Balance (Off Balance 1)

Looking for Kova, my heart stammered in my chest when my gaze landed on his finely chiseled body. I chewed the inside of my mouth, taking in every inch of him when our eyes finally locked. He stood waiting for me on the floor, hands propped on his hips and shoulders tight.

“I am not getting any younger, get moving,” he clapped annoyingly.

I exhaled a sigh of relief. He was back to his normal Russian dick self. Maybe my anxiety was over nothing after all.

“Warm up. Sashays, handstand walks, front handspring passes, standing tucks across the floor. You know the drill. I should not have to remind you.” He was right—he didn’t have to remind me—so I wasn’t sure why he was. Maybe if he gave me more than thirty seconds to be back in the gym, he’d see I was capable of doing it on my own like I’d done every other time.

“Then move on and do another pass of two back handsprings, ending in a full. Ten sets each.” He added, then stormed off.

My jaw dropped. Ten sets? We normally did three to five sets. Now he wanted one hundred—with fulls? After I just ran two miles, he was trying to kill me.

I shook my head and started up. The first thirty minutes I was good, then as I started my standing tucks across the floor, the ache was back in my lower leg, but so very light I worked through it. It wasn’t until I progressed and began the double back handspring fulls that the pain blindsided me.

With both feet landing hard on the floor, I rebounded with a searing agony. Somehow I knew if I didn’t land easy it would end badly. So I tightened my body on the way down and landed as gently as I could on my toes to break the impact. I squatted to the floor and clutched my calf in distress, the air knocked from my lungs. I quickly massaged the muscle, kneading the ache, hoping to alleviate some of the burn, but it only aggravated it more. My stomach rolled in knots as I limped back so I could continue my warm up.

It was a stupid idea. The same thing happened after I did another tumbling pass, only this time I fell to the floor clutching my leg and gave out a little yelp.

Madeline rushed over. “What’s wrong? What hurts?”

I flattened my lips and looked away. “It’s nothing. I just landed wrong.”

“It’s not nothing when you look like you’re about to cry.”

I gritted my teeth and sucked it up. “I’m okay.”

“Kova!” Madeline yelled across the gym, waving him over. “Take a look.”

Kova jogged over, mumbling in Russian. He bent down to get a better look. “Let me see.”

I pulled away and he tensed. His eyes darkened and nose flared, perturbed by my blasé attitude. “You seem to forget your place here. Give me your leg.”

“There’s nothing wrong, I just landed wrong.” I pressed.

With two hands, Coach Kova ignored me and began feeling around my ankle, twisting and turning, asking if it hurt. Then he grabbed the back of my ankle and pinched. I gasped in response, acting in reflex and yanked my ankle from his grip. He snapped his eyes to mine, and I panicked, falling back to my elbows because I knew what my reflex meant.

He knew I was lying. “Let us go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Therapy room. I need a better look.”

Tears sprung to my eyes at the realization I could have a serious injury. My heart pounded as I stared at the ceiling. I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible so I could get back to business. Every minute counted in my world, which meant I didn’t have a second to spare.

Kova squatted down and scooped me up. This was the first time we’d touched since we’d had sex and I wondered if he realized it. He cradled me to his solid chest the way you would a baby. I wrapped an arm around his shoulder for support and dropped my head to his chest. He smelled really good and I tried to focus on his cologne over the pain. I was too distraught to make eye contact with anyone, so I kept my head down. His warmth calmed my emotions and brought me ease. An injury in gymnastics could go either of two ways: minor or catastrophic.

I didn’t think mine was catastrophic, but I wasn’t a doctor either. I knew there was no way in hell I could take a long period off to rest. I’d come too far since starting here for that to happen.

Kova carried me to the therapy room and set me on one of the exam tables with a deep blue, plastic cushion. As I went to scoot back, he stood in front of me and gripped my hips, shifting me gently. I had a hurt calf, I wasn’t crippled for Christ’s sake.

“Lie back.” He stood on the side of the tab

le, arms crossed in front of his chest grimly. “How long has your leg been bothering you?”

I bit my lip, deciding whether I should lie or not.

“And do not lie to me, Adrianna, because I will find out either way.”

Shit. Kova lifted my leg. My knee bent as he propped it on the table. He began to examine me with his index finger and thumb. “A few months, I think. I can’t remember exactly when it started, just have a roundabout idea.”