“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” Chris muttered and stomped toward the waiting journalists.
Sergei stared at me, unable to speak. Under my breath, I said, “He saw the note you wrote in the book. I had to tell him.”
He passed his hand over his mouth. “The media’s waiting. We’ll talk later.”
After answering every reporter’s questions, we checked the standings for the short program and saw our names in third place, once again behind the Canadians and the Russians, Oksana and Denis. Those two teams were the glass ceiling we couldn’t break through.
Chris avoided me on the bus to the hotel and made a beeline for his parents in the lobby. He’d gone from asking me a million questions to snubbing me. My own parents greeted me with hugs and their thoughts on the event.
“Is Chris feeling okay?” Mom asked. “He seemed out of it.”
I paused, deciding not to get into the whole story. “We just have something we need to work through.”
My hesitation was all Mom needed to figure it out. “He knows, doesn’t he?” When I didn’t immediately answer, she huffed, “Well, you had to know he wouldn’t be happy. It must’ve been a shock, as I know all too well.”
“Mom, please don’t start.”
My plea went on deaf ears. “You’d better talk to him and get this squared away before tomorrow night.”
I looked over at Chris and moaned, “I don’t think he wants to talk to me.”
Dad slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Why don’t we let Em get some rest? It’s been a long day.”
Aubrey was already asleep in our room, not surprising since she needed to be at practice early the next morning. After I showered and put on my pajamas, I crawled under the blankets, switched on my bedside lamp, and picked up Sergei’s book. Beside the lyrics to the first song, “Next To You,” was a long note. Scratching my head, I thought, How did Chris not see this? He must’ve started flipping from the back.
Sergei’s note read– I had to laugh when I started reading the book and this was the first song because all I’d been thinking about for months was how I wanted to be next to you. And here it was reminding me again.
I smiled and ran my fingers across Sergei’s words. The little notes were a treasure since I couldn’t spend time alone with him in Vancouver. I read a few more songs, but before long, my eyelids became heavy. With the book in my lap, I drifted off to sleep.
Startled awake by loud knocking, I peeked at the clock. I’d been asleep less than an hour.
Aubrey groaned and mumbled into her pillow, “Who is that?”
Since she didn’t make a move to answer the door, I had to get up. Through the peephole, a frowning Chris stared back at me. I rubbed my eyes and opened the door.
Chris didn’t wait for an invitation as he marched past me. “We need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Judging from Chris’s disheveled hair and wrinkled T-shirt, he’d attempted to sleep. Aubrey raised her tousled blond head from her pillow to address him.
“Some of us have to wake up at five in the morning.”
“Sorry, I just need Em for a few minutes,” he said.
“Can we talk tomorrow before practice?” I asked.
“No, I really want to do this now.”
Aubrey grumbled and pulled the blanket over her head.
“Let’s go in the hallway,” Chris suggested.
“I’m not going to talk about this in the hallway where anyone can hear.”
He quickly surveyed the room. “Then let’s go in the bathroom.”
“The bathroom ?” I gave him a you-can’t-be-serious look.
“Come on.” He tugged on my hand.
Chris sat in the middle of the floor, so I slumped against the door, the hard tile meeting my bottom. The fruity scent of my shower gel lingered in the air.
Chris drummed his fingers on the edge of the bathtub. “I feel like I should’ve known something was going on. That whole scene at Four Continents, when Sergei got so mad at you, was that all for show? To throw me off?”
I let out a dry laugh. “No, it was very real.”
“It must’ve been pretty awkward, having your boyfriend talk to you like that.”
My hair draped around my face as I bent my head. “It wasn’t fun, but we got through it.”
“You should’ve told me about this from the beginning. If we don’t have trust, we don’t have anything.”
I bent forward and connected with his eyes. “You can still trust me. I thought I was doing what was best for us by waiting to tell you.”
“When we teamed up, you said you had the same goal as me–to be the first American pair to win Olympic gold.” He shifted and stretched out one of his long legs. “But you don’t seem too serious about that if you’re willing to do something this risky.”
I blinked and jerked backward. “How can you say that? You see me busting my butt every day. My goals haven’t changed.”
“Don’t you realize the problems this could cause for us? If the federation finds out you’re dating Sergei, they could come down hard on him. Isn’t he violating some ethical code?”
“There’s nothing in the rulebook that says coaches and students of legal age can’t date.”
“Well, even if it’s not in the rulebook, they wouldn’t like it. They’re always preaching to us about having the right image. You think they’re going to want one of their top skaters involved with her coach? This isn’t Russia, where anything goes.”
I was starting to wish we were in Russia or any European country, for that matter. Skaters there didn’t seem to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny we were. It wasn’t fair that they could have publicized affairs with no consequences, while I couldn’t openly have a perfectly innocent relationship with Sergei.
“We’re being very discreet,” I said.
A long pause followed while Chris studied me. “You must really have it bad for him.”
My face warmed, and I picked at a loose thread on my pajama pants. “We’re serious about each other. We wouldn’t be together if we weren’t.”
“You know I lost my last partner when she quit skating to follow her boyfriend to college. I don’t wanna lose another one because of a guy.”
“I already told you I’m not going anywhere. No matter what happens.”
He continued to stare as if I were an abstract piece of art he didn’t understand. “How do you deal with Sergei ordering you around at the rink? No way could I coach Marley.”
I shrugged. “I guess since he was my coach first, it seems natural.”
“I have to tell Marley about this. I can’t keep something this big from her.”
I was hesitant to let someone else in on my secret, but I didn’t want to start another argument. “Make sure she knows it can’t go any further.”
He shook his head. “ Em , I still think this is such a bad idea. When you mix work with a relationship, there are so many things that can go wrong.”
“I’m going to need you to trust me when I say we have it all under control.”
“Your judgment isn’t something I can trust right now.” He braced himself against the bathtub and rose to his feet.
I stood up next to him. “I hate this tension between us. We’re the pair that never fights, remember?” I tapped his chest and gave him a hopeful smile.
He didn’t react to my attempt at levity. “Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.” He opened the bathroom door. “I’m sorry I wasn’t on top of my game tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be ready . . . as long as you don’t hit me with any more surprises.”
He left before I could make another plea for his understanding. I climbed into bed and let exhaustion take me away to pleasant dreams, where I didn’t have to feel guilty for being in love.
****
The moment we’d worked toward all year had arrived. Chris and I stood before Sergei, our hands clasped together. The building rumbled with applause for Hyatt and Wakefield’s high scores, and Sergei spoke above the noise.
“Take this energy and use it. This is your time.”
The crowd became silent as Chris and I knelt on the ice. In the stillness, my pounding heart echoed in my ears. The music began, and Chris gave me one of his customary little nods. Relief spread through me. A sense of normalcy was exactly what I needed. I envisioned us on our home ice, where we’d performed clean programs time and again.
With that mindset, I executed my jumps with precision, matching Chris step for step, and he maintained eye contact with me throughout the lyrical choreography as opposed to the prior night. I fed off the confidence in his gaze, ticking off each element in my mind.
Heading into the final thirty seconds, every muscle in my legs began to burn, and I had to suck in longer breaths. My skates skimmed across the ice instead of carving deep edges. As we skated past Sergei, he leaned over the boards and clapped his hands. “Push! Push!”
I bent my knees and pressed my blades deeper into the ice. These are the last seconds of your season. Make them count. Each stroke heightened the pain in my legs, but I powered forward through our final lift and spin.
Chris pulled me close to him, and I broke into a wide grin as we spun into our ending pose. I threw my arms around him, and he held me so tight I gasped.
“I can’t breathe,” I choked out with a laugh.
He released me and pointed toward the audience for our bows. He still hadn’t cracked a smile; his face stayed motionless as if he was stunned at our perfect performance.
Chris remained silent in the Kiss & Cry, while Sergei and I dissected the minute details of the program. Our scores appeared, and I thought they were good enough for the bronze medal, but I couldn’t be sure until I saw the placements. A long string of three’s followed on the monitor, and the announcer confirmed, “They are in third place.”
I shook Chris’s shoulders. “We got a medal!”
He finally smiled before giving me a warm hug. In his embrace, I felt shared happiness, relief, and pride. All the hours of practice, all the bruises, all the aches and pains–it was all worth it in that moment.
Chris and I stood to give the crowd an appreciative wave. Sergei’s strong hand touched the small of my back, and he whispered in my ear, “You inspire me.”
My knees threatened to give way. I avoided looking into Sergei’s eyes because I wouldn’t be able to resist kissing him. Instead, I put my focus on the scoreboard and let the final standings sink in.
1. Leonova /Romanov
2. Hyatt/Wakefield
3. Chris and me!
We were right where we needed to be in our quest for the ultimate prize.
Sergei moved to hug Chris, but his gesture was met with a stiff response, a subtle reminder that even in our moment of triumph, problems still remained.
****
A couple of hours later, Sergei and I stood with my parents at the front of the hotel restaurant, and I poked my head into the lobby in search of Chris and his parents. Our celebratory dinner couldn’t begin without them.
Mom brushed the sleeves of her wool blazer. “Sergei, this is quite an item to add to your resume’. There aren’t many coaches your age with these kinds of results.”
“I have some pretty talented students to thank for that.” He beamed a smile of pride in my direction.
Mom slid closer to him and arched her neck to look up at him. “Don’t think because Emily won a medal, you’re off the hook with me. I’m still keeping an eye on you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can’t we enjoy the occasion? If you don’t act normal, Chris’s parents are going to wonder what’s up.”
I watched Mom throughout dinner, afraid the wine she was drinking would loosen her lips. My shoulders finally relaxed when Chris’s parents declined dessert to retire to their room. Dad used Mom’s drowsiness from the wine to convince her to leave soon thereafter. Sergei, Chris and I sat in silence at the table. Chris stared at the tablecloth and fiddled with an empty packet of Sweet & Low.