“Hazel, can we talk for a minute?” Brandon asked. His face was half-covered in shadows, but he looked serious.
“Of course. We can talk on the way there,” I said. His tone was enough to feel incongruous with how much I was enjoying the evening. Teasingly, I added, “We can talk inside too, but it’s probably going to be easier to hear outside.”
He looked around at the group that had gathered. “I was thinking somewhere more private.”
The pleasantly flushed feeling I’d had slipped away. “We can walk at the back,” I said. It wouldn’t be truly private, but it was better than nothing.
We let everybody get a few feet ahead of us before he said, “I wasn’t expecting your skate tonight to be so… intense.”
There was that word again. Was it the only word he could think of that wasn't overtly negative? “I’m sorry,” I said out of reflex. “I tried to prepare you for it the best I could, but I guess seeing it is different than hearing about it.”
“You described it as so mechanical and so technical,” he said. “That didn’t look technical.” I opened my mouth, struggling to form a retort, which he must have noticed because he added, “I’m sure it was very technical. The edges and spins and whatever you call them. But the way you were looking at him and he was looking at you… that didn’t seem like acting. That seemed real.”
My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a rock with dinner. “That’s the point. We needed to make it convincing. You can’t have a program like that and act like friends.”
“But you said the reason your coach wanted you to skate to that was because people thought you were into each other. You made people think that even before they decided you should use that song.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t deny it when it was true. The intense bond we shared had undoubtedly contributed to how people viewed us. He would see right through me. But I couldn’t exactly play into his fears that Dom and I hadsomething between us. Then again, staying quiet probably made me seem guilty. I desperately wanted to get out of this situation, but I didn’t know how to do it.
Brandon sighed. Shit. I must have taken too long to answer. We were outside the pub then, standing under the glowing green and gold sign. The others had stopped, waiting for us before heading in, but I waved at them to go on without us. When they were gone, I said, “I don’t know how to make you feel better.”
He looked off into the distance for several seconds before staring down at me. “Can you honestly tell me that there has never been anything between you?”
My mind flooded with memories. When Dom and I had first started skating together and I had gotten butterflies in my stomach every time we grabbed hands. I’d had a hard time looking him in the eyes without blushing back then. I had gossiped with my friends about how I was spending so much time with an older boy and doing romantic things with him, even if it was all an act. Then, without me knowing when it happened he had filled out, his stubble was no longer patchy, and he looked like a man rather than a teenage boy. I could still recall the first time he’d told me he had a girlfriend. I’d felt jealous, worried that suddenly she was going to become more important to him than I was.
I met Brandon’s eyes and admitted, “I felt something for him when I was younger. I got really flustered when we became partners and had a crush on him for a bit. But I was young and awkward and nothing ever happened.”
“Nothing?” he asked skeptically.
“Nothing,” I said emphatically. “We have never even kissed. By the time I was out of my awkward phase, I had gotten over my crush. Plus, Dom has never struggled to get a girlfriend. There has never been anyone super serious, but he never lacked for attention.”
If I could have, I would have run away from this conversation. Everything that I’d once felt was unrequited and, frankly, embarrassing now. I had never dared to admit any of it to Dom. I had long since sworn all of my friends who had known to secrecy. Maybe he suspected I had a crush on him back in the day, since I hadn’t done a good job at hiding it, but we had never discussed it. Even talking about it could affect our partnership and make things weird between us. I didn’t dare utter anything that could put us in that awkward place. It was safer to pretend it hadn't happened.
He asked, “You're saying that you didn’t feel anything that made you want to do this routine with him? I need you to be completely honest, even if it’s not what I want to hear.”
“I didn’t suggest it,” I said, speaking slowly to emphasize every word. “It was completely Mark’s idea, because he wanted us to stand out. Olga was less eager for it, but she agreed with his thought process. Dom and I just went along with it.”
“So, this didn’t come up because you wanted to grind against him? Or vice versa?”
“No,” I said loudly enough that a passing couple glanced our way. I pulled my arms closer to my body as the wind picked up again. “Most of the time we rehearse, we have two people on the sidelines. People who have watched us grow up and have mentored us, examining every move and telling us how to make it better. There’s nothing sexy about that.” If I hadn’t before, I now knew why actors and actresses said sex scenes were extremely uncomfortable.
“That’s…” he trailed off, suddenly looking puzzled. He stood a little taller. “Most of the time?”
“Yeah, usually they would both be around to tell us what they thought we were doing right and what they thought we could improve. They have different things that they look at and help us with, so it is nice to have them both around when we’re tryingto get ready for competitions. Sometimes it would just be one of them, though.” We thought it was nice to have both of them with us, but unfortunately, all the other skaters they worked with seemed to have the same opinion.
“But one of them was always with you,” Brandon said. He said it as a statement, not a question. His expression had gone hard. “You two didn’t practice… you didn’t grind up on him alone, did you?”
I squared my shoulders, steeling myself for what was to come. “We didn’t do the part you’re thinking of alone often, but had to sometimes.”
The fury on his face made me take a step back. “You did that alone with him?" he spat. He was practically shaking with rage. "You rubbed yourself against him and had him grab your upper thigh? A move that is basically like grabbing your ass, which you told me you didn’t do. You put your face an inch from him and acted like you were about to kiss him. You did all that alone with him while telling me that there was nothing going on between you and that I had nothing to worry about. Are you fucking kidding me, Hazel?” His voice alternated from nearly shouting to a restrained grit through his teeth.
My eyes darted around to see if anyone was watching us. “Keep your voice down. People can hear us," I urged. Lowering my voice to a level I hoped he would mimic, I added, "We practiced what you saw today. We only did what we were told we had to do. I told you, we’ve never done anything real.”
Brandon looked like he wanted to shout some more, but another group of people walked by. They excused themselves as they passed around us, which seemed to make him think he should restrain himself. A second later, when I had braced myself for a tirade, he turned on his heel and walked into the pub. He had his wallet and ID out faster than I’d expected and was soon walking away from the bouncer. I apologized profuselywhile I dug around in my purse blindly for my ID, trying to keep my eyes on Brandon so I could see where he was going.
By the time I’d been allowed in, he was already over where everyone else was. I rushed over to where they had pulled two tiny tables together. They were the small round kind that always seemed to be unsteady if you dared to rest an elbow or an arm on them. Everyone was looking up at Brandon, who was standing right next to Dom and had a hand in front of his face. “You were grinding up against my girlfriend?”
Dom looked less surprised than I’d expected, considering he was being accused and cornered. “Woah, man. You saw the routine. That’s all we’ve done. I never touched her otherwise.” He had his hands up as a sign of surrender.
