“Are things not going well?”
Robbie shook his head and smiled. “No, they actually are going well, and that’s what makes me nervous. They’re going really well, but we’re graduating in a few months. She’s going to Stanford after that for her PhD. We’ll be far away from each other.”
Was Robbie reading Bash’s thoughts?
“I like her,” Robbie continued, adjusting his helmet. “I might even…I don’t know…love her.”
Bash raised his eyebrows, surprised. Robbie had never been the romantic type.
“Are you serious?” he said.
Robbie laughed, embarrassed. “Yes.”
“I’m glad you’ve found someone who can tolerate you.”
Robbie gave him a shove. “C’mon, man. I really like her. I want to make something work, but I don’t know how. What am I supposed to do, move there with her?”
“Have you talked to her about it?” Sensible advice that Bash knew he should think about himself.
“No.”
“Well, then. Maybe you should.”
“What about you and Adonis?”
Bash almost tripped on the ice. “I thought we were talking about you and your problems.”
“You solved them, thank you for that, by the way, and now it’s time to talk about you.”
“I don’t want to talk about me,” Bash said.
“Well, let’s talk about you and Adonis.”
“That’s still talking about me.”
“But not exclusively. Are you going to date?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Do you want to?”
Bash didn’t answer and used a tricky pass of the puck as an excuse.
“You didn’t answer,” Robbie said helpfully.
“I didn’t want to. You’re so American,” Bash said. “Why does a physical relationship need to become romantic?” It was a pathetic defense, and he knew it. The problem was that he wanted the relationship to become romantic, and he feared that everyone saw it as much as he did.
Robbie skidded to a stop by Bash. “If you like him, say something. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
Chapter 20
Adonis
The Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics would be held in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, spanning several weeks in February. There would be 116 medal events across the sixteen represented disciplines. Figure skating events would start on the first day of the games, with Adonis’s first event on the second day.
Team USA had fifteen figure skaters across the events. About half of them were seasoned Olympians. Adonis was the second-youngest at only twenty-two years old. There was one skater, Aubrey Hyun, who was seventeen. Adonis had seen recordings of her performances, and he was very interested to meet her. She definitely had the makings of a star.
He was nervous about the Olympics. Most of his nerves didn’t come from the actual competition, but from knowing that he would have to meet and interact with these other athletes. Most of them were older and more experienced. Several of them already had Olympic medals.
