Isabella?”
There it is.
Not “how are you?” Not “nice to see you again.”
A question that assumes I’m here with an agenda, because in this room, in this setting, everyone is.
Nina shifts beside me, alert.
Rodrigo freezes, like he knows he’s watching something adult unfold.
I keep my tone calm. “Tonight,” I say, “I want to meet people. Congratulate the athletes who are joining us for the summer. Keep my sister from biting anyone.”
Nina smiles brightly. “She’s exaggerating.”
Cecilia’s expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t laugh or soften, or does anything, really.
I can’t help it. I like her more for that.
“And,” I add, “I’m paying attention.”
Cecilia’s eyes narrow slightly, the way someone narrows their eyes when they don’t like the implication but they also can’t deny the truth of it.
“To him,” she says, nodding once towards Rodrigo.
“Yes,” I reply, because I’m not going to be caught being evasive. “To him.”
Rodrigo’s face shifts, hope trying to break through caution. “Like, paying attention how?” he asks carefully.
Cecilia’s gaze turns to him. Protective again, immediate. It’s almost automatic.
It does something sharp and warm inside me at the same time.
I keep my voice steady. “In the way people should have paid attention sooner,” I say. “We’ll see what we can open up for you by the end of the program. What do you think?”
Cecilia watches me like she’s weighing the sincerity. I don’t want to say too much just now. We don’t know yet what we can actually make happen, although I’m willing to try anything.
I can feel the room behind us. The noise.
The movement. The way this sport is always performing even when it claims it’s relaxed.
I know there are people waiting to talk to me, to remind me of all my achievements in a long, numbered list because it seems it’s the only thing that matters now that I’m retired.
Rodrigo shifts his weight in his too-small suit. “Ceci,” he murmurs, like he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing.
Cecilia’s attention stays on me. “We’re here to train,” she says flatly. “Not to be recruited into someone’s narrative.”
Nina’s eyebrows lift, impressed despite herself. She glances at me like she’s saying good luck with that.
My throat tightens in recognition.
Because Cecilia’s right. This sport eats people. It chews them into inspiring stories and spits them out when they stop being profitable. I’ve seen it again and again with countless Team USA athletes across all winter disciplines.
I hold her gaze. “Fair,” I say simply.
Cecilia blinks once. Like she didn’t expect agreement.
Rodrigo looks between us, confused and anxious. “Ceci—”
Cecilia’s hand comes up, a small gesture that stills him. Then she turns to him and her voice softens again, her own private dial for him and no one else.
“Eat something,” she tells him. “Then we go.”
Rodrigo nods, obedient. He picks up a piece of bread from the table beside him like he’s been given permission to exist again.
I take the opening before Cecilia can disappear.
“I noticed your calm at the boards,” I say, keeping it casual, not a compliment that begs for gratitude. “When he rushes, you don’t rush with him.”
Cecilia’s gaze snaps back to me. “You were watching that closely.”
I shrug lightly, like it’s nothing. “It’s what I do.”
Cecilia’s mouth tilts, barely. Not a smile. Something sharper. “Commentary is usually louder than that.”
“Commentary is performance,” I say. “This isn’t that.” I regret the sentence as soon as it’s out, because it sounds too personal, too close to true.
Cecilia watches me, and something in her eyes changes.
Nina clears her throat quietly. A reminder: the room is watching, even if we pretend it isn’t. Cecilia glances past me, scanning the space the way a coach always scans the ice.
Then she looks back at me. “Enjoy the reception,” she says, polite just like a door is polite when it closes.
I should let her go. I should.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Cecilia.”
The way her name feels in my mouth is the most inconvenient thing I’ve experienced all week.
She pauses. Just a beat.
“Yes,” she says, and her voice is flat, but her attention is real.
I keep it simple. “I’ll see you around,” I say.
Cecilia studies me, then turns to leave.