From Lukov with Love

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN something was going on when I got home that evening and found my mom in the kitchen, a plate of food sitting in front of the stool I usually sat at, waiting for me. She hadn’t served me dinner in years. I couldn’t actually remember if she had ever prepared any of us plates in advance… with the exception of Ruby. It was usually a free-for-all. Mom always said she wasn’t our maid, and that we should be grateful she cooked to begin with.

So, I should have known something was up. The problem was that I was exhausted following the photo shoot that took all damn morning. Don’t smile. Look natural. Do that pose again. Can you hold it a little longer? Hold your leg in this awkward, unnatural position for one more minute. Stand there and freeze your ass off. Tilt your head this way—no the other way—and hold it there. Ivan, put your freezing fucking hands on Jasmine’s body and hold them there for two minutes.

Fuck, fuck, and double fuck.

He didn’t laugh every time he touched me, and I’d have to suck in a breath because it hurt, but I knew he wanted to.

My nipples were still hard from being on the ice, covered with only the tiniest pieces of tape, and I was pretty sure my vagina was never going to be warm again. My clit had probably turned into a raisin. I hadn’t even glanced at the sock covering Ivan’s dick after the first time because it had been cold as hell. I wasn’t going to judge a man for what his junk looked like in the cold.

Plus, there had been other things to look at.

Everything north of the Equator and everything south of the Equator. Muscles, muscles, and more beautifully carved muscles. It wasn’t exactly difficult, even though every time his hands touched me, I wanted to punch him in the gut.

And once, I’d accidentally caught a glimpse of huge balls dangling between his legs that had for one second, made me wonder what the hell he did with those things in his costumes.

But it was none of my business, so I’d shoved that question aside for later.

The important part was, we’d gotten it done. At the end of the day, that was all that mattered. We had gotten it done, and we hadn’t killed each other or made fun of one another. It had just taken way too long. Luckily, I had thought ahead and taken the day off, even though my bank account didn’t need that kind of loss. Especially not when we were going to be competing in so many events.

Things hadn’t been awkward during our afternoon practice, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t glanced at his upper body once or twice and not remembered what he looked like without a shirt on. Just as quickly as I’d thought about it, I’d forced myself to stop. Luckily, he hadn’t had anywhere near the same amount of trouble; Ivan hadn’t actually said anything to me directly during our afternoon practice, even after he’d been so weirdly nice that morning.

“Hi, Grumpy,” my mom greeted me the second she heard me come into the kitchen.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, coming up behind her to kiss her cheek. I’d already dropped my things off. “How was work?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders as she turned off the water to the sink and reached for a towel to her left. “Fine. Eat before your food gets cold. I stuck it in the microwave when I saw the light in the driveway.”

“Thank you,” I said, still not paying attention, but turning to take a seat. I dug in to the baked chicken, jasmine rice, sweet potatoes, and side salad like I was going to collapse if I didn’t. I’d eaten lunch six hours ago between the shoot and the one hour break we’d taken between it and afternoon practice, but it felt more like a hundred hours since then. Ivan and I had worked on throws and side-by-side spins for three hours, and afterward, I worked out at the LC’s gym for three hours, including some high-intensity interval training on the treadmill to get my heart ready for the 180-200 beats per minute it was going to be pumping for close to five minutes during our free skate.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom take a seat at the island too. When we were both home at the same time, we always ate together, or at least kept the other company. So I didn’t think much of it.

Until she looked up, holding a mug of tea to her mouth and ruined my whole day.

My mouth dropped open the instant I got a good look at her face, and I pretty much yelled, “What the hell happened to your face?”

Mom’s blink was completely unimpressed.

And I didn’t give a shit as I took in the tape over her nose and two puffy, reddish-purple circles around each of her eyes.

And was that her fucking lip busted or was I imagining it?

She didn’t say anything as I looked all over her face, a thousand scenarios going through my head at what the hell had happened to her, when I asked, “Who did that to you?” I was going to kill somebody. I was going to fucking kill somebody, and I was going to enjoy the hell out of it.

“Calm down,” she said easily, like there was no reason in the world for me to flip out over the fact that half her face was bruised.

Of course I ignored her. “What happened to you?”

My mom’s blue-blue eyes didn’t even move over into my direction as she said, word for word, right before taking another sip of what I knew was tea, “I was in a car accident. Everything is fine.”

She was in a car accident and everything was fine.

I blinked at her as she picked up her phone from the counter like everything was no big deal and started reading something on the screen. Me on the other hand, I just sat there and tried to process her words and their meaning… and wasn’t able to. Because I understood what an accident was. What I didn’t understand was why the hell she hadn’t called to tell me about it. Or at least send a fucking text.

“You were in a car accident?” The words were out of my mouth, as slow coming out as they’d been going in for me to process them.

She had been in an accident. My mom had been in an accident and it had been bad enough that she looked like hell. That’s what she had said without even looking in my direction to do it.

What. The. Fuck?

My mom still didn’t look at me. “It isn’t a big deal,” she went on. “I have a concussion. They set my nose again. My car was totaled, but the other driver’s insurance will cover it because he hit me and there were witnesses.” Then, the woman who even with two black eyes didn’t look like she’d given birth to five kids, and definitely didn’t look like her youngest—me—was twenty-six years old, finally did glance in my direction. My mom was totally unfazed as she pursed her lips in that way I’d become familiar with as a teenager when I’d talk back to her and she’d almost whooped my ass. “Don’t tell your brothers or sisters.”

Don’t tell my—

I grabbed the paper towel sitting beside my plate and held it under my chin as I spit my rice into it—wasting precious food and not giving a shit—as my heart rate and blood pressure racked up so fucking high, so fucking fast, it was a miracle I was just as healthy as I’d ever been in my life at that point… minus some physical stuff… because anyone else would have had a heart attack right then. At least anyone that gave half a shit about another person—and I gave a massive shit about my mom. My heart wasn’t supposed to be beating that fast while I was technically resting.

Mom groaned, sitting up straight, just as I set the paper towel beside my plate. “No, no. Don’t you spit your food out.”

I didn’t bother thinking about the last time I’d spit my food out; I didn’t need to get more pissed off. “Mom,” I said, my voice higher and squeakier than ever, sounding not at all like me and, maybe, a little like a teenager on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum.

But this wasn’t a tantrum. This was my mom being injured and not telling me about it. And not wanting me to tell anyone else about it.

The woman who had practically raised me on her own tipped her head to the side and made her eyes go wide like she was trying to tell me without words that I needed to scale back on the drama. But the thing that mostly caught my gaze was the fact that she didn’t even set her mug of tea down as she basically hissed, “Jasmine. Don’t start with me.”

“Don’t start with you?” I spit back at her, more alert than I’d ever been after a practice. Here I’d been just a minute ago, staring into the stone countertop of the kitchen island, thinking about how badly I wanted to get into the shower and go to bed… not even thinking about practices and figure skating and the future… and now, now I was about two seconds away from losing my shit. Just like that.

Because. What. The. Mother. Fuck.

“Don’t start with me,” she demanded again, taking a sip of her tea, just as easy as can be, like she wasn’t telling me to blow off her accident and concussion and broken nose, and that I couldn’t tell my siblings about it for whatever reason she had in her head. “I’m fine,” she said before I ignored her don’t start with me BS and leaned forward, blinking at her, like I had the worst dry eyes in the world.

“Why didn’t you call and tell me?” I asked, using a tone that would have definitely gotten me grounded ten years ago, as anger twisted my guts. Why hadn’t she?

My hands had started shaking.

My hands never shook. Never. Not when I was mad over getting screwed by people I had slightly trusted. Not while I was waiting to skate. Not after I skated. Not when I lost. Not when I won. Never.

Mom rolled her eyes and focused on her phone again, trying her best to be dismissive. I knew what she was doing. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Jasmine,” she said my name just forcefully enough for me not to make another smart-ass comment. “Calm down.”

Calm down. Calm down?

I opened my mouth, and she shot those blue eyes, the ones I’d be able to pick out of a color wheel with my eyes closed, in my direction once more. “I’m fine. Some dumb-dumb stopped paying attention as he exited the freeway and rear-ended me. I crashed into the car in front of mine,” she went on, and I knew why she had thought about keeping it to herself. “It isn’t worth getting worked up over. You don’t need to get mad about it. I’m fine. If I could have hidden it from you of all people, I would have.

“Ben already knows. Your brothers and sisters don’t need to worry about it either.” She made a dismissive snort. “Don’t get worked up over me. You have better things to focus on.”

My mom didn’t want me to get worked up over her because I had better things to focus on.

Raising both my hands up toward my face, I pressed the pads of my fingers to my temples and told myself to calm down. I told myself to. I tried to go over all the relaxation techniques I’d learned over the years to deal with my stress and… nope. None of it worked. None of it.

“I don’t want you to be distracted by me,” Mom insisted.

I swore my ears started to ring. “Did an ambulance have to take you to the hospital?”

She made an annoyed sound. “Yes.”

I pressed my fingers deeper into my temples.

“Oh, put your hands down and pull your thong out of your butt,” she tried to joke. “I’m fine.”

My ears definitely started to ring. For sure.

I couldn’t even look at her as I said, my voice sounding lower and hoarser than normal… not even sounding like it belonged to me, “You could have called me, Mom. If it was me in the accident—”

“You wouldn’t have called me either,” she finished.

“I—” Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have either, but that knowledge didn’t ease my anger even a little. If anything, it just made me madder. My hands shook so bad, I stretched my fingers long and lifted them up to either side of my face, shaking them. Mad, so fucking mad, I wanted to scream. “That’s not the point!”

She sighed. “You had a big day. I didn’t want to bother you.”

She didn’t want to bother me.

My mom didn’t want to bother me.

I dropped my hands and tilted my face up to the ceiling, because if I looked at my mom the way I wanted to, she’d probably smack the expression right off. And then I wondered where I’d learned to keep so many secrets. Holy fuck.

“It’s only a little concussion and a fractured nose, Grumpy. And don’t raise your voice at me,” she said for the second time, and for the second time, it had zero effect on my blood pressure. “I know what this year means to you. I want you to take advantage of it. You don’t need to worry about me.”

I replayed her last sentences in my head, and it nearly exploded. This sickening feeling swelled up from my stomach to make it to the back of my throat.

Maybe I was being dramatic, but I didn’t think so. This was my mom. My mom. The woman who had taught me by example how to get up every time I was down. She was the strongest woman I knew. The strongest, the smartest, the prettiest, the toughest, the most loyal, the hardest working….

My throat ached. Years ago, she had scared the shit out of us by saying they had found a lump in her breast that ended up being nothing, I’d heard or seen pretty much all of my brothers and sisters cry. I’d just gotten pissed off. And scared. I’d admit it. I’d been terrified for my mom and, as selfish as it was, for me. Because what the hell would I do without her?

Worst of all, I’d been a dick about the entire situation. But I blamed it on being a teenager—and on my mom being the greatest anchor in my life—on why I’d flipped the hell out and tried to blame her, like she could have prevented it somehow. Now… well, now I was pissed again but not at her.

Well, maybe at her, but only because she would have avoided telling me she’d gotten hurt if she could have, and… and because she didn’t want to distract me. Didn’t want to bother me. I balled up my fist, and if my fingernails had been any longer, I probably would have drawn blood.

“Ben met up with me at the hospital,” she explained, her voice slowly beginning to edge back into a calm, even tone. “You don’t need to get worked up.”

All I could do was stare at her.

“I want you focused,” she added. “I know how much this means to you. If the accident would have happened three months ago, I would have called you, but you’re busy again, Jasmine. I didn’t want to take away from it.”

Didn’t want to take away from it? If she had gotten hurt before I’d started training so hard again, she would have called me but now she wouldn’t?

I glanced up at the ceiling and undid my fist, stretching my fingers as wide as possible. I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t pick them, choose them, find them, make them up. I was too stuck on her I know how much this means to you.

My chest joined my throat in the aching game.

Did she not understand I’d do anything for her? That I loved her and admired her and thought she was the greatest human being in the world? That I had no idea how she had raised five kids with my dad only being in the picture until I was three? That I didn’t understand how she could have been married three times before Ben, had her heart broken each time, but somehow she hadn’t given up hope and hadn’t let any of that stuff jade her?

There were a lot of things I didn’t let get to me. There were so many times I fell and hurt myself but kept going. But people had been assholes to me when I was younger, once, maybe a couple of times, making remarks and comments, and that alone had made me give up on strangers.

But my mom never let anything get her down for long.

How could I not think the world of her? How could I not love her, who raised me to think I was invincible, more than anything? How could she believe she wasn’t a priority to me?

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she insisted, casually. “I’ll be fine. When Ben and I go to Hawaii in a few weeks, I won’t let him take any pictures of my face. That way I have an excuse for us to go again,” she said brightly.

But it didn’t do shit for me.

This was my fault. This was all my fault. She thought and felt the way she did because I had told her a thousand and a half times how figure skating was what had made me feel special. What had given me purpose. What had made me finally feel like there was something I was good at. What gave me life, what made me happy, what made me strong.

But in reality, it was my mom—my whole family—that had given me the foundation for those things. I knew what all those emotions were because of them. Because of her.

I guessed I had just always assumed she knew.

But maybe I had just been too much of a self-centered prick to come to terms with realizing that until now.

My chest hurt even more, and my throat tightened so much I couldn’t swallow as I sat there, taking in the face that I loved with my entire heart. “Mom,” was the one and only thing I could get out.

It was right then that her cell’s ringtone started blaring. She didn’t even say a word to me as she reached for her phone and answered it. “Baby girl,” she said immediately, and I knew it was Ruby.

That was the end of that conversation. It was just how my mom worked. She was done when she was done.

And she expected, and for good reason, that if we’d kept talking about it, I probably would have gone on a rant. Under normal circumstances, at least.

This knot in my throat doubled in size as I stared at her as she talked to my sister with a smile on her face like she hadn’t just finished telling me being in a car accident was no big deal. Then implied that she wasn’t as important to me as she was.

Did I come off that heartless?

Something that felt an awful lot like a tear beaded up in my right eye, but I pressed the tip of a finger against that corner and ignored whether or not there had been some wetness on it, because my throat and my heart ached so bad, they overwhelmed everything else.

I sat there. I sat there and stared at my mom, and wondered what kind of person she really thought I was. I knew she loved me. I knew she wanted me to be happy. I was fully aware she knew all of my strengths and flaws.

But…

Did she think I was a selfish piece of shit?

My appetite disappeared, and so did my exhaustion. Kaput. Bye. Just like that.

“Oh, baby, you shouldn’t be doing that….” My mom trailed off as she shoved her stool backward, gave me a grin that must have hurt her face, and then headed out of the kitchen, to what I could only assume was the living room.

Anger flooded my veins as I sat there with a basically full plate of food below me, the sound of my mom’s low laugh just loud enough for me to hear. She was fine, and that’s what should matter.

But…

My mom really thought figure skating was more important to me than she was.

I loved it. Of course I loved it. I couldn’t breathe without it. I didn’t know who I was without it. I didn’t know who I would be in the future without it.

But I couldn’t breathe without my mom either. And if I’d ever have to choose between both, there wouldn’t have been any competition. Not even a little bit.

It was my fault for being a shitty daughter. A shitty person. For not opening my mouth and telling her the things she needed to hear. More I love yous and less sarcasm. For being so heartbroken over Paul leaving me that I didn’t appreciate enough her and my siblings trying to pull me back into a real life even when I was a moody, angry little bitch.

All they had ever wanted was for me to be happy. For me to win because that’s what I had wanted. Always.

And I hadn’t given them shit. I hadn’t made them proud no matter what. I had nothing to show in exchange.

It was my fault for choking. For overthinking. For being obsessive and a little difficult.

The knot in my body tripled, choking me, suffocating me.

God.

I couldn’t sit here and act like I was fine when I wasn’t. All I’d wanted was to sit at home and relax while eating before I started to wind down, but now… now there was no way I could do that. No fucking way in hell.

I was such an asshole.

God, I was such a fucking asshole, and it was all my fault. If I were a better person, a better athlete, maybe this would all be different. But it wasn’t.

I had to do something.

Sliding back my own stool, I almost headed straight toward the front door, ready to get out, but I paused for a second, wrapped my food in plastic and set it in the fridge.

And then I grabbed my keys, and I was fucking out of there, something that sure tasted like guilt and desperation filling my mouth, making me restless… making me feel like shit.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do.

But I had to do something, because this… shit… inside of me was growing and growing and growing.

My mom was my best friend, and she thought figure skating was more important to me than she was.

Did everyone I love think that way? Was that the impression I’d left on them?

Figure skating made me the happiest, but it wouldn’t mean anywhere near as much to me without my mom and siblings supporting me, giving me shit, caring and loving me even while I was at my worst. When I didn’t deserve it.

My throat and eyes burned as I drove, and my mouth went dry as I kept on driving. Before I knew it, before I let myself do more than have my throat ache and my eyes tighten, I pulled my car into the parking lot of the LC. I didn’t even realize it until I was there.

Of course I’d go back.

It was the only thing I had other than them. And I sure as hell didn’t want to talk to Ruby or Tali or Jojo or Sebastian about any of this. I wasn’t ready to feel worse, and that’s what would more than likely happen if they tried to console me or tell me it was okay.

Because it wasn’t.

I had to make all the sacrifices that had ever been made for me worth it.

And this was the only way I knew how.

In no time at all, I was out and heading toward the front doors, on a mission to go to the changing room. I’d left my bag at home, but I always left my last pair of skates in my locker as backup. I wasn’t wearing my favorite clothes to train in either, but… I needed this. I needed this thing that had always taken my mind off everything… even if it was the one thing that destroyed my body and made my whole family think they were second best.

The realization that I shouldn’t have left my mom after she’d admitted something so big finally hung in my brain, but… I couldn’t go back. What the hell would I say to her? That I was sorry? That I didn’t mean to make her think she wasn’t important?

The changing room was almost empty by the time I made it inside; there were two girls that were younger than me, but not by much, talking, but I ignored them as I put in my combination and opened my locker. In record time, I’d taken my shoes off, grabbed the extra pair of socks I always left in there, and stuffed my feet into them and my skates, ignoring the fact that I might regret not putting on the bandages I usually wore that protected my skin from the top edge of the boot that was well broken in.

But I needed to burn some energy off. I needed to clear my head. I needed to make this better. Because if I didn’t… I didn’t know what I would do. Probably feel more of a piece of shit than I already did. If that were even possible.

Ignoring the other girls in the room who were looking in my direction in confusion because I was never at the facility this late, I made my way as fast as I could toward the rink. Luckily, there were only about five other people on the ice at eight in the evening. The younger kids were already home and in bed, and the teenagers were heading there.

But I didn’t give a fuck about any of them.

The second my blades touched the ice, I was off, skating so close to the walls, only millimeters separated me from them. I went faster and faster, needing to get this shit out. Out. Out, out, out. I needed to remember why this had been worth so much.

I don’t know how many times I circled my way around, taking on speed skater speed, and I wasn’t sure when I started going into jumps. Jumps I hadn’t warmed up for. Jumps that I had no business doing while my body had already gone through a tough practice and I hadn’t refueled since. I did a triple Salchow—what we called an edge jump because you didn’t have the assistance of your blade’s toe-pick, you took off from the back inside edge and landed on the opposite foot’s back outside edge—followed by another one. A quadruple toe loop that I stumbled out of, and then did over and over again until I landed it. And then I went for a triple Lutz I was too burned out and exhausted to do, busting my ass hard on each landing. Falling and falling, one time after another and then another, my ass cheek hurting somewhere in the back of my head, but I wasn’t focusing on it.

I had to land it.

I had to do it.

My hip ached. My wrist started hurting from trying to break my fall like a dumbass. The skin above my ankle began to chafe.

And I kept falling. Over and over again. I fell.

And the more I failed, the angrier I became with myself.

Fuck this. Fuck everything. Fuck me.

It was on another fall that went so bad, the back of my head grazed the ice that I finally lay there and closed my eyes, breathing hard, feeling like shit, anger burning through me so brightly I felt it everywhere. I made my hands into fists. And I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached.

I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry.

I loved my family. I loved figure skating.

And I sucked at loving both.

“Get up, Meatball.”

I didn’t think I’d ever opened my eyes faster than I did right then.

And when I did, a familiar face was there, hovering, staring down at me with two black eyebrows arched upward. In the time it took me to blink, there were fingers there too, halfway between the face and me, fingers wiggling in my direction. The eyebrows went up even further when I didn’t say anything or move.

What was he doing here?

“Let’s go,” Ivan said as he looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read on that face I had seen so much of already.

I didn’t get up.

Ivan blinked.

I did too, swallowing hard as I did it, fire filling my throat.

With a sigh, Ivan reached into his pocket and then extended his hand out again, holding a Hershey’s Kiss between his index and middle finger. He raised his eyebrows again as he gave the candy a shake between his fingers. Why the hell he was carrying around chocolate in his pocket was beyond me.

But I took it, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. I unwrapped it like a pro and popped it into my mouth. It only took about three seconds for the sweetness to soothe the pain in my throat, just a little, but it was something.

“You ready to get up now?” he asked after I’d had the chocolate in my mouth for a few seconds.

Shoving it to my cheek, I shook my head, not trusting my lips to form the right words and not really feeling like sacrificing the small bit of joy and comfort coating my tongue. At least not yet. My temples gave a throb that I hadn’t even noticed before.

Ivan blinked down at me twice.

I still said nothing as the chocolate kept on melting inside my mouth.

“I’m not dealing with you if you get sick,” he went on after another minute, crossing his arms over his chest as he did so, still watching me. Expecting something. I thought.

Still, I didn’t say a word. I just kept sucking on the chocolate, ignoring the cold at my back that was finally beginning to sting.

“Jasmine, get off the ice.”

I licked my lips as I stared up at him.

He sighed and tipped his head back to look at the rafters, probably taking in the banners with his name hanging from them and wondering where his life had gone wrong to the point where he was here at night, with me.

God. Did everyone think I was a piece of self-centered crap? Even him?

The throbbing at my head got worse when he sighed again.

“You have three seconds to get up or I’m dragging you out of here,” he got out, still facing the ceiling and more than likely closing his eyes as he did it, if I knew him correctly.

It was my turn to blink. “I’d like to see you try.”

But in the back of my head, I knew that if he said he’d drag me off the ice, he probably would.

Those blue-gray eyes narrowed on me, and he said, still speaking carefully, “All right. I won’t drag you.” Something about the expression on that classic face that had grown only the slightest brush of a shadow of facial hair on his cheeks, put me on edge, like I couldn’t trust it. Like a reminder of what we had been like before. “But you have two seconds from now to get up.”

The or else hung in the air.

The stinging on my back was getting sharper, genuinely hurting my back and ass, and honestly, I wanted to get up. I would have gotten up if I’d been by myself. Chances were, I would have been on my way to the changing room if I’d been alone.

But now I was going to have to get frostbite because I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it since he’d asked.

And Ivan seemed to sense that because those glacier-colored eyes narrowed into slits.

Then he began counting.

“Two,” Ivan started, not even giving me a warning.

I didn’t move.

“One.”

I still didn’t move. Fuck it. I didn’t give a shit.

His sigh was deep, deep, deep, and he even shook his head as he said, “Last chance.”

I stared at him.

He stared back at me and finally shrugged. “You asked for it. Remember that.”

This bastard was going to drag me off the ice? What the—

Ivan bent at the waist, his eyes intent on me, and just as he reached toward my head with one arm—and I tilted my mouth to the side to bite whatever I could reach if he decided to try and pull my hair—his palm shoved itself beneath my shoulders and the ice. His other arm went under my knees, and in a move that was so fast, I forgot this man had built up his life and accomplishments lifting women for a living, I went over his shoulder, ass in the air, head and arms dangling along his back.

This bitch.

Be better. Be better. Be better. Don’t punch him in his giant balls. At least not yet.

“Ivan,” I told him, sounding calmer than I felt, barely realizing he had put on his skates before coming out to hunt me down. He was skating toward the boards, and I didn’t know where we were going. “Ivan, put me down right now, or I’m going to kick you in the face and not feel bad about it.”

“Meatball,” he said, just as calmly and quietly as I had been talking. “I’d like to see you try,” the asshole claimed, mirroring my words right back at me just as what had to be his forearm locked down over my calves, holding them against his chest before I did what he figured I was capable of.

And he would be right.

“Ivan,” I said again, still calm, part of me kind of hoping I was the kind of person who would yell and try to bite his ass so he’d put me down. But I’d promised. I’d promised to behave in public. So my voice was still nice and quiet as I said, “I swear to God, put me down this second.”

His response? A soft “No.”

“Ivan.”

“No,” he repeated, stepped off the ice, grabbing something out of my vision, and continuing walking… somewhere. I couldn’t see. What I could see was that he didn’t have his skate guards on either.

“I’m not playing with you right now,” I let him know, beginning to get really mad.

“I’m not either,” he replied, giving my calves a squeeze closer into him. “I gave you a chance. I gave you several chances, and you didn’t want to listen or let this go the easy way, so don’t get pissed off at me because you’re stubborn.”

My hands clenched from where they dangled, and I seriously considered biting his ass if I could reach it. Fuck it. He’d brought this on himself. I was more of a wedgie person than a biting-on-the-ass person, but I wasn’t about to stick my hand in the back of his pants.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you right now, but I drove all the way over here, so you’re not going to act like a spoiled brat with me,” he let me know before shifting me on his shoulder and huffing. “Jesus Christ, you’re heavy.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, seriously talking myself out of biting him.

“Fuck you too,” he replied, not missing a beat, not sounding at all angry or frustrated, which annoyed me even more.

“Put me down.”

“No.”

“I will kick you in the face.”

“You make me bleed, and we’ll have to take time off from practicing, and we both know you don’t want to do that.”

He had a point, damn it.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you the first chance I get when the season is over,” I hissed, arching my back for a moment when the blood rushing into my head started to make my nose sting.

“You can try,” he replied.

“You’re so lucky I don’t want to make a scene,” I pretty much growled.

His “I know” only annoyed me more as he took a turn down a hall.

Where were we going?

“Why are you even here?” I asked, trying to lift my upper body again to get a look at the hall we were in.

Ivan didn’t say a word. He just kept walking down the hall, before turning down another hall that I’d never bothered going down because I’d never had any business going to it.

“Ivan.”

Still nothing.

Fuck me. I didn’t want to hurt him… because I didn’t want to delay practices… so I couldn’t kick my legs… and biting his ass was way more personal than necessary… so I reached toward his butt, which I belatedly realized was in a different pair of sweat pants than the ones he’d been wearing during our afternoon session, and reached for the curve I knew was laying beneath… and I pinched it. Hard.

He didn’t even flinch.

So, I did it again. In a different spot.

And still no response.

What the fuck kind of cyborg was he? I’d pinched my brother half as hard, and he’d acted like I’d shot him.

Before I could figure out if he was an alien, he turned us to the left and stopped. I peeked around his leg to see that he was standing in front of a door, and at that point, was punching buttons on a numeric keypad above a doorknob. Where the hell were we?

“What is this?” I asked him.

He hit what I could only assume was “enter” just as he replied with, “My room.”

His room?

And then, with his free hand, he turned the knob, shoved the door open, and took a step forward, his one and only free hand going to what had to be the light switch, because a split second later, everything was lit up. And by “everything” I meant the twenty-by-twenty-foot room with what looked like a kitchenette along one wall, a couch in the middle with a small coffee table in front of it, and who knew what else on the other side that I couldn’t see from where I was dangling, arching my neck one way and then the other to get a look around.

“Since when do you have your own—goddamn it! What the hell was that for?” I cried out at the sudden sharp pain coming from my right ass cheek. “Did you just pinch me?” I cried, reaching back to cup my cheek over the spot that hurt like hell.

“That’s for pinching me.” Then the son of a bitch did it again, and I tried to kick my leg out, making me forget I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. “And that’s what you get for not paying attention,” he answered easily, still standing there with me over his shoulder.

“For not paying attention?” I shouted again, rubbing my soon-to-be-bruised ass. “That fucking hurt, Ivan.” Because it had. Jesus Christ, he was strong.

“You tried to hurt me too. I’m only giving you exactly what you planned on giving me.” He had a point, but still. “If you paid more attention, you’d know I fall on my right cheek. I know you fall on your left one.”

Shit.

He had another point. I had less sensation on my left cheek than I did my right from so many falls. I bet half the nerves on my ass were dead.

And it was annoying he knew that and used it against me.

And it was even more annoying that I’d tried pinching the butt cheek on him with the same trauma and failed, damn it.

“We’re even,” he said before going into a squat position, bending over and dropping me ass and back first onto the carpet floor, like I was a sack of worthless potatoes.

I glared at him.

Those pure black eyebrows of his went up. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood,” he let me know right before he kneeled in front of me. Those intense eyes lingered on me for a moment before he glanced down and his hands went to my right skate. I jerked my leg toward me, but he didn’t let that stop him. His fingers went to the laces of my boots, and he began plucking at the tight double knots I always made.

Some part of me wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing… but I didn’t. I just sat there, with my ass hurting, and watched as he undid one set of laces, pulled the boot off my foot, and then did the same to the other. He didn’t say a word and neither did I as he then sat down and undid his own skates, setting them beside mine. Ivan did glance at me as he got to his feet and headed toward the kitchen area, taking up an entire wall along the back of the room.

Rubbing my ass cheek, I sat there, wondering what the fuck was going on, and then getting onto my knees and looking around the room, taking in this place that I hadn’t known existed. How long had it been here? Did anyone else know about it?

But I asked him the most important question bouncing around in my head, as I sat there. “What are you doing here?”

He was bent over, rummaging through what looked like a small fridge built into the cabinets when he answered, “I came to check on you.”

What?

Ivan didn’t look back at me as he stood up straight, holding a carton of almond milk in his hand as he kicked the door to the fridge closed. “Galina called Lee, who called me,” he went on, like he was reading my mind.

Galina? Where the hell had Galina been? And why would she call Lee? I wondered before shoving the questions to the side and focusing.

“You didn’t have to come,” I blurted, wincing afterward at how much of an asshole I sounded like and kind of regretting it. Just a little.

My partner said nothing as he opened up more cabinets and started pulling things out of them.

I pinched the bridge of my nose with one hand while the other one went to my ass again to rub at the spot he’d pinched the shit out of. “I don’t even know why she called. Everything was fine,” I snapped, gritting my teeth at just how much my butt hurt.

His snicker was loud.

“What?”

He had his back to me as he said, “Everything was fine. Sure, Jasmine. Keep telling yourself that.”

I straightened on my spot on the floor and tried to tell myself to keep my attitude in check. Be better. I could be better. “It was fine.”

Maybe not.

I could see him shake his head as he messed around with whatever he had taken out of the cabinets. “So you come back to practice after working out for hours, and instead, work on your jumps, falling and getting back up like you’re possessed, and you’re fine?” he threw back, messing with something on the countertop.

“Yes,” I lied.

He snorted. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, sounding awfully close to bitter but deciding to ignore it. I moved to get my legs under me and stood up.

Ivan sighed at the same time something opened, closed, and beeped.

“I’m fine,” I kept going as I straightened and gave my ass cheek another rub, glancing at things around the room out of the corner of my eye.

He turned around and leaned against the counter behind him, raising his eyebrows, his expression… irritated. Really irritated. Huh. “What happened?” he asked.

I looked away, deciding to see the rest of the room. There were racks of clothes along the wall to the right, filled with costume after vaguely familiar costume. I had always wondered what he did with all of them. I had mine stuffed into every closet that had space at my mom’s.

“Jasmine.”

I ignored the frustration in his voice and kept on taking in the pale gray painted room, taking in how organized and clean it all was. That didn’t surprise me. Ivan was meticulous about everything. His clothes, his hair, his technique, his car. Of course he wouldn’t have a mess.

I couldn’t say anything. I was almost a clean freak. Almost. I was definitely a time freak.

“Jasmine, tell me what’s wrong.”

I kept my eyes glued on his rows of costumes, kicking myself mentally in the ass for not checking to make sure Coach Lee or Galina hadn’t been around when I’d first showed up. I hadn’t even looked to see if their cars were in the lot. Rookie mistake.

“You can tell me anything. You know I know what this life is like,” he murmured the words I hadn’t expected from him. Words that cleaved deep into my gut.

Because he was right. If anyone did know, it was him. Of course he would. He might even know better than I did since he’d been doing it for longer.

Except, he’d done what he wanted to do, and kept on doing what he wanted to do.

While I hadn’t.

There was a reason he had his name on banners all over the LC, and I didn’t.

The microwave beeped, and I finally felt so defeated and… sad. Just so fucking sad, so fucking fast, it almost took my breath away. Standing with just one hip against the counter, he was holding a cup in his hand and a spoon in the other, stirring something. But he was looking at me expectantly. Waiting.

And it just made me sadder that I was this person he expected to fight him over everything.

Be better. It was never too late, was it?

I pinched my lips together for a moment and tried to wrangle it all in, my anger, this fucking sadness, my disappointment. And I thought I’d done a decent job as I said, almost weak, definitely weird, “I didn’t know you had your own room.” I swallowed. “Must be nice.”

Did that sound as fake as I thought it did or…?

His face didn’t change at all. Neither did that tone I didn’t know what to think of. “I don’t bring people here.”

The “huh” out of my mouth sounded about as flat as I felt.

He kept on stirring, his eyes going nowhere. “It’s my quiet place.”

That had me flicking my gaze at him, surprised by his comment.

“It used to be a conference room and a storage closet, but I had it renovated a few years ago, when some fans snuck into the facility and went into the changing room while I was showering.”

What?

“They took pictures of me. Georgiana”—the general manager—“had to call the police,” he told me, his gaze steady on me even after he shrugged. “It had only been a matter of time anyway. Some nights back then, I was too tired to go home, so I’d stay here,” he explained, catching me even more off guard. “I don’t do that anymore.”

I wondered why.

Then I remembered it wasn’t any of my business. Friends, or whatever the hell we were, or not.

Ivan didn’t say another word as he came toward me, the mug still in his hand, the spoon in his other. I didn’t say anything either. I just watched him, trying to figure out what he was doing.

When he stopped directly in front of me, so close that for anyone else who wasn’t used to the lack of personal space, would have been too close, I still said nothing.

He didn’t sigh or make a face when he held out the cup toward me and kept it there just an inch or two away from my chest. The fact that I didn’t ask him if he poisoned it popped into my head as quickly as it popped back out. I wasn’t in the mood to be a pain in the ass. I really wasn’t. Not anymore.

And that’s how I knew there was something wrong with me.

I peeked inside of the mug, taking in the milky brown liquid inside… and then sniffed it. And I glanced back at him.

Ivan raised his eyebrow and moved it half an inch closer to me. “It’s the packet stuff,” he explained in a damn near murmur like he didn’t want to say the words or something. “I don’t have any marshmallows, if you like that kind of thing.”

He…

He….

Oh, hell.

“And I made it with almond-coconut milk. You don’t need the extra dairy,” he kept going, still holding that damned mug half an inch from my chest as I stood there.

He’d made me hot chocolate.

Ivan had made me fucking hot chocolate. Without marshmallows according to him, but he wouldn’t have known that I only treated myself to hot cocoa with marshmallows on very rare occasions.

How he knew—why he even had the mix—I couldn’t handle. I just couldn’t process it. It was like that moment when he and Lee had asked me to first partner up with him, like I was on drugs and didn’t realize it.

Ivan Lukov, the greatest frenemy in my life after my siblings, had made me hot cocoa.

And suddenly, for some fucking reason that I would never, ever understand, even years from then, I officially felt like the biggest piece of shit on the planet. That was the last straw. It was in the record books.

My eyes began to sting almost instantly, and my throat suddenly felt drier than ever before.

He had come here because Coach Lee had called him.

Ivan had given me a Hershey’s kiss.

He had dragged me to his room.

And then he’d made me hot cocoa.

My hand went up on its own, my mouth still staying shut, as I wrapped my fingers around the warm ceramic and took it away from him, glancing back and forth between the mug and that face that was so beautiful, so annoyingly perfect, it made my unclassicness difficult to appreciate for once. When he dropped his hand away, I brought the cup up to my mouth and took a sip, even as my eyes burned worse than before. It wasn’t as sweet with the non-dairy milk he’d used, but it still tasted great.

And he was still standing there, watching me.

And I felt… I felt shame. I felt ashamed of myself for this small kindness he’d just paid me that he didn’t have to. A small kindness I wasn’t sure I’d do if we were in opposite situations, and that just made me feel worse, worse, worse. My throat grew tighter than before, and it was honestly like I’d swallowed a giant grapefruit.

“What happened?” he asked again, patience punctuating every letter out of his mouth.

I glanced away and then glanced back at him as I pressed my lips together and fought the softball-sized turd pressing down on my vocal chords. You’re a piece of shit, Jasmine, some part of my brain whispered, and my eyes stung even more badly.

I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t. I didn’t want to say anything.

But…

You’re an asshole, that voice reminded me. A self-centered asshole.

I turned away from him, taking a sip, the hot liquid soothing the tightness along my vocal chords, and then I said, sounding so fucking hoarse I almost stopped talking but didn’t, “Do you ever feel guilty for making this,” he knew what “this” was—it was everything, “a priority?”

Ivan made a noise that sounded like a thoughtful one, and I was almost tempted to turn around and see his facial expression before he replied, “Sometimes.”

Sometimes. Sometimes was better than never.

You don’t care about anyone or anything but figure skating, my ex-partner had said to me one day weeks before he’d jumped ship and abandoned me. I had ripped him a new one when he’d texted me the night before to say he thought he was coming down with a cold, one week before nationals. You’re so cold.

But I wasn’t cold. All I wanted was to win, and I’d always told myself there was nothing I wouldn’t do for it. I didn’t expect or want to be mediocre. When I wasn’t feeling well, I sucked it up and still showed up. Was that so wrong?

Was it so wrong to love something you’d dedicated your life to that you wanted the best? No one ever became good at something without repeatedly working at it. Like Galina had told me once when she’d been really mad at me as a teenager, natural talent only takes you so far, yozik. And like with so many other things, she hadn’t been wrong.

I had just made some stupid fucking decisions. Really stupid decisions that painted everything black.

“Do you?” Ivan asked when I didn’t say anything else after his response.

Shit.

I took another sip of the warm drink and savored the taste, a lie at my chest, ready for us…. And I hated it. So I told him the truth, even though it felt like sandpaper. “I didn’t. Not for a long time, but now….” Yes. Yes.

There was a pause. Then, “Because you started doing other things when you took the season off?”

Took the season off. That was the prettiest way of saying it.

“That’s what started it,” I admitted, keeping my gaze on the mug even as my eyes began to sting again. “Maybe that’s why I see everything now better than I ever did before. I see how much I missed out on.”

“Like what?” he asked gently, and I couldn’t help but snicker.

“Everything. High school shit. Prom. Boyfriends.” Love. “The only reason why I went to my sister’s college graduation is because my mom made me go, you know. I was supposed to have practice that day, and I hadn’t wanted to miss it. I’d thrown a fit.” Acted like an asshole, but I was sure he could reach that conclusion all by himself. “I forget how obsessive I am.”

I could hear the soft breath he let out. “You’re not the only one. We’re all obsessive in this sport,” Ivan replied softly. “I’ve given up my whole life.”

I shrugged my shoulders and swallowed hard, still not facing him. He was right. If I thought about it, I would realize, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow the truth.

I was obsessive. I had ignored my family for the last ten plus years. Nothing and no one else had mattered as much as figure skating had… at least on the outside. I had taken them for granted until I thought I had lost this sport. Nothing else had mattered as much as the chance to win something. To be someone. To make them proud. To make everything worth it.

But mostly, everything I had done had been for myself. At least at first. It had all been for me and how it made me feel. Good, strong, and powerful. Talented. Special. It had made up for all the other things I didn’t have and wasn’t any good at.

At least until I had gotten into my late teens, and then everything had gone to shit, and I became my own worst enemy. My own most critical judge. The one and only person who was guilty of sabotaging herself.

I spun the bracelet on my wrist and rubbed the pad of my finger over the inscription.

“I used to regret not going to school like everyone else,” Ivan added almost hesitantly. “The only time I genuinely spent with other children was when I would visit my grandfather during the summer. My only friend for a long time was my partner, but even then, it wasn’t really a friendship. The only reason I knew what a prom was, was because of television. I used to watch reality shows to know how to talk to people.”

Something tickled at my eyeball, and I reached up to wipe at it with the tip of my index finger. It came away wet, but it didn’t scare me or make me mad. I didn’t feel weak.

I felt pathetic.

I felt like shit.

“Everyone, Jasmine, everyone that’s an athlete—that’s successful—has had to give up a lot. Some of us more than others. You’re not the first person, and you’re not the last person that sees that and feels bad about it,” he started to say, his voice steady and even. “You don’t get to become good at anything without sacrificing something to make time.”

I didn’t look at him as I pressed my middle finger against the same eye, feeling the wetness on there too. I opened my mouth and felt a choke in there, so I closed my lips. I wasn’t going to cry in front of Ivan. I wasn’t. When I opened them again. I made myself say, “I—” and my voice just… cracked. I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes and tried again. “Successful people, Ivan. It’s worth it if you’re successful, not if you’re not.”

And we both knew I wasn’t. Everyone knew I wasn’t. Not even a little bit.

More wetness formed at the corners of my eyes, and it took the pads of every other finger to dab the liquid away.

Everything had been for nothing, I had told myself a year ago when Paul had left. And it had cut me open.

And it did the same thing again right then.

Everything had been for nothing, and I couldn’t justify all of my sacrifices anymore.

The sniffle that came out of me, embarrassed me. Humiliated me, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it, even as my brain said, Don’t do it. Don’t you fucking do it. I was better than this. Stronger than this.

But I sniffled again anyway.

I wanted to walk out. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. But if I left, it would look like I was running away from Ivan. Running away period. And I didn’t run away. Not ever.

Maybe turning away so you wouldn’t see something wasn’t exactly the same as running, but it really was at the end of the day.

And I wasn’t my dad.

“I’ve never won anything,” I said, fully aware my voice sounded watered down and lame, but what was I going to do? Hide it? What the hell did I have to be proud of? Of making my mom feel like she didn’t want to bother me after she had been in an accident and had to go to the hospital? You’re a piece of shit, Jasmine. I had no reason to hold on to my pride. None. And it wasn’t like Ivan didn’t know that. Like he wasn’t aware of how much of a loser I’d turned into. How much of a loser I really was. That’s probably why we were only in this together for a year. Why would he want to get stuck with me? Natural talent only took you so far. I was the fucking poster child for it. The poster child for being a letdown of a human being, daughter, sister, and friend.

And it burned me. Oh hell, it burned the fuck out of me so bad, I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. Little pieces of glass sharp along every jagged, broken edge. “So what’s it all been for then? Second place? Sixth place?” I shook my head, bitterness swelling up inside of me, crowding out everything; everything, everything, everything. My pride, my talent, my love, fucking everything. “That doesn’t seem worth it at all.” I hadn’t been worth it at all. Had I?

There was no response, but when there was it came in the shape of two big hands landing on my shoulders, curling around them.

My entire life had been for nothing. Every goal for nothing. Every broken dream and promise for nothing.

The hands on my shoulders squeezed, and I tried to shrug them off, but they didn’t go anywhere. If anything, they got even tighter.

“Stop it,” Ivan’s demand was gruff in my ear. At the same time, I felt the heat and length of his body come up behind me.

“I’m a loser, Ivan,” I spat and took a step forward, only to come up short when the hands on me kept me from getting an inch away. “I’m a loser, and I gave up so much of my life and so much of my time with the only people who have ever loved me, for nothing.”

I was a failure. At everything. At every single fucking thing.

My chest ached. It hurt. And if I’d been dramatic, I would have thought it was breaking in half.

“Jasmine—” he started to say, but I shook my head and tried to shake his hands off again as my chest hurt even worse at how my mom had tried to play her accident off. Like she was okay with me not making her a priority.

Like my own mom thought she didn’t matter to me.

My throat burned. My eyes burned. And I… I was a giant asshole. A loser.

And the only person I could blame was myself.

I almost didn’t recognize my voice as I kept on talking for some fucking reason I would never understand. “My own family thinks they don’t matter, and for what?” My voice cracked as anger and some other shit I didn’t know how to classify swelled up inside of me. “For nothing! For not a single fucking thing! I’m twenty-six. I don’t have a college degree. I have two hundred dollars in my bank account. I still live with my mom. I don’t have any functional career skills besides waitressing. I’m not a national champion, a world champion, or an Olympic champion. My mom’s gone nearly bankrupt for fucking nothing. My family has paid thousands of dollars going to competitions for me to come up in second place, third place, fourth place, sixth place. I don’t own anything. I’m not anything—”

Was I dying?

Was this what having your heart broken felt like? Because if it was, I was sure fucking glad I’d never fallen in love before because goddamn. My God.

It felt like my organs were rotting away.

My mouth watered and my throat was sore, but by some miracle, I didn’t actually start bawling. But I felt like it. I was doing it on the inside. Crumbling. Falling apart. Feeling like a piece of worthless, worthless, worthless shit.

You can have all the talent in the world and still do nothing with it, my dad had told me once years ago, when he’d tried to convince me to go to college instead of pursuing figure skating full-time.

I screwed my eyes closed and held my breath as the pain in my chest got so bad, I wasn’t sure I could breathe if I tried. And I sniffed. This tiny little sniff I only barely heard.

“Come here,” was the soft whisper right by my ear as the hands on my shoulders tightened.

The “No” out of my mouth sounded like two rocks sliding against each other.

“Let me give you a hug.” His voice sounded even closer, his body warmer.

Shame burned me inside out, and I tried to take another step forward, but the hands on me didn’t let me go anywhere.

“Let me,” he demanded, ignoring me.

I squeezed my eyes closed even more and said, before I could stop myself, “I don’t want a fucking hug, Ivan. Okay?”

Why? Why did I do this to myself? Why did I do this to other people? All he was doing was trying to be nice and—

“Well, too fucking bad,” Ivan replied a moment before the hands on my shoulders started to shift, to slide, going across my upper chest, right beneath my collarbones until his forearms were crossed over me in an X, and then Ivan was pulling me back—stumbling me back—until my upper back hit his chest, flesh to flesh.

And he hugged me. He hugged me so tight to him I couldn’t breathe, and I hated myself. I hated myself for being a hypocrite. For not being nicer. For expecting the worst all the time. I hated myself for so many things, I wasn’t sure I could count them all and survive.

And the arms around me somehow got even tighter, until every bone in my spine was curved into every bone in his upper body.

“You’re the best figure skater I’ve ever seen,” this man whispered directly into my ear, his hold the strongest thing I had ever felt in my life. “You are. The most athletic. The strongest. The toughest. The hardest working—”

I leaned forward to get away from him because I didn’t want to hear this shit… but didn’t go anywhere. “You know none of that fucking matters, Ivan. None of it means anything if you don’t win.”

“Jasmine—”

Dropping my head forward, I squeezed my eyes even tighter because the burning in them only got worse. “You don’t get it, Ivan. How could you? You don’t lose. Everyone knows you’re the best. Everyone loves you,” I croaked out, not able to finish the words, not able to say and no one loves me the same except the people I’ve let down over and over again.

Warmth hit my cheek at the same time the arms around me swarmed me. Ivan whispered, his lips against my earlobe, “You’re going to win. We’re going to win—”

I choked.

“—and even if we don’t, you’re as far away from being a loser as anybody can get, so shut up. I’m sure your mom doesn’t feel like it was worth nothing. I’ve seen her watching you before. I’ve seen you before. There’s no way anyone would see you on the ice and think there was a price limit on it,” he suggested.

I squeezed my eyes closed and held back the next choke crawling up my throat, and I felt like I was dying all over again. “Ivan…”

“Don’t ‘Ivan’ me. We’re going to win,” he whispered into my ear. “Don’t give me this bullshit about you being a loser either. I don’t win every time. Nobody does. And yeah, it isn’t fun, but only a quitter says things like that. A quitter gives up and really does make that kind of statement come true. You’re only a loser if you give up. Are you a quitter now? After everything? After all those broken bones and falls, you’re going to quit now?”

I didn’t say anything.

“You giving up, Meatball?” he asked, rocking me back into him.

I said nothing.

“These young girls quit right after they win gold medals because they’re scared of losing after that. You say nobody remembers second place, but no one remembers the girls that win once and disappear afterward either. The girl I know, the Jasmine I know, isn’t scared of shit. She doesn’t give up, and that’s the girl people will always remember. The one who is there time after time. You’d win and keep trying to win afterward. That’s the girl I know. The one I partnered up with. The one I think is the best—and you better not ever ask me to repeat that because I won’t. I don’t know what happened to you earlier, but whatever it was, you need to move past it. You need to remember what you’re capable of. What you are. You make every sacrifice worth it. You make every penny worth it. Do you understand me?”

Understand him?

“Just let me go,” I croaked. “Please.” Please. Please. Out of my mouth. Jesus Christ.

He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. “Do you understand me?”

I dipped my chin and kept my mouth closed, my organs burning up and melting.

Ivan’s sigh went over my ear, and he squeezed me in that hug I hadn’t wanted but didn’t want to leave now. “Jasmine, you’re not a loser.” What had to be his chin touched my ear because it prickled. “Not years ago, not last week, not today, not tomorrow. Not ever. Winning isn’t everything.”

The snort out of me burned. It was so easy for him to say that. To think it.

And in that Ivan way, he knew what I was thinking because he said, “Some of the unhappiest times in my life have been after big wins. Your family loves you. All they want is for you to be happy.”

“I know that,” I whispered, hating how weak I sounded, but not able to do anything to change it.

I was miserable. More miserable than even after Paul left. More miserable than maybe after I realized my dad was moving away.

“You and me will give them that. Understand me?”

A sob tried to crawl out of my throat, but I kept it in, and I buried it. Buried it so deep I wasn’t going to risk ruining this chance by replying. Because this was enough. This was too much.

And I was miserable.

“That night I had dinner at your house, the second thing your mom said to me was, I can make things look like an accident,” he murmured, and I froze. “When I was leaving that night, your brother’s husband told me that you’re like his little sister and that he hoped I’d treat you with the same respect I would treat my little sister. And your sister Ruby randomly whispered that her husband was in the army for over ten years. I think she meant it as a threat.

“And both your brother and your sister said that you have experience digging holes to put bodies into,” he finished, his voice still gentle. “They sounded proud of it. Real proud of it, Jasmine.”

I blinked, and then I blinked some more. This… something, just barely replacing the burn going on inside of me. Not much, but it was enough for the weight on my chest to lift just enough for me to feel like maybe I could breathe again sometime soon. Maybe in a year. Maybe in two. Because that was my family.

And Ivan’s next words wrecked some more of that feeling eating me up slowly.

“They understand, Jasmine,” he kept going. “How can you think you haven’t done anything when they care about you so much? They admire you. They were bragging about how tough you are. How resilient you are. There are girls at the rink who light up every single time you walk by. You’ve probably changed their lives and inspired them by showing up here day after day, staying true to yourself, not letting anybody talk you out of anything. Not even me. I don’t know what you consider a loser, but those aren’t the kind of traits that come to my mind when I think of with that word.”

I ducked my head and bit my lip, my words lost, my mind too slow to process everything.

And then he finished me off.

“You and me, Meatball. We’re going to win if that’s what you need. Understand me?”