I didn’t know where to look. My eyes darted between the parents before settling on Dom. His mouth was full, so he shook his head until he could swallow. “It was nothing,” he said. His dark eyes darted over to me, and I bit my lip. “It was directed as much at me as it was at her.” The bruise on his cheekbone was fading, turning yellow and mottling into his skin, but it still drew my gaze like a magnet.
I wanted to melt into the floor. I had only given my parents the most basic overview of what had set Brandon off. My focus had been on him not trusting me and his jealousy of all the time I spent with Dom. I had not mentioned the fact that Brandon was convinced Dom and I were going to hook up. There was no way I was going to let the conversation move in that direction now. The accusation had been embarrassing enough in front of our friends. It would be exponentially worse in front of our parents. “Mom,” I said, pleading for her to shut up with a glare.
“Hazel,” she said, her voice harsh. “I think it’s important that we tell Dominic how much we appreciate him standing up for you.”
“He wouldn’t tell us why he got punched,” his mother said, looking disapprovingly at her son. “We were convinced he had done something stupid.” Directing her question to her son, she added, “Why didn’t you tell us you were sticking up for Hazel?”
“It was a complicated situation,” Dom said. He kept his eyes on the tower of crackers he was fiddling with, as though it was the most fascinating thing in the world. “I didn’t want to talk about it. Frankly, I’d rather not get into it now, either.” His tone made it clear that he would shut down any further questions.
The silence that followed made me uncomfortable. I felt more like a child than I had in a long time, with the adults all turning to look at us with questioning eyes. I felt more like I was an animal in an exhibit than I did when I performed. My appetite was gone, but I pushed around some of the dip on my plate and forced myself to take a bite just to have something to do.
The view on the screen changed. The trio of announcers were replaced with the order the skaters would perform in. “Do you mind turning that up, Dad?” I asked. “I want to hear what they have to say.”
My father obliged. With the familiar voices filling the living room, I relaxed. Nobody would dare interrupt when I was tryingto get an idea of my competition, right? The announcers had all competed at the elite level in the past. Hearing what they said to keep an eye out for over the next couple of hours would give me something more productive to focus on.
The first flight of skaters was unlikely to pose a problem for us. With the free skate, the pairs who had done the best on the short program would be a part of the final group of skaters. With the way they broke everyone up for these early events, the pairs that we expected to be our biggest competition for the upcoming season would be in that group. The two highest ranking pairs were the two we knew we would need to monitor, one from Russia and one from the United States. But it would be stupid to count out the others. One pair I wanted to see was very young, fresh out of juniors and new to the senior circuit. While they would need to increase their points to close the gap between them and the others, they could certainly be a threat in the near future.
When the announcement came that the skaters had to get off the ice after their warmup period, I sat up a little straighter. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Dom lean forward and place his plate on the edge of the coffee table. I looked over quickly, watching as he rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his intertwined hands. The announcement of the first pair brought my attention back to the TV. I twisted so that I was resting against the back of the couch, getting comfortable.
As soon as the program started, I zoned out everyone talking to focus on what was happening. I could hear that people were talking, but the words weren’t registering. All my focus was on the technical parts of the skates I was watching. The only thing that broke my concentration was a nudge from Dom. I had been so focused that I hadn’t even noticed him move from his earlier position.
With one of his arms over the back of the loveseat again, he leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I don’t know why Olga was so worried we wouldn’t get that lift. Ours is way better.”
I elbowed him back, harder than was strictly necessary. “That’s not nice.”
“Maybe, but you haven’t smiled since this started, and I wanted to make you happy,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear.
I suddenly felt very warm. “I wasn’t smiling because I was trying to examine everything. Something you should be doing too, you know.”
“You are very concerned for somebody who is going to have mastered the quadruple twist before competing against most of these people.”
“And you sound very cocky for somebody who took an elbow to the chest in the failed landing of his last attempt,” I whispered back. I still wasn’t taking my eyes off the screen. It was bad enough that I was splitting my attention between the conversation and the skaters. The fact that he had left his arm behind me barely registered.
As soon as the last pair stepped off for their marks and the next group of skaters stepped onto the ice for their six minutes of warmups, I pushed myself off the couch. “I need a drink before the next group,” I said. I nearly tripped over Dom’s feet as he moved them at the exact moment I tried to step over him.
“Sorry,” he said apologetically. I waved him off with my hand as I exited the room, but I heard his footsteps behind me on the way to the kitchen.
I pulled out a pitcher of water with lemons, placing it down on the counter with a thud. I closed the door to the site of Dom leaning against the cupboards, watching me with inquisitive eyes. “What?” I asked. “Do you want some?” He nodded, so Ireached back into the cupboard. When I had filled both glasses, I held one out for him.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Now? Nothing. Well, I’m thirsty,” I replied.
“Thirsty, eh?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
My cheeks burned. Usually, I wouldn’t let his teasing get to me. But in the past, I hadn’t known that he knew about my crush on him. The memory of Brandon publicly accusing us of inappropriately flirting or hooking up with each other–I still wasn’t sure how far he thought it had gone–was also looping in my mind. It had taken all my strength to ignore the fading bruise on his face over the previous week. No matter what he was doing when I looked his way, I’d seen him face to face with Brandon again, standing up for us and our work. I’d tried to ignore it, but it was next to impossible. The moment before Brandon swung at him forced its way into the forefront of my mind every time. It had gotten me a cursing out from Olga, but I refused to talk about what had been distracting me. I’d figured Dom would tell, but he hadn’t answered either.
When Mark walked in on Monday morning and looked at us, the first words out of his mouth were, “What the hell happened to your face, Dominic?”
The purple on Dom’s cheekbone stood out in the fluorescent light, so the question wasn’t a surprise. I steeled myself for the answer, but Dom didn’t explain. “Nothing,” he said. He turned away from the door, angling his face so it was out of Mark’s sight.
Mark hadn’t been having any of that. He marched over and took Dom’s chin in his hand, forcibly turning him for a better look. “That’s not nothing,” Mark said. He had tilted his head as he examined Dom. “What did you do?”
Dom looked at me. A wave of panic rose in me, but he looked nonplussed. “I said it was nothing,” he said, taking a step back and out of Mark’s reach.
Mark turned to me, then back to Dom, before looking at me again. “Hazel,” he said sternly, eyes boring into mine. “You know. Tell me.”
That was the problem with your coach knowing you for so long. After so many years, he could read Dom and me nearly as well as we could read each other. With one look, he had been able to deduce that I knew what happened.
