Chapter 12 #3
“And you sound very cocky for somebody who took an elbow to the chest in the failed landing of his last attempt,” I whispered back.
I still wasn’t taking my eyes off the screen.
It was bad enough that I was splitting my attention between the conversation and the skaters.
The fact that he had left his arm behind me barely registered.
As soon as the last pair stepped off for their marks and the next group of skaters stepped onto the ice for their six minutes of warmups, I pushed myself off the couch.
“I need a drink before the next group,” I said.
I nearly tripped over Dom’s feet as he moved them at the exact moment I tried to step over him.
“Sorry,” he said apologetically. I waved him off with my hand as I exited the room, but I heard his footsteps behind me on the way to the kitchen.
I pulled out a pitcher of water with lemons, placing it down on the counter with a thud.
I closed the door to the site of Dom leaning against the cupboards, watching me with inquisitive eyes.
“What?” I asked. “Do you want some?” He nodded, so I reached back into the cupboard.
When I had filled both glasses, I held one out for him.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Now? Nothing. Well, I’m thirsty,” I replied.
“Thirsty, eh?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
My cheeks burned. Usually, I wouldn’t let his teasing get to me.
But in the past, I hadn’t known that he knew about my crush on him.
The memory of Brandon publicly accusing us of inappropriately flirting or hooking up with each other–I still wasn’t sure how far he thought it had gone–was also looping in my mind.
It had taken all my strength to ignore the fading bruise on his face over the previous week.
No matter what he was doing when I looked his way, I’d seen him face to face with Brandon again, standing up for us and our work.
I’d tried to ignore it, but it was next to impossible.
The moment before Brandon swung at him forced its way into the forefront of my mind every time.
It had gotten me a cursing out from Olga, but I refused to talk about what had been distracting me.
I’d figured Dom would tell, but he hadn’t answered either.
When Mark walked in on Monday morning and looked at us, the first words out of his mouth were, “What the hell happened to your face, Dominic?”
The purple on Dom’s cheekbone stood out in the fluorescent light, so the question wasn’t a surprise. I steeled myself for the answer, but Dom didn’t explain. “Nothing,” he said. He turned away from the door, angling his face so it was out of Mark’s sight.
Mark hadn’t been having any of that. He marched over and took Dom’s chin in his hand, forcibly turning him for a better look. “That’s not nothing,” Mark said. He had tilted his head as he examined Dom. “What did you do?”
Dom looked at me. A wave of panic rose in me, but he looked nonplussed. “I said it was nothing,” he said, taking a step back and out of Mark’s reach.
Mark turned to me, then back to Dom, before looking at me again. “Hazel,” he said sternly, eyes boring into mine. “You know. Tell me.”
That was the problem with your coach knowing you for so long. After so many years, he could read Dom and me nearly as well as we could read each other. With one look, he had been able to deduce that I knew what happened.
Unable to keep the same level of composure as Dom, I averted my gaze. “It’s his face, Mark. If you want to know, you’ll need to ask him.”
"But you do know what happened," Mark said, confident in his assessment. “He told you why he looks like he got into a brawl or drunkenly hit his head.”
I looked over Mark’s shoulder at Dom. He gave me the tiniest nod, so he knew I had his back. “Yes, I know. And he’s fine. He’s not concussed or drunkenly doing stupid things. It won’t happen again; I can assure you. Now, can we move on?”
The conversation had gone only marginally better with Olga.
She hadn’t pressed for an answer but had instead focused on how it looked.
“You will get good makeup to cover that,” she said moments after she arrived, pointing at the bruise.
“You cannot look like a fighter.” She shook her head as she walked past me.
I caught a whiff of perfume and her muttering under her breath about not caring how he looked for our first competition.
Mark and Olga’s willingness to move past the bruise lowered my stress levels.
I’d done my best to prepare myself to shoulder the blame for what had happened, but I didn’t want the details of my dirty laundry aired.
They had expressed concern about Brandon getting in the way of skating when he had randomly showed up at the rink.
That had been embarrassing enough. If I had to explain how he had snapped and punched Dom at a bar after yelling at me, I would have melted into a puddle.
Mark and Olga were around us all the time.
They knew everything there was to know about our work, our schooling, and the major events of our lives.
What they had not known and we had never shared were our personal lives.
Outside of the other skaters, they didn’t know who we had dated or who we were friends with.
I think all four of us liked to keep it that way.
I hadn’t expected that Dom to keep it a secret from his parents.
Richard and Debbie were supportive of him and had always been nice to me.
While they hadn’t been involved with people I’d dated outside of the occasional hello at the arena, I couldn’t imagine Dom had hidden everything from them.
Changing the topic away from the double entendre, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell your parents what happened? ”
“I didn’t want to get into the reasons he was angry,” Dom said.
He shifted and looked over my shoulder. I must have caught him off guard.
He took a few steps closer and lowered his voice, clearly not wanting to be overheard.
“I don’t know how much you told your parents, but I didn’t like the idea of telling my parents that your boyfriend was accusing me of feeling you up or that he was convinced that you were secretly cheating on him with me while we were supposed to be practicing. ”
I blushed again. “The only thing I told them was that he was jealous. I didn’t get into the specifics of his accusations.” I shuddered at the thought. “But I thought you would have told your parents something. Even if it was just that you were defending me or standing up for yourself.”
“I said that somebody hit me at the bar because they were paranoid I was going after their girl.” He licked his lips and added, “I just didn’t mention that the girl in question was you.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what else there was to say. “I would have deserved the judgement, you know.”
“Nah,” Dom replied with a shake of his head. “Don’t get me wrong, Brandon has always been jealous, and I’m glad he’s out of the way, but I didn’t want to repeat what he said. Not just because he made you seem…”
He trailed off. I suspected he didn’t want to say the next part. “Like a slut?”
“Your word, not mine,” he said. “Or maybe Brandon’s word. Anyway, I thought the best way to stop the questions was to be vague. I didn't want my mom to ask if there was something between us again.”
I had started walking to the living room, but stopped after a couple of steps. Water sloshed over the side of my glass and over my hand. I spun on my heel as the last word registered in my brain. “Wait, what?”
Dom’s cheeks were bright red. “Never mind,” he said. He clearly hadn't meant to let the last part slip out.
“No, tell me,” I said. The word “again” was playing in my head on a loop. “When did she ask that?”
From the living room, my father’s booming voice called, “Hazel! Dominic! It’s back on!”
Dom made a move to go, but I grabbed his wrist. I suddenly had a burning need to know what the answer was. He looked at my fingers looped around his wrist before meeting my eyes. “Please?” I asked quietly.
He sighed. “A few times,” he said, voice rushed. “She asked a couple of times when we were younger. Then again she heard about the short program. She thought that maybe… I don’t know, she thought maybe there was more to it than a natural chemistry and friendship.”
My hand fell to my side. I wasn’t surprised that the unspoken crush I’d had as a kid had been noticed by his mother, especially now that I knew I hadn’t hidden it past Dom like I thought I had. What I hadn’t been prepared for was that even she had thought maybe something was going on recently.
Before I could think of anything to say, Dom was heading back to the living room. “Come on, Hazel,” he called over his shoulder. “You know what we might see in the first free skate.”
The quadruple twist, I thought as I watched him go.
One of the only pairs that did it routinely was at Skate America this year, and they were scheduled to go first in this flight of skaters.
We didn’t know if they’d have one today, but they were the only ones who were likely to have one before we skated next week.
And while we both knew all the technical things we needed to do if we wanted to land the twist consistently, it was nice to see it done where I could watch.
I slipped into the room as the music started and sat back in my spot.
Dom’s arm was over the back of the couch again, and he had placed himself nearer to the middle than before.
I sat next to him and glanced at our parents.
They were all watching the TV, but I couldn’t help but wonder what his mother would think of us sitting like this now.
About twenty seconds into the skate, the announcer stated they were preparing for a triple twist. Dom’s hand was suddenly on my far shoulder. He pulled me closer and said quietly, “Even they aren’t doing it now. We have plenty of time.”
I risked a glance at him, knowing that the twist would be over almost as quickly as it started. He was smiling at me and looked much more relaxed than I felt. “Focus,” he whispered, pointing back to the TV. “Check out the competition.”
I did as I was told, turning back around just in time to see them step out of the twist. Dom’s hand was gone, freeing me to move again, but I let myself lean into him.
It was nice to have something to support me and, despite the strange conversations of the past week, it was comfortable leaning against him.