From Lukov with Love

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.