Chapter 30
Dom and I had a week after the team event to get ready for the pairs event.
Seven days had never felt so long and so short at the same time.
We knew we were unlikely to come back here, so we had come up with a list of everything we wanted to check out before we went home.
Our families had done the same, but we had an excuse nobody could argue with to get out of the ones we didn’t want to do.
We were only days away from the biggest skates of our careers.
Whether we wanted to or not, we had to put a lot of effort into preparing.
And between all that, we did our best to support our friends and teammates at their competitions.
There was absolutely no down time in my schedule.
Every evening, I was physically and mentally exhausted by the time I fell into bed.
Even with the noise of Athlete’s Village, I had started falling asleep as soon as I had pulled up the covers.
On one of the few free hours in our tightly scheduled days, Dom and I had plans to ditch everyone else for a bit.
The closer we got to our events, the more people stared at us with concern in their eyes, like they were concerned we were going to snap under the pressure.
I didn't know how to tell them that if I did lose it, it was going to be because they were all staring at me non-stop.
I was starting to feel like I was some creature behind the glass at a zoo.
After an especially strenuous morning workout, followed by an afternoon of trying to stretch out my tense muscles, I couldn’t resist the urge to slow down to read the list of menu items that was displayed on a stand near the door of a shop that seemed to serve nothing but sweets.
The scent of brownies and hot caramel had me second-guessing just how much I needed to stick to my approved diet.
I’d had to walk by the shop every time I went to practice and, no matter the time of day, there were always dozens of people there.
It was hard not to stare at whoever was eating a ridiculously decadent dessert at one of the tiny, cramped tables just in front of the shop's front window.
Dom’s fingers looped around my wrist, stopping me mid-stride. “Let’s go grab something,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the door.
My eyebrows furrowed. “Now? We only have two days until our short program.” Well, two days and three hours. Not that I had been obsessively counting since we hit the ninety-six hour mark.
“And that’s exactly why we should do it now,” he said. He walked over so he was standing against the wall of the building, pulling me with him. “We have been following all the rules and doing everything we were supposed to do for so long.”
“It’s worked, though,” I said. “We’re here.”
“We’re here and we’re kicking ass. We are gold medalists who were told that we shouldn’t join the never-ending parties around us. Not even after we won, for God’s sake. Yes, we have only done half the things we came here to do. But shouldn’t we celebrate what we’ve already achieved?”
“I guess,” I said. I looked longingly at the whipped cream covered milkshake a young girl was holding. When was the last time I’d been able to have something like that? “One won’t hurt.”
Dom grinned and my stomach flipped. “We can afford to be a little bad.”
He didn’t need to tell me again. Trying to keep the qualifier that it was only supposed to be a small indulgence in mind, I resisted the urge to order the triple scoop of ice cream prominently displayed on the menu.
I settled for a more reasonable single scoop.
Dom followed in my footsteps before offering payment for both of our cones.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I told him as we moved over to make room for the next customers at the till.
“I wanted to,” Dom replied. His dark eyes met mine. I had the feeling that there was something more he wanted to say, but the extra words never came.
By the time we left to head back to our rooms, I was devouring the last few bites of my cone.
My stomach was full and the dripping ice cream left my fingers sticky.
The paper napkin I had been given with it had done nothing more than spread the sugary drops around my hands.
Dom, on the other hand, had eaten his entire cone before it had time to make a mess.
We walked in companionable silence, listening to the bustle that never seemed to stop as the sun set behind the buildings far off in the distance.
I started to reach for the door of our building but thought better of it.
“Do you mind? I’m all sticky. I should wash my hands before I make everything gross. ”
Dom opened the door and let me walk through before following me inside. As we took the stairs to the fourth floor, he asked, “Do you want me to open your door? Or are you okay covering that in ice cream because you won’t be contaminating something that hundreds of people are touching?”
I glared at him. “I have to get my key out of my front pocket anyway,” I said as we finished climbing. Dom stopped beside the fire door suddenly. I hadn’t been expecting it, so I ran into his back. “Ow.”
“Sorry,” he said. But instead of moving, he slipped two fingers into the front pocket of my jeans. A moment later, he had my key in his hand. “You mean this?”
The feeling of his fingers against my thigh, with nothing but the inner part of my pocket between us, had made my chest constrict and sent a pool of warmth through me.
It was a similar place to where he touched for one of our skating moves, but it hit differently here.
There was no workout gear, no thick skating tights, no coaches and choreographers watching our every move carefully.
And usually there wasn’t a never-ending thumping that was hard to locate but ever present.
Dom wet his lips with the tip of his tongue without breaking eye contact.
A slow smile spread over his lips, and he raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.
Dammit, I thought. He knew exactly what he was doing to me.
He knew and he was enjoying it. Well, two could play at that game.
I knew his weak points. If he wanted to tempt me, I could do the same thing right back to him.
I kept my chin tilted down slightly so I was looking through my eyelashes when I made eye contact. "Unlock the door," I instructed.
He looked surprised as his Adam's apple bobbed, but he quickly recovered. A moment later, he had the door to my room open. He put his arm against the door to hold it open for me.
I immediately went to wash my hands. The stickiness of the melted ice cream was getting on my nerves. As the water ran over them, he asked, "Do you want me to stick around? Or to go?"
"You can stay if you want to," I called back.
I turned off the faucet and walked over so I could see him while I dried my hands on a thin white towel.
The crappy hand towels didn't bother me. The bath towels, on the other hand, got on my nerves every time I used one. If my suitcase hadn’t already been packed to the brim, I should have brought my own.
When I looked back, Dom was leaning against the wall.
There weren’t many places to sit in the rooms provided to athletes.
The most comfortable spot was the bed, but he either didn’t want to be presumptuous or was worried about the message it would send.
I didn’t have that worry, so I sat on the end of the bed with my legs crossed.
It was that or the floor if I wanted to get a good look at Dom, and there was no way I could sit on the floor right now.
I was fighting some level of muscle aches most of the day.
Ever since Nationals, my life had included far too much exercise and not enough sleep.
Sitting on the floor would wreak havoc on me.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Dom admitted. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, closing himself off. “You were jittery enough before all the sugar. It might not be the best idea to stick around. Especially since you were acting… different just now.”
“What? Was it this?” I asked, imitating the flirty look. “That was just because you shoved your hands into my pants without hesitation.”
Dom's cheeks reddened. It was unfair for him to look so good while flustered. He spluttered, “My hands weren’t in your pants. I stuck a couple of fingers in your pocket.”
“I don’t know how to break this to you, but the pockets are part of the pants,” I said. “And since they are inside the pants and your fingers are part of your hands, well…”
“Technically, but you made it sound like I had shoved my whole hand in there to grab your ass or something. I was being helpful.”
“Keeping me from having to put my sticky fingers on my key card is one thing. But it was the way you lingered, like this.” I mimed what he had done in the air, using two of my fingers like tweezers that I pulled up at a snail's pace. “You let your finger rub right on my inner thigh, close to my crotch. And you could’ve been faster if you wanted to.”
Dom shrugged noncommittally. “So tell me that you didn’t appreciate it if you didn’t like it.
Tell me you want me to avoid touching you and I won’t do it again.
” He straightened up and took a couple of steps towards me.
“If you can honestly say that, I won’t touch you anymore.
” He crouched down at the foot of my bed so his head was level with mine.
“But I don’t think you can say that honestly, can you? ”