Chapter 24 #2
The hostess stood at the side of a small table near the side of the room. As Dom and I sat down, she placed the menus in front of each of the chairs. She said, “Your server is Megan. She’ll be with you in just a minute to take your drink orders.”
Dom and I murmured our thanks before she walked away. Once she was gone, Dom opened the menu and began scanning it with enthusiasm. “What are you thinking of having?”
“How am I supposed to know that already?” I asked. The owner changed the menu every season, so there were always different things to try. After a minute, I said, “I’m thinking the trout.”
Dom made a face. “That’s not very exciting.”
“Yeah, well, I’m trying to be good,” I said, looking back at the menu.
One of the pastas sounded amazing, but I had been trying to show restraint.
In March, I could loosen up a bit. “I’d rather have dessert than an unhealthy main meal.
I thought you’d appreciate that, since you are kind of relying on me being at my best to win. ”
He pressed his lips together. “Way to make me feel guilty for considering something bad,” he chided. I thought he was kidding… mostly. “Can we at least split the spinach artichoke dip?”
“You know I can’t say no to that,” I said. I placed my menu down in front of me not to be tempted any further. “Why did you want to come out tonight?”
Before he could answer, a woman with short brown hair and a tattooed left arm stopped at our table. She pulled a notebook out of her apron. “Hi, I’m Megan. I’ll be serving you tonight. Did you want to start with drinks, or have you decided on what you would like to order?”
“I think we’ve decided,” Dom said. He wasn’t kidding about being hungry.
When she’d left with the promise of bringing water, I folded my hands in front of me. “So, what made you want to get dinner?” I repeated.
“I thought it would be nice to spend time together, just us,” Dom said. “We haven’t gotten the chance since winning Nationals.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, brow furrowed. “We’ve been together for hours, five days a week.”
He shook his head. “Not like that. That’s work. We haven’t had a time when we aren’t focused on improving and feeling the pressure to be at our best. I wanted to do something fun, so we could celebrate our win and just chill. It’s been a while since we could do something like this.”
The last time we’d hung out for an entire evening, we’d hooked up and our skating had spiralled.
We’d only talked things through after we’d had a bad short program.
A couple of months before that, a night of eating and then going to the pub had ended with my jealous ex-boyfriend punching Dom in the face.
“Things haven’t exactly ended well for us lately when we’ve been trying to hang out. ”
“I thought they ended just fine,” Dom said with a cheeky grin. “The aftermath wasn’t great, but the night itself was.”
My cheeks burned. “We said we would not entertain that idea again.”
“I'm not saying that's how tonight should end. But we also realized that we had to be comfortable talking about things that already happened.”
I didn’t like the way my heart was pounding. Best to move on to something else. “The time before that, you got punched in the face. You can’t say that night ended well.”
“Of course I can,” Dom said, suddenly serious. “You got out of a terrible relationship. I don’t mind being the recipient of the violence in that situation.”
“You definitely earned brownie points from my family and friends when you did that,” I said. “Nobody really thinks that I could stand up for myself in a fight. I’d be outmatched even against another girl, so against a guy I would be in a tough spot.”
“That’s why I didn’t mind it,” Dom said. “He distrusted you because of me, anyway.”
Our server stopped by with two glasses of water then. “Your appetizer should be out shortly.”
“Sounds great,” I said. I waited for her to walk away before I continued. “I spent so long telling him he was being ridiculous and then… well, you know.”
Dom stirred the ice in his glass. “I think we both knew it was a bad decision, even if we weren’t willing to admit it to each other.
I had a hard enough time convincing myself not to say something earlier.
I was so worried that it would end poorly that I told myself that anything I felt was just because we were always together. ”
It was a dangerous subject, but curiosity got the best of me. “Do you think it was? Just because of proximity, that is?”
“No,” he replied without hesitation. He looked up. “Do you?”
“No,” I admitted. “I was so worried about what would happen after that I pushed it down and didn’t let myself think about it. Until you started that conversation, I think I was doing a pretty good job at it, too.”
Dom tilted his head to the side. He was quiet for so long that I was starting to wonder if something was wrong when he spoke again. “I’m glad it came out, you know. Even though it did screw up our skating for a while. I think it would’ve caused us problems in the long run, no matter what.”
I wondered whether he was right. We had made it so long without issues, but by the end, it was getting harder to deny that the chemistry could lead to something else.
“I’m sure one of us would have said something eventually.
It would’ve been safer if it didn’t come out until we weren’t partners, though. ”
He looked taken aback. “That could be a long time from now. One or both of us could’ve been in a serious relationship if we'd ignored it until then. Then we wouldn’t have gotten the chance to really test our chemistry, even if it was just once.”
I took a long drink of water to buy time. “If things were different…” I trailed off. If things were different, it wouldn’t be a problem at all. If our skating relationship weren’t on the line, I would love to give things a shot. But that wasn't our reality.
The intensity of Dom’s gaze made me shift uncomfortably.
He was staring as if he could see right through me.
“I think we could be great in a different situation. If we didn’t have to worry about the Winter Games or competing, maybe we could give it a shot.
” He swallowed hard. “We have to think about our partnership.”
“So what you’re saying is that being partners would put our partnership at risk?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
Dom’s smile told me my lame joke had done its job. “That’s exactly the problem.”
Thankfully, we were saved any further awkwardness by the arrival of our food.
The conversation turned to how good the food was and what we planned on eating when we were done competing for the year.
As we laughed, I felt relieved that I didn’t have to navigate the uncertain waters of our feelings right then.
When we had finished for the evening, Dom and I walked to our cars together.
The temperature had gone down with the sun and our breath was apparent as white puffs.
With my hands in my pockets and my hood pulled up, I clicked the button to unlock my car.
As the lights flashed, I looked up at Dom.
“I’m glad we got the chance to hang out away from the ice.
It’s nice to get to be Dom and Hazel, friends, instead of Dom and Hazel, skating partners. ”
“Kick ass skating partners,” Dom corrected with a smile. “Now let’s get in our cars before we freeze out here.”
In my car, I turned the heat up, so it was blasting.
I breathed on my hands and rubbed them together, trying to get them to warm up.
I buckled myself in and waited for Dom to pull out of the spot next to me.
He did with a wave through the window, which I returned before focusing on the heat in my car again.
I spent enough time in the cold at the rink.
When I wasn’t skating, it just wasn’t worth it to freeze.