From Lukov with Love

IT WAS the poke to my forehead that woke me up. The “wakey, wakey,” that came after it that got me to open my eyes and squint up at the finger hovering over my face. But it was the dryness coming from my throat and the dull pain from my head that had me shoving down the sheet I had pulled up to my neck. I had no clue where my comforter had gone.

Sitting with his butt halfway on the bed, with his hand above my face, was a clean, fresh-looking Ivan in a blue T-shirt that made his eyes look as if he had on colored contacts.

“What do you want?” I moaned, shuffling up the bed until my shoulder blades rested on the headboard.

He ignored my borderline rude words and smiled. “Get dressed. You need a shower and you need to get out of this room for a while.”

I watched him the entire time I yawned, wincing at the soreness coming from my throat, and then reached over for the nearly empty glass of water that had been sitting on my nightstand since Ivan had left it there last night. Sipping what was left of the room-temperature water, I blinked at him and asked, “And that’s why you had to wake me up? To tell me to shower?”

“And get you out of the house.”

But I didn’t want to leave the house. Much less my bed. And especially not to shower.

His fingertip came at my face so fast I didn’t get a chance to move out of the way before he poked me on the forehead. “Get moving. Lacey isn’t exactly patient.”

“Who’s Lacey?”

“You’ll meet her in a minute. Hurry up. I’ll get you another glass of water in the meantime.” Ivan stood up and made a face. “Brush your teeth too.”

For a second, I thought about blowing out a long breath of air just for his comment, but didn’t have the energy… and he’d been nice to me for the most part. He’d at least gone totally out of his way since the day before.

I could keep my sick breath to myself this once, even though he was being an ass.

But the question remained… who the hell was Lacey and why did I have to meet her? Especially when I was sick. Just as I was about to open my mouth and argue with him, my head gave a throb to remind me my body was making up with this one virus, all the months and possibly years that had passed since the last time I’d been ill.

My whole body said, “fuck you,” as I flipped the sheet to the side and swung my legs over the edge. I wasn’t new to aches and pains, but there was a certain kind of hell that being sick put your body through. Everything from my eyeballs down to my toes ached and seemed to creak just from those movements, and I only barely held back a groan as I slowly stood up.

Ivan let out a “huh,” maybe seeing my face or sensing the stiffness in my movement, but he didn’t say anything else.

Just that was exhausting. “I don’t feel like doing anything.”

“I’m not going to make you do anything,” Ivan returned. “I already said that you need to rest.”

I eyeballed the jeans he had on. “Then… where are we going?”

His facial features didn’t give anything away. “Nowhere bad.”

I blinked.

“Do you trust—” He made a face. “Never mind. Just get dressed.”

It said how tired and crappy I felt that I didn’t argue or ask any more questions. I dragged my feet toward my dresser and pulled out underwear and a bra, becoming even more tired after that. Casting a side-look at Ivan, I found him still sitting on my bed… watching me. I sighed, and he raised his eyebrows again.

“I’ll be back in ten,” I basically whined, shuffling toward my door.

“Holler if you need me.” There was a pause and then, “I’ve already seen you almost naked twice. It’s no big deal.”

I would have choked if I had the energy, but I didn’t. I would have given him the finger too, but that didn’t happen either. All I managed to do was grab my bathrobe from the hook behind the door. I headed, huffing and puffing, to the bathroom across the hall that I used to share with Ruby back when she had lived here. It took me longer than normal to shower, and it was only because my legs felt so damn prickly that I forced myself to shave. I didn’t have the energy to put lotion on or anything. I just barely managed to pull on my underwear and my most comfortable bra.

I slipped on my robe and was just about to tie the sash on it when my arms gave up. I just held it together at my waist as I dragged myself back to my room, asking myself one more time: Who the hell was Lacey? And, where the hell were we going?

I had barely made it two steps into the room… barely seen Ivan sitting on the edge of my bed directly beside my nightstand… barely caught on to the fact that the top drawer of it was open… barely caught on to the fact he was holding white sheets of paper that he shouldn’t have seen and shouldn’t have known existed, when Ivan’s head snapped up and I saw, I saw, his face was a color it shouldn’t have been.

And then he lost it.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, shaking the papers in his hand, angrily, so angry, so fast, I really felt bad.

Only for a second. But it still happened.

The breath I hadn’t realized I’d blown out of my lungs, came back in me before I managed to hiss out, “What the hell are you doing looking through my things?”

It was a sign of how angry he was that he didn’t immediately have a comeback for me.

It was my fault. I knew he was nosey. I knew he was nosey because I was nosey. But damn it! Those papers had been in there safely for years.

Ivan ignored my question, crushing the sheets in his hand so tightly, they formed partial balls. “Who… who…?” he stuttered, another sign of how furious he was. Ivan never stuttered. Never faltered. And even his neck was going red.

He gave the papers another shake. “Who did this?”

I swallowed.

“Who sent this shit to you?”

“Ivan—”

He shook his head, the hand holding the papers dropping until his fist bumped against his thigh, his head cocked to the side in anger. In so much anger, I could almost taste it. “Don’t ‘Ivan’ me. Where did these come from?”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

I didn’t even think I could try and play stupid and act like the notes I’d had hidden in my drawer were a joke—because my mom wouldn’t look through my things, we were past that stage in my life. I knew Ivan too well. I knew he wouldn’t drop this crap until I explained every detail.

And I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

If I’d found pictures of naked men with his face taped to the bodies, with hearts glued to them, with arrows pointed at his genitals, connected to words like YUM and YES, I might laugh for a minute… and then worry like hell.

God, god, god, goddammit.

“Jasmine.” He started to get revved up all over again, the red on his face and neck climbing to the tips of his ears. Good lord, I’d never seen him so pissed. I didn’t even think he was capable of being so mad unless he was on the ice and something had gone wrong during a competition.

I held back my sigh, seriously regretting that I’d taken my hiding places for granted and hadn’t shoved them into my underwear drawer… or somewhere else that was harder to find. I’d throw them away, but I wasn’t an idiot, if anything ever happened, I needed proof.

Waving my hands, palms down, I tried to tell him in my softest voice, which probably wasn’t as soft as it needed to be, “Calm down.”

Yeah, that was the worst thing to do. He shook the fucking papers again. “Don’t tell me to calm down!”

Oh fuck me.

“You have a fucking stalker, Jasmine!” he yelled again, making me thankful that my mom and Ben were gone.

I winced, trying to think of what to say and coming up with, “He hasn’t threatened me….”

Ivan tipped his head back and made a noise I wasn’t really sure what it was called. A growl? “What the fuck?”

I finally snapped. “Don’t fucking yell at me!”

If looks could kill, I would have been dead, for real. “I’m going to yell at you when you’ve been getting things like this! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Oh. My. God. I wasn’t in the mood for this shit. Not ever and definitely not then. “I haven’t told you because it’s none of your business!”

“You’re my business! So this is my business!”

“No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it isn’t! This has been happening since before we paired up.”

And, I’d fucked up. I’d fucked up like I always did while speaking before thinking. For letting my mouth run away from me as far as it could.

Ivan’s face literally went tomato red. So red, I was genuinely worried for his health. “I’m going to kill you,” his voice dropped instantly. He stared at me, bug eyed. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

I couldn’t even make a joke about it. “Just fucking stop, all right? I’m not in the mood.”

Ivan shook his head and raised his fist, dropping the papers onto my perfectly made bed. “I don’t give a single fuck right now that you’re not in the mood, Jasmine,” he stated, and before I could argue some more, he said in a tone I’d never heard from him, “How long has this been happening?”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged, so angry with myself for being so dumb. I knew better. I knew better. I should have planned for the worst, especially with this unrelenting, stubborn asshole. “Three years,” I mumbled, so mad I could barely talk over the ache in my throat.

He closed those blue eyes and opened his mouth, shaking his head in the process. “Three years,” he repeated the words roughly. “How many of these have you gotten?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

One ice blue eye opened and aimed itself right at me. “Too bad. How many of these have you gotten?”

I groaned, grunted, and tipped my own head back once more in frustration. There was no escaping it. Was there? Shit. “I don’t know—” he started to cut me off, but I didn’t let him. “No, seriously. I don’t know. When I first started getting them, I threw the first few in the trash. My best guess is… twenty? Maybe?” More like thirty, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to admit that.

He was breathing so hard I almost didn’t want to look at him, but I wasn’t a little bitch. Especially not in this situation. “Does your family know?” he asked in a creepy, calm voice.

Could I have lied? No. This fucker knew my tells too well. “About a few of the ones in the past,” I gritted out.

“What does that mean?” he demanded, still watching me with that one eye.

“They stopped coming in when I deleted my social media pages,” I explained, wishing I didn’t and wasn’t. “They know about a few of the ones I got before that.”

The other blue eye snapped open, and Ivan stared at me. “Are you still getting them?”

I moved my gaze away from him as I shrugged, so damn mad. “I don’t know. I don’t open my mail anymore.”

I didn’t. I didn’t want to get distracted. I didn’t want to overthink my situation.

So, I had decided to play the ignorant game. But I didn’t admit that to him.

I also wasn’t going to bring up the comments and private messages I had gotten.

The thought had barely occurred to me when Ivan’s jaw went tight and he asked, “What about your Picturegram and Facebook? Have you gotten anything on there?”

Fuck me.

My face must have said everything because he dropped his head back and rolled it from side to side, breathing loudly the whole time.

“It’s not—”

“Where’s your phone?”

I blinked. “Why?”

“I want to see what you’ve been sent.”

“It’s none of your—”

It was his turn to blink at me after tilting his head forward. “Don’t finish that sentence,” he told me, slowly. “Let me see your phone. If there’s nothing bad, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

I hated it when he made a good point.

“Let me see it,” Ivan repeated, using a tone of voice I hadn’t heard from him before.

Damn it. There was no question he wasn’t about to let this shit go. Ugh. “It’s on the other nightstand,” I muttered, pissed off at myself. “Let me see your phone then too.” I don’t know why the hell that sentence came out of my mouth, but it had.

He slid me another killing look before standing up, tossing his phone at me, and then crawling over my bed. “I already unlocked it,” he let me know, angrily.

I shot him the same facial expression back, even though he couldn’t see it. “My password is—”

“I know your password. I’ve seen you put it in,” he muttered as his hand snatched my phone from the other nightstand.

“Fucking stalker.”

He gave me another “I’m going to kill you” face but kept his mouth shut as he sat on the edge of my bed once more and started poking around on the screen.

Even though I was holding his phone in my hands, I watched him instead. Lines appeared on his forehead twice, his left hand went to the back of his head and stayed there. Then he started breathing hard.

Shit.

“What the hell is this shit?” he spat, looking down.

“Dick pics, messages from assholes….”

“This guy is jerking off.”

“I didn’t watch the fucking video, Ivan. Are you done now?” I hissed at him.

He stared at me for a moment then said, “Yes, I’m done.” That pink mouth opened and then closed again. Ivan sputtered. Sputtered. His face went even redder, and then he said, “Get your shit together. You aren’t staying here tonight.”

It was my turn to sputter. “What?”

“You’re not staying here tonight. You pack or I pack for you. Decide now.”

“The hell you will, and the hell I’m going with you. I’m staying here,” I told him.

He blinked. He blinked so steadily, it was kind of scary from how psychotic the movement was. I was pretty sure it reminded me of Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs when he’d had that face mask on that had given Ruby nightmares for months. Sebastian had bought me a similar one for Halloween one year after I’d begged.

“You’re not staying here by yourself,” Ivan claimed, snapping me out of my memory. “You either come with me or you’re going to one of your brothers’ houses. You choose. You were already going to spend the day at my place anyway.”

“You’re not the boss of me. You don’t get to—”

The asshole cut me off. “You come with me or I’m calling your brothers right now and telling them why you aren’t staying here until your mom comes back.”

That time, my mouth really did fall open. Until my mom got back? That was two weeks from then. And I told Ivan exactly that.

What did he do? He shrugged, tightness all over his shoulders and arms through the T-shirt he had on. “Choose, baby. Me or your brothers.”

What in the hell? “No!”

“Yes!” he shouted back.

What the hell was happening? “No!”

He watched me, eerily still, barely breathing if he even was, before shrugging. “Fine.”

And then he held up my phone. By the time I realized what he was doing, it was too late for me to snatch it back. I still rushed toward him anyway.

“Ivan!” I yelled, getting up to my tippy-toes as he stood and held it straight over his head, so tall I wasn’t even close to reaching.

“You got three seconds, you hardheaded ass. Three seconds or I’m calling them, and if you kick me in the balls, I’ll call all of them.”

He would. He definitely would.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Fuck.

Gritting my teeth, I held back the yell I really wanted to give him and spat, “Fine. Fine.” Dickhead. Ugh.

“What’s it going to be?” he snapped, sounding maybe even angrier than me, if I thought about it.

But I didn’t.

I held back the middle finger I wanted to give him and groaned, “You, ass. I’ll stay with you.” There was no way I’d stay with either of my brothers if I could help it. And just like that, I got mad all over again. “This is bullshit.”

He snorted angrily. “Yeah, it’s real bullshit that I give a shit about you. Suck it up and get your things, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do and you need to pack. I’m so mad at you, I don’t want to look at you.”

I could have fought him over it. Well, I could have tried. But if there was one thing in the world I’d learned over the last few months: Ivan wasn’t the kind of man who didn’t live up to his words. And if there was one other thing I’d learned over the course of that period too, it was that if I didn’t agree to whatever bullshit he was threatening me with, I would probably regret it.

And luckily for him—and unluckily for me—both times I had spent the night at Jonathan and James’ place, I’d learned that their walls were thin. Too thin. And apparently, James had a giant dick.

So, yeah, no thanks. I loved my brother and James, but there was some shit in the world, I just didn’t need to know. Nope.

As for Sebastian, if he were to find out about the mail, I would never hear the end of it. Dealing with Ivan was one thing, but Jojo would call Tali and call Seb, and then I’d have three people breathing down my neck, calling me a fucking moron for keeping a secret.

No thanks.

I was going to have to go with the lesser evil… Ivan who was probably more evil than both my brothers, but definitely wasn’t as evil as both my brothers and Tali.

Damn it.

“This is so damn stupid,” I grumbled.

My partner shrugged, totally and completely unapologetic. “What’s stupid is you not telling anyone about this. Get to packing, Meatball.”

I whispered, “Dick,” loud enough for him to hear.

If he did—and he had to—his face didn’t register it. More than likely though, he just didn’t give a shit. God. Was this what dealing with me was like?

Turning my back to the man standing right by my bed, I opened my closet to grab one of my bags. Going up to the tips of my toes, I tried to reach for it but couldn’t. Without looking at Ivan again, I left my room and went to the hallway closet to grab the step stool from inside.

But by the time I made it back to my room, the bag I’d been reaching for had been set on my bed.

And Ivan was back to sitting on the mattress, facing the wall and staring at it with an expression so tight, the bones along his jaw had never looked more visible.

Fine. If he didn’t want to talk to me, that wouldn’t bother me at all. I didn’t exactly want to talk to him either.

Sure, I hadn’t been crazy about staying home alone to begin with while I was sick—I wasn’t that stupid—but did he have to boss me around?

Neither one of us said a word as I pretty much grabbed anything that was black or white and stuffed it into my bag, making sure I packed a work uniform with me, just in case. Because just like taking time off to train, I couldn’t take time off from work either. It didn’t take me more than ten minutes to grab my clothes and toiletries and shove them all in my bag. Then I grabbed another set of clothes, threw them on, and slid into some flip-flops.

“Ready,” I muttered, eyeing the man who hadn’t moved from his spot on my bed.

He got up, still not looking at me, and walked right out of my room, pretending like he didn’t see me.

Bitch.

I followed behind, flicking off the lights with a frustrated sigh. It was awkward and quiet, with Ivan going straight down the pathway while I set the alarm and locked the front door. How had I been so stupid to leave that crap in my nightstand? And why the hell did he have to go through my things anyway?

Damn it.

Damn it.

My head was pounding all over again, and I was back to being nauseous. I took my time turning around, and then sighed again as I did, looking for Ivan’s car. I found Ivan.

But I didn’t find his car.

Instead, he was standing beside a white minivan.

I blinked.

“You coming or are you going to make this difficult too?” he asked, his tone that shitty, condescending one.

I was too tired to hold up my middle finger, and I hoped he knew that. “Where’s your car?”

His hand sliced to the side. To the minivan. He raised his eyebrows while he did it.

I blinked again.

That hand he had aimed didn’t go anywhere.

“I’m serious.”

“I am too. It’s mine. Get in.”

It… that… was his?

I didn’t have anything against minivans. My mom had owned one back in the day before everyone but Rubes and I had moved out, but… Ivan? Why the fuck did Ivan have a minivan?

He couldn’t have had a kid. He’d specifically said he didn’t know what he was doing with Ruby’s babies. I had known his parents for a long time, and neither one of them owned a minivan either.

So….

“Today.”

I blinked and still didn’t move. “What is that?” I asked slowly.

He rolled his eyes and opened the door. “It’s a car.”

“Whose?”

Climbing inside of it, he replied, “Mine.”

“Why?”

Holding the door open, he answered, “It’s fuel efficient, low to the ground, and has a lot of room.” A flicker of a baby smile flashed across his face before it disappeared like he remembered that he was mad at me. “And it’s a Honda. Get in.”

He wasn’t the only one who forgot he was mad. “It’s… yours?”

“It’s mine,” he went on. “Get in. I’m not in the mood right now,” he demanded before slamming the door shut hard.

What the hell did he have to be in a bad mood over? Ugh.

The van purred lightly as it started, and before I had a chance to blink, the driver side window was being rolled down, and Ivan repeated himself. “Today.”

I scrunched up my nose and shot him a dirty look as I took in the Honda like it was some spaceship I had never seen before. Just as I opened my mouth to say something about him he couldn’t hear or respond to, something inside the minivan’s back window moved, and the next thing I knew, a brown head popped around the side… to rest on Ivan’s shoulder. Two big eyes blinked at me. And I lost all my words again.

Ivan didn’t even glance at the head on him before he flicked his fingers for me to come forward. “We’re not going streaking, and I’m not dumping your body anywhere. Not yet at least. Get in. Even Russell’s getting tired of waiting. They’ve been out here for half an hour waiting for you.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, and then opened it again to get out, “You have a dog?”

He nodded, and the dog’s head moved with his movement. “Russell. Come on. I’m not in the mood.”

Who the hell was this person? What the hell was this person? Ivan didn’t just have a dog but he had a goddamn minivan too? I’d only ever seen him in his Tesla. Not… that.

I wasn’t even positive I’d ever seen dog hair on his clothes before.

Had I?

“We don’t have all day. Get in before I put you in and someone calls the cops thinking I kidnapped you,” he threw out, pulling his glasses over his eyes, jerky and pissed off. “If you get in right now, I’ll think about forgiving you eventually.”

As if being totally aware of what Ivan was saying, the dog licked his cheek and stared back at me with eyes that I was pretty positive were a golden hazel.

And then I heard a shrill little yip come from somewhere else inside the van, and Ivan turned his upper body in the opposite direction to look in the back seat and say, “Not right now, Lacey. We already talked about this.” Then, like he hadn’t just been having a conversation with what may or may not be a small dog based on the pitch of the bark, he turned back to face me and raised his eyebrows. “Drama queen. You ready?”

Ready.

Was I ready?

To get in a minivan with him and two dogs. Two dogs that I didn’t know he had. One of those dogs that he talked to like he was arguing with a child. Both of them named human names.

Lacey. He’d warned me about Lacey.

I don’t know what it said about me that I wanted to get in that van even as my energy continued to disappear by the second and my anger seemed to waver somewhere in between.

“I’m counting to four before I get out of this car and drag you by your underwear in here,” Ivan called out.

I wrinkled my nose, and without totally accepting that I’d made a decision, I said, “You can try, but I’m not wearing any,” a moment before I walked around the curved front of his hood and opened the passenger door. Cold air conditioning was the first thing that hit me. The second thing that hit me as I slid my butt onto the captain’s chair was the fact that the brown snout that I’d seen above Ivan’s shoulder a moment ago was now hovering over the headrest of the seat I was in.

The dog’s eyes were hazel. Huh. And he looked… really interested and curious. About me.

“Hi,” I whispered, mostly because my throat hurt after talking so loud and yelling at Ivan.

“He doesn’t bite, but he drools,” Ivan informed me. “You can pet him if you want.”

The dog was still staring at me from two inches away. But Ivan was right; he didn’t look even a little bit aggressive. He looked like he wanted me to pet him, and if the thump, thump, thump said anything, it was that he really wanted me to pet him.

So I did. I raised my hand with a closed fist and let him smell me. And when that went okay, I opened my hand and stroked the top of his head gently, and when that went fine, I drew my hand over the soft, soft fur on his ears.

Then he licked me.

And I couldn’t help but smile, even as my head hurt and my throat ached and I felt like a complete asshole for getting caught.

Ivan didn’t say another word as I stared at his dog with possibly the biggest, dumbest smile I’d had on my face in a really long time, but finally, after a few moments, he said, very calmly, very coolly, “Buckle up. I’m not getting a ticket for you.”

I looked at his dog, Russell, one more time, stroked his ear, and then sat back in the seat and slipped the seat belt on. Just as soon as the metal clicked into place, the same yip I’d heard before I’d gotten into the car came through the van once more, and Ivan clearly groaned as he shifted the van into drive.

“Lacey, I swear to God, don’t start,” he tossed out over his shoulder.

He was already driving when I turned to glance into the second row, coming face to face with Russell once more before I moved and got a good look at the passenger making noises. Sure enough, Russell was standing in the sliver of space between the seats, but wedged in the corner of the second row… in a pink harness that was latched through the material of a seat belt, was a small, short-haired white dog with pointed ears and a snub nose.

“Is that…?” I started slowly, feeling like this was a dream, and if it wasn’t a dream, I knew nothing about Ivan. Absolutely nothing. Everything I’d thought I’d known was a goddamn lie, and I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. “Is that a French bulldog?”

We were already on the road and heading toward the nearest major freeway when Ivan nodded, his eyes on the rearview mirror. “Yes. The diva in the back is Lacey. She’s in time-out. I should’ve left her at home, but she can’t be in the car with anyone else other than Russ, and today’s his day for a ride.”

He’d just said his dog was in time-out, hadn’t he?

Oh my God.

I almost couldn’t get the question out, I was so torn up in this second life and second personality I had no idea this person I trained with six days a week was capable of. But somehow, I managed. “Why is she in time-out?” I practically whispered.

“She’s been giving me a lot of sass this morning, picking on her sisters, trying to steal food, peeing on one of the beds because she got in trouble,” he explained like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I didn’t know what to say. The dog had been giving him sass, picking on her sisters, trying to steal food, and had peed out of revenge. Just like that. So I didn’t say anything else. Because what the hell else was I supposed to do?

I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know this man at all, and it made me feel awful. More like shit than I already did.

How had I not known he had dogs? And more dogs from the sound of it, because how else would Lacey have sisters?

Damn. I didn’t really know anything about Ivan.

But maybe no one did. Because there was no way the girls in the changing room would have avoided talking about his prissy white Frenchie if they knew about her. Hell, his fans would probably throw dog toys at him at the end of his programs if they did.

No one knew. There was no chance.

But here he was.

The sound of a low growl, so high in pitch but at the same time quiet, had me glancing over my shoulder to eye the white body in the second row of seats. She wasn’t even looking at me; it honestly looked like she was glaring at the back of Ivan’s seat. But it was the pink harness she had strapped to her chest and then secured by a seat belt that I couldn’t get over.

And I was almost positive she had a lighter pink collar with rhinestones on it. At least I thought they were rhinestones.

Then it was my turn to glance at Ivan, knowing there was no way I was about to let this go. “Your little dog has a seat belt on,” I said, like he hadn’t been the one to strap her in.

All he did was drop his chin a fraction of an inch, gaze focused ahead of him. “She moves around too much in the car. She doesn’t know how to sit still.” He glanced at me. “Like someone I know.”

I ignored his comment and eyed the dog again. She was still glowering at Ivan’s seat. I could feel the tension and drama coming off her.

Huh.

“I don’t need her flying out of the windshield if we’re in an accident either,” he went on, oblivious to me sneaking peeks at his dog. “Russ only gets up when I’m not driving,” Ivan continued explaining, easily. “He’s a good boy.”

That had me glancing at Russ, who I thought might have been a brown Lab but wasn’t totally sure. He was lying on the floor in between the seats at that point with his head on top of his paws. His tail went thump, thump.

“I didn’t see any signs of dogs at your house,” Ivan commented out of the blue.

I shifted forward again to look out the windshield. “No. My mom’s allergic.” Then, without even meaning to, I said, “My sister used to have one.”

“Which one? The ginger or Ruby?”

I glanced at him again. “Ruby,” I answered him. “It was Aaron’s dog. He passed away a couple of years ago.” I had cried, but I’d never told anyone about that.

Ivan nodded slowly, as if that said everything. “Is she the youngest?” he asked, his tone still snobby.

“In my family?”

“Uh-huh,” was his response as he steered us through traffic.

“No.” Wasn’t it obvious? “I am. She’s five years older than me.”

He swung his head around to give me a “you’re full of shit” expression. “She is?”

I didn’t even get offended. “Yeah.”

“You’re the baby?” he asked, sounding totally surprised.

“Why are you saying it like that? You’re making me feel like I need to apply for an assisted living home or something.”

“It’s just….” He scrunched up his nose as he drove and even shook his head. “I don’t know.” He glanced at me and shook his head again.

I knew what he meant. It’s what my mom and everyone had always said about me. Physically, I looked younger than Ruby, who still had a baby face like my mom’s. But I had an old, grumpy grandma soul. “I get what you’re trying to say.”

From the way he was contorting his face, it was like he was still in denial. “You’re really that much younger than her?”

Sliding my hands under my thighs, I held back a sigh as I leaned my head against the seat. “Yup. She had a heart condition for a long time. We were all really overprotective of her.”

“I didn’t know that. She’s cute,” he threw out suddenly, and my head did something straight out of the Exorcist. I swear to God my neck swiveled effortlessly, without a hitch, as I turned to glare at him.

“Don’t look at my sister. She’s married.”

Ivan snickered. “I know. I’ve met her husband how many times now? All I said was that she’s cute, not that I want to take her out on a date or anything.”

“Great, she’s too good for you,” I threw back out, still staring at him.

That had him go, “Ha!”

“She is,” I told him slowly, not letting his laugh get to me.

“You know, there are a lot of people in the world that would think I’m too good for them,” he said, his tone sounding… off.

I rolled my eyes and settled into the seat, crossing my arms over my chest. “Probably. But you wouldn’t be good enough for my sister, hot shit. So reel the ego in a little.”

“If I was interested in your sister like that—and I’m not, all I said was that she’s cute, but there are a ton of cute girls in the world—”

“My sister is the prettiest. Both of them are. Don’t compare them to the rest of the world’s women.”

Ivan snickered. “All right. Jesus. All I’m trying to say is that, if I was interested in one of your sisters—and I’m not, listen to me—you really wouldn’t let me date them?”

This weird feeling I wasn’t about to mull over made my stomach uncomfortable, but I ignored it. “Hell no.”

His snicker made me smile from how insulted he was. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” I emphasized.

“Why?”

“Where do you want me to start?”

There was a pause. “I’m a catch.”

“A catch and release.”

He groaned, and I couldn’t help but look at him out of the corner of my eye. “Plenty of women would want to go out on a date with me. Do you know how many messages I get on Picturegram a week?”

“Teenagers who haven’t grown up yet to realize how dumb they are don’t count, and neither do elderly women with bad eyesight,” I let him know.

Apparently, he was going to ignore my stipulations because he kept going. “I’m rich.”

“So?”

“I’m not ugly.”

“To your eyes.”

Ivan snorted, and if the corner of his mouth tilted up into a partial smile, I was going to ignore it. “I have two gold medals.”

I made a “pfft” noise as I angled my hips and upper body to watch Ivan. “One of those is a team gold, and what’s-his-face has like twenty.”

This man opened his mouth for a moment, on the verge of saying something, and then closed it before shrugging those shoulders he seemed to hold me above half the day. Lean, strong shoulders, so much stronger than anyone ever gave them credit for. I wasn’t exactly light as a feather. I was heavy for my size, but it was all muscle. I was sure I did weigh more than most girls did in a smaller frame, and he always lifted me like it didn’t matter.

His head ticked to the side, and his hands flexed on the steering wheel. And then he smirked, even though he was facing forward. “You’ve got a point,” he conceded, not exactly sounding happy about it. “But how many do you have?”

What happened next, I would never have been able to predict. But it happened.

We both went “OOOOOOOOH” at the bullshit that came out of his mouth like we were in fifth grade and had made a really good “yo mama” joke.

We went “OOOOOOOOH” so deep and into it, totally unexpected, that it lasted maybe three seconds before we both burst out laughing, my head crying no at the movement and my back aching, but I did it anyway.

Was it fucked up of him to point out that I hadn’t won any gold medals even fully aware it really chafed me? Duh. But this was Ivan. What the hell else would I expect?

Plus, it wasn’t like I wouldn’t have said the same exact thing if we were in opposite positions.

But it made me laugh. And it made him laugh.

And I still muttered, “Asshole,” even as I laughed to myself, head pounding and all that mess, but smiling. “Eat shit.”

“Got you,” he chuckled, that mouth of his split wide into a smile so big it was like his face couldn’t handle it.

“Shut up,” I responded, shaking my head. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

He laughed. “That’ll never get old.”

“Fuck off.”

“No thanks.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed again, and then Ivan did too, but I caught him sneaking glances over in my direction twice, a smile pasted on that pale pink mouth. He did it again. Then again.

“What are you looking at?” I asked him, unsure why he kept glancing over and not liking it.

The smile on his face didn’t go anywhere as he replied, “You.”

“Why?” He looked at me every day.

“Because.”

Was there something wrong with my face? “Because what?”

“It’s rare you laugh.”

If there had been any semblance of a smile left on my face, I wiped it clean. “I laugh.”

“I’ve only seen it happen a few times.”

I tried not to huff, but it still happened. He wasn’t the first person to ever tell me that. “I don’t laugh unless I find something funny, but I do. I laugh with my family all the time. I’ve laughed with Karina a million times. I’m just not going to pretend like I think something is funny if someone makes a shitty joke or says something stupid. I’m not fake.” Did I sound crazy defensive or was I imagining it?

Ivan was still smiling as he said, “You’re probably the least fake person I know, Meatball. Jesus. I like your laugh, even if it sounds a little scary.”

I blinked. “Scary?”

“You sound like a psycho when you laugh, all heh, heh, heh, heh.”

My spine went rigid, and it wasn’t because of the fever still in my body. “What am I supposed to sound like? Hehehe?”

He was still grinning. “No. Your heh, heh is just like you, and don’t ever laugh like that again. That’s creepy. I might have nightmares tonight from it. God. You sound like a possessed doll or something laughing from a dark corner, waiting for me to go to sleep.”

I couldn’t help but laugh again, even though my head hurt.

Then he ruined it by glancing over his shoulder and wiping his expression clean. “I’m still pissed off at you by the way. Don’t think I forgot.”

I had forgotten.

I had forgotten I was mad at him and that what he’d done was total bullshit.

But now that he reminded me, I shifted away from him and shut my mouth. And when I set my forehead against the glass, thinking of how much I’d screwed up, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but it happened.

We were sitting beside each other after eating a dinner we’d made after only exchanging three words the whole time.

Dinner. Is. Ready.

He’d woken me up when we’d gotten to his house—the absolute last house I ever would have imagined him living in—and he’d said maybe ten words to me. To top it off, he hadn’t joked around once while saying any of them. Which was fine by me because I wasn’t in the mood either.

Luckily, I’d been too busy taking in the ranch-style home to really care. A rich blue with white shutters, it was nothing like the loft-style or Mediterranean home I thought he would live in, in some glitzy neighborhood with a guard and a community center with a badass waterpark. Nope. As I looked around the property, all I saw was green grass and trees in the distance. Ivan had acreage. So much acreage I couldn’t see another house anywhere or hear any voices in the distance.

“Don’t freak out when I open the door,” he muttered, sounding annoyed or frustrated, or probably both knowing him. And people thought I had a bad attitude.

I didn’t ask him what there would be to be freaked out about as he got out of the van and went around to the sliding door of the passenger seat that was opening on its own. “Come, Russ,” I heard him mutter before he whispered something that sounded like, “Lacey, be good,” as he unclipped the little white dog from the seat belt, and she jumped off the seat and out of the car, running full speed toward the front of the house the second she could.

I got out too, grabbing my bag and damn near moaning at the weight before hefting it to the house, regretting that I didn’t ask Ivan to help me. Not that he would in the mood he was in, but maybe.

I had just kept looking at the house, the three-car garage attached to it and the grass on top of more grass.

It was beautiful.

Not that I’d admit it to him, especially not right then.

“Don’t freak out,” he reminded me once more, a split second before I heard him unlock the door while I had my back to the front deck.

And then all hell broke loose.

What I’d learn about one minute later, was that five animals—three dogs, one pig, and a giant bunny—had come hauling ass out of the house like they’d broke out of jail. Two dogs were tied together, and the other had three legs but ran like hell, but they were there. Swarming me. Wagging tails as they joined up with Russ and little miss priss, Lacey. They were excited as fuck as they went around me, sniffing, sniffing everything and more, like they couldn’t believe I was there.

One small pink pig stomped on my toes, and my heart gave this… this thing that I couldn’t describe.

I didn’t know what the hell happened to the bunny I had seen, but I was too busy taking in all the excited faces and excited tails.

And if anyone would have been surprised that I spent two hours outside playing with five dogs and a piglet, none of them would have been more surprised than me. Because I had felt like total shit not even ten seconds before, but it was like it all went away when they were shoving their faces against my legs and hands.

So hours later, when Ivan had come out of the house and told us all to come in, I hadn’t complained too much, especially not when I noticed he was still in his little shit mood.

Still in his little shit mood, holding up the bunny I’d seen against his chest.

And I definitely didn’t complain that he stayed in his little shit mood as he made his way to a kitchen my mom would have described as rustic.

Ivan had a whiteboard on his fridge with his lunch and dinner plans written on each. So, considering it was Saturday, he’d pulled out a package of chicken breasts and the meal on the fridge said CHICKEN, JASMINE RICE, BEETS, I figured that’s what we were doing. I’d always expected him to have a chef or something, but I was coming to see that I didn’t know him at all.

So I found the jasmine rice in a cupboard after searching through his crap—and eyeing a glass container he had on the counter filled with Hershey Kisses—and then found the right sized pot after he’d continued ignoring me as I looked for it. And we got to cooking. I let him make the beets because I wasn’t sure what to do with them. Plus, I wasn’t that great of a cook to begin with, mostly because I could have lived off baked meat seasoned with just salt and pepper, whatever grain I could make in a rice cooker, and steamed or baked vegetables for the rest of my life if it was up to me.

Just as I was measuring out a cup and a half of rice onto each plate—because Ivan had measurements on his whiteboard of how much of everything he wanted on his plate—his cell rang. He brushed by me to grab it off the counter and instantly answered, “Hello.”

I finished measuring as I heard him keep talking, “Yes, she’s here… Better but she’s still sick…” Obviously I was the “she.” I think. The question was, who the hell was he talking to? “Tomorrow?… It depends on what we’ll have… That’ll work… Okay. Sounds good. We’ll see you tomorrow then… I love you too. Bye.”

I told myself it wasn’t any of my business who he talked to.

But if he left his phone lying around and I could figure out the password, I’d look at it.

Ivan didn’t say anything to me about where we were going or what we were going to do, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to ask, so I kept my mouth shut and stood back as Ivan finished putting the food on the plates and then later as we ate.

I had just finished swallowing the last bite of the lime chicken he had stir-fried in coconut oil when Ivan shoved his plate away and finally turned to me, looking just as pissed off as he had two hours ago. Even his stupid shoulders were rigid and tight.

I gave him a lazy look, expecting the worst.

So, because I was expecting him to give me hell, I wasn’t anticipating what actually came out of his mouth.

“I want you to cancel your accounts again.”

“What?”

He repeated himself. “I want you to cancel your accounts again. Having a few followers isn’t worth you getting things like that in the mail.”

What the hell was happening? “Ivan,” I started to say, confused. “I don’t know if they’re still coming in the mail or not, but the private messages and comments are no—”

“We can delete the team one too. Lee will understand,” he said, each word coming out angrier and angrier.

Well, I wasn’t the kind of person to throw other people under the bus, but… “She knows about them. Or, she has an idea about them. We talked about it months ago.”

Those bright blue eyes could have had lasers in them from how uncomfortable his gaze was making me feel. “What?”

“When I first agreed to be your partner, we talked about it. I didn’t tell her much, I just kind of gave her an idea why I’d cancelled my accounts.”

“Wait a second….”

I ignored him. “She told me to tell her if things started coming up again, but I didn’t. I just stopped reading my mail to begin with.”

He blinked. “You told her. But you didn’t tell me.” Why the hell were his words coming out all stiff and robotic?

“Yeah.” Because I had. “I didn’t think you needed to know.”

Yeah, he was getting all pissed off again. “You thought I didn’t need to know?”

“Yeah. I didn’t. We weren’t exactly talking then. It seemed pointless. Why would you care?” I asked him with a shrug, not about to feel bad for doing what I’d done.

“Why would I care?” he murmured to himself, still trying to kill me with his eyes alone.

“Now, I get it. We’re friends. We’re partners. But chill. It’s fine. I’ve never gotten aggressive messages or threats. It’s always just… the pictures and those videos. I might not even be getting them anymore.”

At some point while I’d been talking, he began to tip his head back to eye the ceiling. He wasn’t looking at me as he said, still sounding like he was made of metal on metal, “Is that why you didn’t want to do the TSN shoot?”

I didn’t want to tell him, but I did. “Yes. That was the other part of it. I wasn’t lying when I told you I didn’t want you to make fun of me either.”

His groan was basically a rumble as he continued to look at the beams across his high ceiling. He sighed. He sighed and he shook his head.

It was my turn to sigh. “Cut it out. It’s all right. I knew what I was doing.”

That had his chin dropping. “Yeah, being a stubborn ass, and it’s not fucking all right.”

I scoffed.

He stared at me.

Okay, maybe he had a point. “Look, I don’t want anyone worrying. Everyone has enough stress in their lives, nobody needs me to add more to it. I can’t… I won’t stop living my life and wearing whatever I want to wear or don’t want to wear because of other people being assholes. I hate that I let it bother me as much as I do and did, to begin with.”

He kept on staring.

“If I need help, I’ll ask.”

The laugh that came out of him was a sharp one. A fake one. One that said he knew I was full of multi-layered shit. “You could need a kidney replacement and not ask anyone you know for one, Jasmine.” He shook his head, a frown crossing his mouth. “You think I don’t know you?”

Well. Shit.

“You are so stubborn. So fucking stubborn it drives me insane. You know how many times I’ve wanted to choke you?” he asked, shaking his head in clear exasperation.

I blinked. “Probably half as many times as I’ve wanted to choke you out too.”

He didn’t take my joke. “What we have, it’s more important than a marriage.”

I rolled my eyes and let the m-word go.

“It is, and you know it is. I need you healthy, and I need you focused.”

Something uneasy burned through my belly. “I get it, Ivan. Without me, you can’t compete. Trust me, I get it. I know it. I’m not planning on screwing you over. I didn’t mean to get sick and screw up starting our choreography. You know I’m sorry.”

The look he gave me….

“You’re my friend, Jasmine. Not just my fucking partner. Don’t give me that bullshit.”

I reeled back at his tone and watched his face get furious.

“I want you to be safe because you matter to me. You think I bring my partners to my house? You think I let them into my life? You think I spend time with their families? I don’t, and I never have. I learned my lesson when I was a teenager and my partner tried to blackmail my family by saying they paid for us to win our junior events. That’s why I do contracts now, to keep it professional. I don’t ever want to be as unhappy as I was after my first partner did those things to my family and me. But you….”

Well… I hadn’t known, had I?

And if I suddenly wanted to open two cans of whoop-ass on his bitch of a juniors partner, I would think about it later.

“You. Matter. To. Me. You. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you because of me,” he kept going, his voice rising. “I’ve known you since you were a little kid, helping my sister off the ice when she fell. You didn’t treat her different because of her last name like everyone else did. You didn’t ask her about me. You and Karina just picked each other. I know the things you did for her, she told me. She told all of us about Jasmine Santos who isn’t scared of anybody. About Jasmine who doesn’t like unicorns because she likes Pegasus, because they can fly.

“I wanted you to be my partner for years, dumbass. When Karina had told me you were thinking about switching to pairs, I had thought you would say something to me, even in passing as a joke. I thought you would say you were going to kick my ass, and I had planned on talking to you over it. But you never did. The next thing I knew, you had a partner. Some dipshit that wasn’t half as good as you.”

Was I on imaginary drugs again?

“Do you remember that? Do you remember that I didn’t talk to you for six months after that?” he asked me, his entire focus on me.

And I nodded because I did. I remembered how he’d come back at me with a vengeance out of the blue, talking so much shit over those next two years, I wasn’t sure how my ears didn’t bleed and how I managed not to key his car.

“You’ve been in my life for thirteen years. How could you not think I don’t care about you? We fuck around with each other because we both like it. Because there’s nobody else we can fuck around with that can handle it.”

I mean… he was right. He drove me crazy, he always had, but he was the only one I could talk to on that level. He had annoyed the shit out of me for years.

But…

But…

My mouth gaped open, and I was silent.

I—

He—

Well—

His hand went to take mine from where it was laying limply on the table because… I was shocked. Surprised. Totally and completely caught off fucking guard. “I don’t want anything to happen to your stubborn, mouthy, mean ass. My partner or not my partner. Do we have that clear?”

What. The. Fuck?

“But I’m not letting you get away with this crap. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy. But I’m not putting up with your secretive shit, or your bullshit, so you need to get used to it. You could have told me about your mom’s accident. About the letters and the comments. You could have told me you weren’t feeling well, Jasmine. But this ends now. This is the way it’s going to be. Okay?”

Safe. Happy. Not putting up with my shit.

I didn’t say a word, but he must have taken it as an agreement because he let go of my hand and sat up straight, ending the conversation with a look I wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Now that that’s over with, I’m going to take the dogs for a walk. Want to come? If you get too tired on the way, we can drag you back.”