“And tomorrow, you, Perry, and me will get up, shower, and still be in love. So all that is our life. Our friends and family who will be there, still want to curl, some of them, still love us. The three of us, still together. All of that, while a medal sits on a shelf and collects dust.”
“That’s a lot of words.”
I grinned. “I’m like that. I have enough words for three people.”
“You are. And you do. I couldn’t have expressed any of that better than you just did.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be?”
“It sort of sounded like we spent the last year working towards something I don’t really care about.”
“You say you don’t, when I know what you mean is that you care about us more.”
“Yeah.”
“So do I. But I want to win gold too.”
“Then let’s do that.”
He took his hand back long enough to kiss his fingertips, then press them to my lips.
I don’t know which of us fell asleep first, or who it was that yelled at our teammates to shut the fuck up and stop knocking,but when we all crawled out of the tangle of arms, legs, sheets and hearts, we were ready.
Gold medal or no gold medal, we were absolutely on top of our game and the world.
If Perry had any reservations about what had gone down the night before, he didn’t say so. In fact, he was more relaxed than I could remember, even fielding a phone call from his mother that he unceremoniously handed to Michael.
“What am I supposed to say to her?”
“Honestly, Michael, I could care less. I have no interest in anything she has to say, so you can handle it however you see fit.”
“But—”
Mikko took the phone out of Michael’s hand and waved the rest of us on towards the rink, falling back as he greeted her politely.
“That was unexpected,” Robbie said, turning to walk backwards and watch him.
“He’s doing his job, I guess,” Carol said. “Managing.”
“You aren’t the least bit curious?” I asked Perry.
“Either she wants something, in which case, she can go fuck herself, or one of them is dying and she’s mean enough to call and tell me ten minutes before I go play the biggest game of my life. So again, fuck her sideways. No. I’m not interested.” He took Alan’s hand, lacing their fingers, and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “I’m good. Got my family right here.”
It seemed he was telling the truth, because he walked out onto the ice in full control of his emotions, acting just like the Skip I remembered from before we joined Alan’s team, except without any of the nerves. That, and he didn’t actually call the game, because that was Alan’s job.
The intensity of his focus wasn’t so single-minded he didn’t see or hear what was going on around him, like had been thecase during yesterday’s game. He didn’t stare down the house like he was afraid if he looked away, he’d lose his magic. He was intent but calm.
He was the man who had casually walked into a room at a party, tossed my shirt at my head and told me to get dressed because we were leaving. Like I had then, I followed him now, no questions asked.
CHAPTER 37
ALAN
We playedthat game like a well-oiled machine. People always praise a Skip for leading the team to victory, but that gold medal game was wholly a team effort.
Every one of Carol’s guards landed exactly where I told him to put them, despite the rapid fluctuation of the ice conditions in the house. With the crowds flocking in to see the final game of curling, on the next-to-last day of the games, the arena couldn’t hold a steady, cold temperature, so the ice got so frosty I began to worry we wouldn’t be able to deliver stones fast enough for takeouts, or slow enough to make it to the other end and still curl the right amount.
