Being formal seemed safer than being too casual. It might seem stiff and uncomfortable, but at least then I can guarantee that things would not go down the wrong path. I wasn’t sure if having the days away from each other would make it more awkward or if it would help us shake the last bits of discomfort we had had around each other. “Do you want something to eat?” I asked. “I got out some cookies that my mom made. Or I guess I could make something if you’re starving.”
“Cookies sound good,” Dom said. He made his way towards my living room, waiting for me to follow him. In the living room, he perched himself at one end of my couch and reached for the plate. He leaned back, holding his coffee in one hand and one of my mother’s sugar cookies in the other. He seemed pretty relaxed, but I couldn’t be sure that he just wasn’t a better actor than I was.
There was plenty of space for me next to him on the couch or at the other end of it, but I sat on the second-hand armchair from my grandparents instead. It was hard-backed and the cushionswere well worn, but I thought the physical distance would help us get through a conversation like this.
“So…” I said, trailing off.
Dom waited for me to continue, but when it became clear that I didn’t know how to start, the conversation turned towards me more. Putting his drink down on a coaster, he shoved the rest of the cookie into his mouth and rested his elbows on his knees. “I think we need to sit down and find a way to move past what happened last month.” Now I could see the tension in his shoulders. The way he was sitting might look normal to most people, but my job was reading his body language to get a sense of what he was thinking. I knew better than that. “We are so close to Nationals. I would love to skate more like we did at Skate Canada than at the Grand Prix Finals.”
What came after Nationals was left unsaid. It would be the most important skate to date, but it would quickly be eclipsed by the Winter Games if we qualified. Even if we hadn’t been at our best, it was still a safe bet we would qualify. We were definitely the most consistently high-scoring pair in the country. The team that was ranked second was a fair bit behind us. You never wanted to be off your game, but to skate badly now would be devastating. We had spent the last eight years working towards this. If we screwed up now, there would be four long more years before we got another chance. Who knows what could happen in that time. We were young enough that we would age on our side, but so much else could go wrong. No, if we wanted to make the Games, we needed to get our act together now.
“I agree. We need to get this sorted out,” I said. “Last time didn’t go so well.” That was a bit of an understatement. We rarely snapped at each other. Dom's insistence that it was a mistake we should forget had upset me more than it would otherwise, because he didn't normally talk that way. I had hoped that we could avoid further disagreements by doing what hewanted. That had been good in theory, but had actually left me upset and more distant.
“I’m hoping that it not being so fresh will help,” Dom said. “I know I said some things that I would like to take back.”
The knot in my stomach that had vanished over the days off was back. “I think we both were touchy,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. I cringed at my word choice. “We definitely need to put our egos aside. Otherwise, this season is shot.”
Dom nodded. He rubbed his hands together, looking nervous. “I’ll try to get to the point. I really did enjoy that night." His cheeks flushed, but he didn't break eye contact. "I had wanted to say something for a while, but I had always thought better of it. Having a few drinks after everything that happened between us not long before that got to me. I was thinking about what could happen after.”
There were plenty of things he could have been talking about. Brandon, of course. All the things we had to do to practice the sexier parts of our skate. Even the praise that Kendra had heaped on him for being my big, strong protector might have gone to his head. They certainly had affected me. “I won't deny having the same thoughts now that I'm sober. But now I think that all the concerns I had were valid. We weren’t just awkward around each other; our chemistry was worse.”
“Do you think everyone was right?” Dom took another drink. “Do you think the only reason we were so believable for all these years was because there was sexual tension between us?” He sounded like he didn’t want to be having this conversation any more than I did.
Suddenly, my mouth felt dry. Maybe he’d have a good idea to buy a few seconds by sipping on his drink. “Honestly?” I said. I was putting the urge to change the subject to anything else. “That was my fear. What if we are never as believable as we were before?”
Dom ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t think that will happen,” he said. He bit his lip. “We had pretty good chemistry that night.”
My face was burning. I had the same thought, but I tried not to dwell on it. Going back down that road would be an obvious mistake. “I thought so too,” I admitted. “That’s what makes it hard to say that I don’t think we should let it happen again.”
“Yeah,” Dom said. He didn’t sound any happier about it than I felt. “I think we need to play it safe for the rest of the season. We can’t do anything that could get between us. As fun as it was, I value our skating partnership too much to put it in jeopardy. I would regret screwing up something so good because I was curious to see if there could be more there.”
I'd had the same thoughts myself, but that didn’t make them easier to hear. “Right. We need to be focused for the next couple of months. I’ve seen what breakups or friends with benefits relationships going south can lead to. The last month has been bad enough. If we invested more time in a romantic or sexual thing, it could destroy our season. Or the entire partnership we have built up.”
Dom spun his cup around in his hands. The sound of the waxed cardboard rubbing against his skin was the only noise in an otherwise silent room. “Do you think we can get back to normal now?”
That really was the million-dollar question. I gave the most honest answer I could. “I hope so. We have to at least try.”
He nodded. “I have been getting really tired of Mark and Olga trying to get us to talk about why we have been acting differently. If I never have to hear Mark imply that some sort of romantic problem was getting between us again, it will be too soon.”
“Do you think he knew?”
Dom shrugged. “At the very least, he suspected. He was trying to get to the bottom of things. Some of the questions hewas asking made it clear that he thought he knew what had happened. He actually got frighteningly close to the truth. He told me that if one of us had revealed a secret, he hoped the other took it well. Then he said we needed to talk it out. There was a clear implication that he thought one of us had told the other that we had feelings for them. I did my best to keep a straight face and act like I thought it was ridiculous, but I think he saw right through me. He brought it up a couple more times after, asking if we had talked everything through.”
“He never mentioned it to me,” I said. I was glad he hadn’t, because it meant I hadn’t had to convince him otherwise. Knowing that he had brought it up at all was embarrassing enough.
“I think he thought it was safer to bring it up with another guy instead of a woman barely out of her teens. Believe me, I wish he hadn’t brought it up with me either.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “It was incredibly uncomfortable.”
“More or less uncomfortable than the conversations with me?”
Dom laughed. “It’s close, but if I had to say, I guess it was worse.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Really? I find that hard to believe.”
He shrugged. “Well, with you I figure we’d probably already reached peak awkwardness the morning after. Realizing that you had seen me naked, that you were still naked in my bed, having to say good morning to you in nothing but a towel…” He looked away. “After all that, talking wasn’t that painful. Mark was trying to figure everything out, and he wanted me to tell him things.”
“Wouldn’t that make it more awkward with me?” I asked. “Like you said, I’ve seen you naked now.” I tried to force the memory of his firm, muscled body out of my mind. We’d just said that the smart thing to do was to be friends. Friends didn’t think of how hot their friends looked… or how good they were in bed. “You’d know that I had that image in my head.”
“But I saw you, too. That balances it out. Plus, talking to you wouldn’t require any explaining. I’d rather focus on the fallout than have to explain what happened,thenthe aftermath. Especially with a guy who’d mentored me for so long.”
