From Lukov with Love

I’D FORGOTTEN how much it hurt to get dropped.

“Are you all right?” came Coach Lee’s voice from… somewhere.

I had my eyes closed as I lay there, thankful for the fact that someone had decided at some point in history that the world needed cushioned mats. Because if it weren’t for cushioned mats—even if they were only an inch thick—I probably would have broken three times as many bones as I had in my life.

But still.

Fuck.

I tried to take a breath, but from the sting of it, my lungs were still in shock from Ivan’s hands slipping—or whatever the fuck had happened—resulting in me falling from close to eight or nine feet in the air and landing right on my goddamn back.

Fuck.

“I’m fine,” I half whispered, half wheezed out, trying to take another inhale but only being able to take a baby-sized one that wasn’t anywhere near enough.

Gulping, I tried to take another breath and only managed half of one before my spine went “Not yet, sucker.” Dragging my bare heels across the mats, I planted my feet on the floor and attempted to take another breath, a little more successful that time. The good thing was: my ribs weren’t broken. The other good thing was: at least he’d dropped me on here and not the ice, which felt like the equivalent of cement when you hit it.

I swallowed again, took another breath, and when that went well, I reminded myself this was nothing. Not really, at least.

I opened my eyes and immediately spotted the big hand that had held me high above the floor—the big hand that had wobbled and dropped me—extended in my direction.

For a second, I thought about taking the hand offering me help, but then remembered the other time he’d done the same thing. I shook my head and rolled up onto my butt on my own. “I’m fine,” I muttered, only wincing with my entire face as I did it.

“You need a minute?” Coach Lee asked from her spot off the mats as I shifted onto my knees and slowly climbed up onto my feet, taking a couple more breaths that only slightly made my back ache. I was going to feel it tomorrow for sure.

“I’m fine. Let’s do it again.” I waved her off as I tipped my head back and took another breath to catch the one the fall had taken from me. When my breathing was back under control and I was ready to go, I turned to face my brand-new partner of all of four hours.

Four hours.

We’d spent that morning doing basics, and I meant the most basic of basics. I hadn’t slept well the night before, mostly because of the anticipation of what was coming the next morning—our first practice—but when I woke up, I’d been ready.

When we’d met up beside the rink at four in the morning, I’d already had a black L on the top of my left hand and a red R on my right hand; I’d warmed up on my own and so had he. Coach Lee had started us off skating laps side by side… for hours. All to find our rhythm together. His legs were longer than mine, but we both listened to Coach Lee’s corrections, kept our mouths shut, and it had worked out. I didn’t even think we looked at each other’s faces, we were so busy focusing on our feet… and only a couple of times did I have to glance at my hands.

And when she’d told us to hold hands and do it all over again, we did it. Then we just did it over and over again, holding hands and not holding hands until we got it right. Baby steps, but they were important. These were all things we should have figured out if we’d done a tryout.

So when we got to the rink that afternoon after I’d gone to work—and explained to my boss that I was going to have to work less hours from here on out—Coach Lee had told us we’d start off working on lifts on the mats, I’d been pretty pumped to move forward a little more.

At least until his hold got weird as he had me in a carry lift—his hands on the spot between my lower stomach and right above my groin, his arms locked straight above his six-foot-two head, while I had my legs together and extended, back arched and head held high. I’d done it a thousand times before with my ex-partner.

But just like I’d forgotten how much it hurt to fall, I forgot how every lifting partner had a different way they liked to hold. Or so I’d been told. I had only had one partner in my short and shit pairs career.

Maybe I weighed more than Ivan’s last partner.

“Let me see where you’re putting your hands, Ivan,” Coach Lee called out. “Then push up as slow as you can do it, so I can see Jasmine’s movement too.”

Nodding, I made myself look up at Ivan after I got into position directly in front of him. In his fitted and tapered gray sweatpants and a T-shirt so white it might have been brand new, his hair was combed and parted in that perfect way it always was, he looked more like he was about to do a modeling shoot for sweatpants than to actually work out.

With his chin to his throat, he looked down at me with those almost clear gray-blue eyes and nodded at me like “let’s do it.” We hadn’t said anything to each other so far. We hadn’t even mouthed anything either.

Yet.

I dropped my chin to my throat too, to tell him “let’s do it.” So we did. His hands went into position in a place that I hadn’t let very many guys touch me, and we went into it.

I knew the second he had me at about his head level that something was wrong, and I needed to figure out what it was.

“What is it?” Coach Lee asked, like she read my mind.

“His palm is weird,” I told her immediately, trying not to squirm too much before I ended up on the floor again.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Ivan claimed from under me, sounding just as insulted as I figured he would.

I rolled my eyes. I had promised I wouldn’t talk shit, that didn’t mean I couldn’t roll my eyes, especially not when he couldn’t see me.

“I don’t know what it is. I think his hands are bigger—” I started to tell Coach Lee before the man under me made a snickering sound that had me rolling my eyes again. “It feels strange.” The lift went as high as it could possibly go, and I was in the same position I’d been in when he’d let me fall. I sucked in my stomach and grit my teeth, tensing my biceps as I tried to move the weight around a little on my palms and fingers. I could do this.

“I know what I’m doing,” came the idiot under me.

“I’ll get used to it,” I told Coach Lee, pretending like I didn’t hear Ivan.

“Put her down and do it again,” the other woman said.

And Ivan did, lowering me to the ground a lot faster and not as carefully as he could have. Fucker. I glared up at him, but he was too busy looking at Coach Lee to notice.

We did it again.

Again and again and again.

That was all we did for the next three hours, the entrance into the lift one time after another and after another, until it stopped feeling so different… and my arms—and Ivan’s—were shaking with exhaustion. My shoulders were sore, and I couldn’t imagine what his had to feel like. But neither one of us complained or asked for a break.

By the time four o’clock rolled around, ab muscles I’d forgotten I had were exhausted, and I was 90 percent sure I’d have a giant bruise on my stomach the next day.

“One more time and we’ll call it a day,” Coach said from the spot she’d taken sitting cross-legged on the mat a few feet away from the circle of space Ivan and I had been working in. We hadn’t even gotten to the point where he was walking with me over his head yet; we were still just doing the same lift.

I didn’t look up as I took a step back before leaning forward at the same time Ivan’s hands went into position. And he raised me, a little more swiftly even though I knew he had to be tired, a little easier and consistent. It lasted all of twenty seconds before I was back on my feet, biting back a grimace at the ache coming from my abs. I was going to need to apply the arnica ointment in my bag the second after I showered so I wouldn’t be dying tomorrow.

“Ice your stomach tonight, Jasmine. We can’t afford you being in pain,” Coach Lee called out almost immediately after I landed on both feet. I looked at her and gave a nod. “Good work today.”

Was it? Part of me thought it would have gone better, or at least faster, but it wasn’t like I had anything or anyone else to compare to. I wasn’t going to let myself get overwhelmed. One step at a time. I knew that. One small step at a time, to build another step and another until we had an entire staircase.

“Rest, ice what you need to ice, and I’ll see you both tomorrow,” the other woman called out. I already knew from experience that she had her younger figure skaters she usually focused on once Ivan’s season was done. I watched her as she turned around and then was gone.

Okay.

I didn’t want to stand around talking either.

Raising my eyebrows to myself, I headed toward where I’d kicked off my shoes and socks. The silence in the huge room was weird; it was one of a couple of different practice spaces set up at the LC that any skater was free to use. Bending at the waist, I grabbed both socks and slipped each one on, noticing I had a chip in my hot pink nail polish on my big toe. Maybe tonight I could redo them if bending over didn’t make me tear up. The color never lasted longer than a couple of days at a time, and they especially wouldn’t with this new training schedule, but I liked having them painted. I liked getting pedicures more than doing them myself, but that wasn’t going to be happening again.

At least not for a year.

I’d just straightened to slip my feet into my shoes when I heard a deep sigh from behind.

I pretended like I didn’t hear him.

But I couldn’t pretend not to hear him when he said in that voice that was somewhere between deep and baritone, “We need to work on your trusting me if you want me to help you find another partner when this is over next year.”

And… I paused with my hands filled with shoelaces and glanced over my shoulder to find Ivan standing where he’d been the last time I’d seen him: barefoot on the middle of the mats; except this time, his hands were on his hips and his attention was focused on me. “What?” I asked, frowning.

The muscle along Ivan’s jawbone twitched. “We. Need. To. Work. On. You. Trusting. Me. If. You. Want. Me. To. Help. You. Find. Another. Partner,” the smart-ass repeated himself.

I blinked, and then if my eye started twitching, it wasn’t intentional. Lee was gone, wasn’t she? We had only talked about watching our words during practice. Right? “I. Know. How. To. Listen. The. First. Time,” I replied, taking my time just like he had. “I. Want. To. Know. What. You. Mean. By. That.”

“I. Mean. You. Need. To. Trust. Me. Or. This. Will. Never. Work.”

This son of a bitch. Calm down, Jasmine. Talk to him normally. Be the better person.

But I couldn’t. “Are you threatening me?”

It was his turn to blink. His turn for his eyebrows to go up. His turn to shrug a shoulder.

“It’s been a day and you’re already threatening not to help me?” I asked him, taking my time with each word.

“All I’m saying is that this isn’t going to go well unless you trust me, and even you know that,” he said.

My eye was twitching, and I swear to God my fingers ached with the need to pull on someone’s hair. “You dropped me.”

“Once, and it’s not going to be the last time. You know that,” was his excuse.

I blinked at him. I did know that. I didn’t expect anything different.

But…

It was still him that had let me fall.

Ivan blinked. “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Yeah, I didn’t exactly believe him, and he must have expected that because he shook his head, those slim nostrils on that perfectly straight nose flared, and he repeated himself. “I didn’t.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m not going to risk hurting you,” he tried to say before his cheek went tight. “Not while you’re my partner.”

“That’s real reassuring.”

His cheek twitched.

“I trust you enough,” I said, liar, liar, liar tickling at the base of my throat. “I’m just not used to the way you hold, that’s all.” And it was hard to trust someone I’d called a shitface for years, but….

The tip of his tongue went to the inside of his cheek, and those ice blue eyes narrowed on me. Did everything about him have to be immaculate all the damn time? “You’re the worst liar, you know that?” he asked.

“You’re a shitty liar,” I said before I could stop myself.

He shook his head, and I noticed not a single one of his pitch-black hairs moved. “You said you would do whatever needed to be done so we could win, didn’t you?”

I nodded slowly.

He raised an eyebrow. “So, I’m telling you what’s wrong, and you need to fix it.”

Oh my God. “It’s been one day, and I told you what’s wrong. Your hand placement is weird.”

“My hand placement isn’t weird.”

“It is,” I repeated myself.

He blinked. “No one else has ever complained.”

I blinked back. “No one else has probably had the balls to complain,” I told him. “I’ll get used to it. I’m sure you’re doing it right—”

“I am. Want to go look at the trophies in the case on the way out?” the ass asked.

I blew out a breath and gave my wrist a shake… because it was a little achy, not because I wanted to punch him already. Nope. “Do you admire them on the way in and out every day? Polish them up every Sunday? Give them a little kiss?”

Ivan’s mouth opened and then closed.

I smiled. “I’ll get used to it.”

He blinked. “It’s not you getting used to it that’s the problem. You don’t trust me. I can feel it.”

“I trust you not to drop me on purpose,” I said slowly, not liking where this was going. “I think you’d want to figure this out as soon as possible. You wouldn’t want to waste time.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” he said slowly, instantly drawing a line up my spine.

“Look, Satan, how do you expect me to trust you in like the six hours we’ve been practicing?” I snapped before I could stop.

That drew that freaky, joyous smile I’d only seen on his face when we were bickering. “I knew it.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I know you’re not going to drop me on purpose, but what do you want me to do? We don’t like each other. I’m constantly expecting you to not watch out for me, no matter what I tell myself.”

He raised an eyebrow, and I didn’t miss how he didn’t argue the fact we didn’t like each other. Ass. “You need to. Lee thinks we can do this in a year, and I know I can do it in a year—”

I rolled my eyes because I was pretty sure he thought he could do or master anything in that time.

Okay, maybe I thought the same thing about myself, but it was different. I wasn’t a prick for no reason and only to one person.

“—but we need to get over this, and we need to do it soon. You’re hesitating because you don’t trust me because of that idiot before me, so what do you want from me? Or what do you need from me so we can get there?”

That time, it was my turn to blink, because who the fuck was this person? What do you need from me? What the fuck? And why was he bringing up Paul?

Him catching me off guard must have been on my face because he sighed. “I don’t have all day.”

Oh God. “Neither do I.” I didn’t say “shit face,” but I thought it. “Look, I don’t know. I told you, my head knows you won’t drop me on purpose, but the rest of me doesn’t trust it. A week ago, I wouldn’t have trusted you to catch me doing a trust fall. I don’t know how to fix that.”

Ivan blinked. “You aren’t my first new partner, and this is only for a year, so let’s figure it out. You want my word?”

“Notice how you didn’t say you would’ve caught me doing a trust fall.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

I fucking knew it.

“That was then, this is now, Meatball. You want my word I won’t purposely let you get hurt?”

I almost laughed. “Your word? You remember all the other words you’ve told me over the years?”

That jaw of his went hard, making his perfectly sculpted face look tight.

“That’s what I thought.”

“What do you want me to do? Lee’s going to ask what I did to fix this, and I want to tell her I did everything I needed to. Tell me.”

Tell him?

I slid a look to the side before sliding it back to him. “Tell me something embarrassing.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”

I would have smiled if this was someone other than him. “Uh-huh. Who’s the one with the trust issues now, jackass?” I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it. Everything will be fine. I need this more than you do. I’ll figure it out, and everything will be fine.”

It had to.

“Fine.”

I glanced back down and finished tying my shoelace before getting to my feet. God, I really was going to need to ice myself tonight. Maybe even do a whole ice bath. Fuck. I didn’t miss those.

Rolling back my shoulders, which I hadn’t realized were so tight, I glanced at Ivan, who had moved at some point and was busy sliding his feet into what looked like slipper boots.

Whatever. I wanted to get home.

I took a step toward the door and hesitated. We were partners now. For a year. I could be better. I would be. So, I glanced over my shoulder and called out, “See ya.”

I didn’t even add a name to the end of it. That had to mean something.

I waited all of maybe two seconds before I realized he wasn’t going to respond—ass—and headed toward the door, telling myself that it didn’t matter he didn’t say anything. What the hell else was I expecting? Him to actually be friendly? I knew what this was and what this wasn’t.

He’d said it already. One year. That was all we were going to have together.

And he wanted it bad enough to talk to me about what was wrong so we could fix it.

At least I could trust him enough to know I could always rely on him to make the best business decision.

Did I trust him? Hell no. At least not enough. But for what mattered, yes.

Pulling up the waistband of my leggings, which had gotten stretched out from practice, I rolled my shoulders, sucked in my stomach to see if it was really as sore as I thought it was—and it was—and decided I might as well drop by the convenience store and pick up two bags of ice. Ice baths were pretty much torture, and there were very few things I hated more than them, but… I was going to hate being in pain even more. I just needed to woman up and handle it.

But still, my bones already hurt just thinking about it.

With a shiver racing up my spine that made me feel like a little bitch, I made my way down the hall as quickly as I could. The faster I got home, the better. I could still squeeze in movie night with my mom and Ben.

No one had really batted too many eyelashes at us this morning when we’d skated together, but I figured it was only because everyone in the mornings was too focused on themselves to care. It was the other people, the ones in the afternoon, that would talk.

And if I hadn’t already told my mom about the situation, she would have definitely found out somehow.

I wasn’t going to tell my brothers or sisters in advance, mostly because I liked it when they all lost their shit over things and threw tantrums. It made me laugh. And it made me happy that they cared.

Continuing to roll my shoulders back in place as I walked, I turned down another hall and stopped. Because down the hall by the doors was one figure I knew too well and another that was familiar but not as much. It was Galina and the girl she had replaced me with, and from her body language, I could tell Galina was aggravated. I’d done it enough to her over the years to know exactly what it looked like.

And from the way the girl was rubbing at her cheeks, I could tell she was crying.

She had never made me cry, but I could see how she’d do it to other people who didn’t understand.

Continuing down the hall, wishing I’d brought my bag with me so I could find my headphones and put them on and pretend I couldn’t hear them, I could see and hear Galina talking to the younger girl in a hushed voice that only let me catch onto bits and pieces of her Russian accent. Something about expectations, goals, and not giving up.

I’d probably gotten halfway down the hall when both of them turned around to look at me.

“Yozik,” my former coach greeted me with a tight nod.

“Galina,” I said back to her before flicking my gaze over to the other girl and giving her a nod that probably resembled the older woman’s exactly. “Latasha.”

“Hello,” the younger girl greeted me, looking like she was holding her breath as she ducked her head. Maybe so I couldn’t see her eyes and know she was upset at getting scolded for whatever.

She couldn’t know I didn’t care, and I wasn’t going to tell her.

“Congratulations on the new partner,” Galina said. “I’m happy for you. It was only matter of time, I always knew.”

And that had me almost stumbling.

She was happy and she always knew? What did she always know?

“Your triple Lutzes will look beautiful together,” she kept going, and I could only look at her like I didn’t know her at all.

Where the fuck were all these compliments coming from and why?

“How many times you work on them?” Galina asked, her question pointless because she damn well knew how much I had worked on them. She’d been there. I had told her about all the times my mom had helped me film them so I could see what they looked like.

But I didn’t need to ask why she was asking me this. We’d been together too long for me not to know how her brain worked and what the purpose was. It was to make some kind of point to the younger girl.

“Five thousand times?” I told her with a shrug, because I could only guess. Numbers weren’t my strong point, and I’d lost count after a while.

“Did you cry doing it?”

Now she knew I damn well never cried, and as much as I didn’t want to upset this girl more than she already was by bringing that up, I wasn’t going to lie either. So all I did was shake my head, because actually saying the words felt too brutal. I changed the subject before Galina could keep asking me things that would only make the other girl upset. “Lina, can I ask you something in private?”

The older woman cocked her head to the side, like she was thinking about it, and gave me another of her decisive nods.

When I walked a little further down the hall, she followed after me and stopped at the same time I did. I jumped right into it. “What did Nancy Lee ask you about me?”

Her expression didn’t change, like she wasn’t surprised I was asking her. And she shouldn’t be. She knew I’d never had a problem asking questions. “If I thought you were done. That’s what she asked.”

I blinked.

“If you listened. If you worked hard. If I would coach you again,” she kept going, that hard-as-steel face focused on mine. “I say yes. I said you were meant to have a partner. You have the shoulders. The arms. It was me that didn’t follow you. I said to her you were the best I ever taught—”

I blinked.

“—you only live in that head too much, yozik. You know this. You care too much. You know this too. I tell her all this too. Nobody deserves a chance like Jasmine, I say.” Her gaze was intent on mine as she finished. “I also tell her you and Ivan will kill each other if you talk too much.”

She….

“You are welcome. You will not make me regret this, yes?”

She….

I swallowed. And before I could get another word out, Galina slapped me on the back of the head like she had a thousand times before and said, “I have things to do. We talk later.”