Chapter 17 This Isn’t a Crush, It’s a Crusade
THIS ISN’T A CRUSH, IT’S A CRUSADE
Nate
“You ever look at someone and know you'd kill the lighting guy if he made her cry? No? Just me?”
Nate got up early the next day, feeling restless.
After eating a fast and easy breakfast on his balcony watching LA’s pre-rush-hour traffic, he decided to get a jump on the contemporary number and head to the set early.
The corridor outside the studio was deserted, and when he pushed the door open, he didn’t expect to hear a voice.
Older, heavily accented―Holly’s mom’s. Filtered through speakerphone.
Clipped, tired, and trying to sound brave.
“—got the results back, but they’re… inconclusive. I know, Mija, I know. They just want me to come in for another scan. The fancy one. I’ll—don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.”
Nate stopped just inside the doorway.
Holly was standing at the far end of the room, head bowed over her phone like she could physically will the message to bear different news.
Her spine had turned to jelly. Every line of her body screamed exhaustion.
But even from here, he could see her knuckles were white where she gripped the phone like she didn’t know how to let it go.
She ended the message before it could finish, stabbing the screen as if it had personally betrayed her.
Then she looked up and froze when she saw him. Like she’d been caught harboring some dirty little secret instead of just being a good daughter.
The air shifted. She didn’t flinch, and she didn’t apologize. She just reset her shoulders and gave him a look so flat and sharp it might as well have been a warning sign. But Nate couldn’t unsee the pain he’d just seen painted all over her body like a goddamned billboard.
“Didn’t know your mom was sick,” he said carefully, keeping his voice low. Not prying. Just there.
“No one knows.” Her tone was even, crisp. Tidy. “And I’d like it to stay that way.”
She turned away like that was the end of it. Like the conversation was a box she could slam shut and shove off a cliff. But Nate just stood there, mouth pressed into a line, something quiet and relentless threading itself through his compassion. Not the cancer. Not the scan. Her.
The way she carried everything like a landmine between her shoulder blades. The way her jaw locked when she was too close to crying. How her fingers shook for a second and then went still, like she'd crushed whatever emotion was about to consume her.
He suddenly hated himself for every dumbass joke he’d made.
Every reckless flirt. Every stupid, arrogant 'it’s just a show’ thought he’d let fester in his skull.
Because she wasn’t playing. She was surviving.
And he was the arsehole who’d come here thinking all of this was a way to entertain himself and keep in Delaney’s good books until he could go back to his normal life.
Holly turned, stretching with more pent-up aggression than necessary.
Her hair was scraped back into a low, messy bun today, effortlessly beautiful in that wild way he’d come to immediately associate with her.
Every inch of her screamed I’m fine! so loudly that it was clear she absolutely wasn’t.
Nate took a breath, making his way across the floor to their table before he offered her a coffee from the tray in his hand.
“I got your usual.”
For whatever reason, she didn’t look up at him.
There was no sassy eye roll, no chirp from the girl who could easily reduce most of his teammates to tears with her razor sharp comebacks.
She reached for the coffee cup, and her fingers brushed his for half a second too long, like she wanted to take his hand instead of the coffee but just didn’t know how to ask for it.
His throat burned, because fuck, after hearing the tail-end of her mom’s voicemail, he didn’t know what to say either. So they got ready in silence, and then just got down to work.
Rehearsal was sharp and full of technique challenges that she was determined they’d both master after Stan’s comments on their Quickstep.
Technical. Hot in the way that came from sweat and nearness and the fact that her hand kept sliding just a little lower on his back than it had yesterday.
He didn’t call her on it, he just grinned like a man willing to die at the altar of whatever game they were playing.
“Helloooooo, lovebirds!”
They heard Kendall before they saw her, and it was probably a good thing because when she rounded the corner from the hallway into the room, she was carrying two garment bags with a grin the size of the Griffith Observatory.
Martin followed her in, smiling like a wolf, while the camera crew trailed behind like his loyal pack.
“Costume time!” he declared. “We’ve got a real cheeky vibe this week, so we thought we’d lean into it. Nate, you’re gonna love this.”
Martin tugged the garment bag open with a flourish, and out spilled the most aggressively romantic shirt Holly had ever seen.
Baby-blue crushed velvet ruffles cascaded down the front like a period drama had lost a fight with a soap opera.
Nate stared at it, silent, visibly calculating how fast he could fake his own death.
Kendall beamed. “Matches those gorgeous ice-blue eyes of his,” she said brightly, stroking the fabric of the tragic shirt like it was a beloved pet.
Holly made a small, strangled sound in the back of her throat that was half laugh, half panic attack. She peeled down the zipper of the garment bag holding the instrument of her doom, only to find a genuinely gorgeous slip dress… in the same wintery crushed velvet.
Nate stared at it. The pair of them were absolutely doomed to clash under the lights. Together, they wouldn’t look coordinated; they’d look like rival shades of Seasonal Affective Disorder fighting for dominance on national television.
“Seriously?” Nate asked, holding the shirt up with two fingers, like he’d be repressing this moment for years to come.
Martin just gave them a pinched smile. “It's classy. Romantic.”
“It’s giving Titanic meets Romeo + Juliet, and also Wuthering Heights,” Kendall chipped in. She squinted as she glanced from Nate to the shirt and back again, as though mentally undressing and then re-dressing him like her life-sized Hockey Ken fantasy.
Martin glanced at the cameras, which were picking up all these delicious reactions like they were catnip. And then, as soon as they cut footage, he clapped his hands like a circus ringmaster.
“Okay peoples, have to love ya and leave ya. Footage to review, promos to cut. See you tomorrow for your heartbreakingly perfect contemporary routine!” His words carried the faint stench of a threat as Kendall trotted after him.
Holly didn’t say anything. Not until the door was definitely shut behind them. Not until she could trust the silence.
Then: “Motherfuckers!”
Holly detonated, pacing in front of the mirrors like she wanted to reach out and shatter one.
“They know exactly what they’re doing! They’re setting us up to fail.
They want us to look like a joke, stir the damn pot.
” Her voice went sharp, fast, panic dressed up as fury.
“They want the judges to rage about shitty costume choices and score us low. Did you see that fucking ‘Take the Floor: Confidential’ interview Lars did?”
Nate grunted under his breath, glad that Martin and Kendall had taken the shirt with them.
“Yeah, I saw it. Prick.” He wandered over to the table they shared daily and took a long drink from his water bottle while he thought about the situation.
And by the time he was more hydrated, that slow, shit-eating grin of his had taken up residence on his lips.
“I mean,” he started, trying to sound casual as he plucked his baseball cap from the table next to his phone. “I don’t have to wear it.” He nestled the cap over his curls backwards, catching Holly’s eye when she looked at him sharply.
“What exactly are you suggesting?”
And fuck, if he didn’t feel it like a full-body hit.
The hope-coated challenge in her voice. The crack in her composure.
The way she looked at him like he’d just picked up a sword and asked which direction she wanted him to charge in.
And he would. He’d skate into fire for her if it meant making life lighter for her to carry.
So he stepped closer. Just enough to make the air shift. “I’m saying,” he said, husky as he lost himself in her gaze for a moment. “I know what this week means to you. I can see what they’re trying to do. And I didn’t come to LA to be someone’s fuckin’ punchline.”
She held his gaze for a breath too long, her heart thudding carefully. Like she was seeing him properly for the first time and liking what she saw just enough to be worked up about it.
“You sure about that, Eriksson?” she sassed him, a wide grin breaking through the cloud cover of her composure so he felt the full strength of her sun for the first time. And Jesus Fucking Christ, he wanted to bask in it.
He huffed a laugh, tilting his chin back so he could give her a cocky once-over.
“Only if it’s your joke,” he replied, as his breath quickened.
She was so hot, so absolutely stunning, that he was already burning for her and she hadn’t even touched him.
Had barely even glanced his way. But Nate knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that one spark right now would see them burning the whole of LA to ashes.
Holly lowered her gaze to his lips for a split second, then glanced away. By the time she dared to look back at him her guard was up again. “So… what? You’re gonna march out there in protest like Captain Jack Sparrow washed his shirt in with a new pair of jeans?”
The Hammerhead in him rose to the occasion. He grinned, all teeth. “Only if you choreograph it, Martinez.”
A pause. Barely there, and yet monumental enough that the tide shifted between them.
Her lips twitched as she seemed to fight off a smile, and he narrowed his eyes at her, now, because she had that look about her that she always wore when she was about to be a complete and utter menace, which was about 92% of the time.
“We ride after dark,” Holly asserted, making a joke she obviously hadn’t thought all the way through.
“Baby,” Nate groaned, sweet memories of finger-fucking her in front of the mirror and coming so intensely in his apartment that night he saw fucking stars flashing like Vegas in his mind. “You can ride me any fucking time you want.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shut the fuck up and show me your choreo, Nate.”
Take the Floor Fan Zone Forum
Topic: CRUSHED VELVET. CRUSHED LIVES.
User: VelvetRage86:
Created this account because I’m actually crying real tears. That shirt looks like a Regency cosplay had a baby with a discount ice dancer.
Nate’s face when Martin called it “romantic”?? I FELT that in my bones.
GIVE THAT MAN HAZARD PAY
User: hollyslippers420:
nate looking like a haunted prince from a period drama and holly straight up glitching???
this is camp. this is sabotage. this is televised art.
if these two survive this, they deserve an emmy and a hug.
@takethefloorofficial on Instagram:
: [Image carousel of Nate holding the ruffle shirt like it’s contagious, Holly mid-facepalm, Kendall beaming]
Contemporary week moodboard: love, tragedy, and aggressively romantic costuming. Are you swooning or screaming?? #takethefloor #velvetgate #hollyandnate
Top Comment by @softcoreeriksson:
this is not a costume reveal this is a cry for help
also i’m buying 3 of those shirts for my bf immediately
Kendall
ok real talk: nate’s reaction to the shirt deserves its own spin-off
i think he disassociated
Indie
he looked at that ruffle like it was made of haunted lace
ALSO: I AM OBSESSED. THEY’RE GONNA LOOK LIKE A RENAISSANCE TRAGEDY IN HD.
we’re getting slow mo shots.
we’re getting a promo trailer.
we’re getting. that. emmy.
this is the chaos we DESERVE.
Kendall
dunno babe, speak for yourself, I think I deserve some of nate’s off-ice intensity, if you know what I mean
Sophie
Just keep the pressure on. See what happens.
Kendall
What if Martin asks questions?
Sophie
Leave Martin to me.
Indie
savageeeeee
VELVETGATE: Can crushed dreams claim the TTF crown?
By Lina Marquette | Entertainment Columnist
This week’s costume reveal on Take the Floor left fans (and allegedly a certain hockey player) clutching their pearls.
In a moment now immortalized in high-def behind-the-scenes footage, Nate Eriksson was presented with what experts are already calling ‘the boldest affront to masculinity since mesh crop tops hit Coachella.’
The garment in question? A baby-blue crushed velvet shirt with enough romantic ruffling to qualify for a Bronte adaptation.
His partner, Holly Martinez, will be wearing a matching slip dress, though sources close to production confirm she briefly attempted to bribe wardrobe for a blackout curtain instead.
The internet, naturally, has dubbed it #velvetgate.
Despite the wardrobe drama, producers… READ MORE→