I rolled my eyes. “So modest.”
“We were awarded as part of the best team in the world last week, Hazel. It isn’t arrogance if it’s true.”
He didn’t stay much longer. We both needed a break from being around people all the time, even each other. I needed time to myself to get into the right frame of mind for our upcoming competition. I turned on the shower, letting the water warm up. Once it was as hot as I could stand, I let the water wash over me until my muscles relaxed. We were so close to victory. If we won, everything we had to go through would have been worth it. All the sacrifices would have served a purpose. I had to make sure that it did.
Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Ihadlongsincediscoveredthat it was best not to look up what people were saying about me online. Even if I read ten good things for every bad comment, the negative one would stay in my mind far longer. There was nothing to gain from looking things up. No matter how well-intentioned constructive criticism was, it was pointless to focus on so close to the most important skate of my life. If I sucked at something now, there was no time to change. I would rather be confident and oblivious than overthinking and hesitant. Apparently, I skated my best when I didn't let myself think too intently about what my body was doing.
That had been Dom’s argument about why we had skated poorly after we had sex: we over thought and got paranoid about something that wasn’t a problem. Unfortunately for him, I was now overthinking that statement. I had attributed it to us no longer communicating well. We had been unwilling to discuss what had happened, but it was such a big elephant in the room that we didn’t know how to interact while pretending it wasn’t there. It was kind of ironic, since our good communication hadmade the sex so good in the first place. Rather than being shy or fumbling while struggling to tell what the other person wanted, we had communicated, both verbally and non-verbally, what we liked. I could see why he would attribute it to us being afraid of making a mistake and overthinking what could go wrong, though.
There was a fine line between taking a good risk and being reckless. It was a line that we had to brush up against while we were deciding what we should put into our program. We had been doing it for so long that I would get a gut feeling about whether something was going to be worth the risk. I didn’t know how to make the assessment when the question was about our personal lives. Dom was right that I was paranoid about screwing up our partnership if the flirting went south. That was smart, right?
I weighed what he said as I got all of my toiletries out to work on my appearance before the skate. I had to shave and pluck any unsightly hairs, which I would do while letting a deep conditioning treatment absorb with my hair piled atop my head. It was shallow, but how I looked was important. Figure skating was a sport that was dominated by the upper class and filled with mostly white competitors. People were as stereotypically shallow as you would expect when it came to judging if people’s performance looks were good enough or not. I would spend far too much time trying to make myself look appropriately pretty if it would give the judges a better view of us.
I wished that I had somebody I could talk to about it. Unfortunately, Dom had made it clear the morning after that he wanted us to keep our hookup a secret from everyone. True to my word, I hadn't told a single soul. Even Kendra and Alexis were still in the dark. Right now, I wished that I had told them. I needed to get somebody else’s opinion. I wouldn’t betray Dom, though. I couldn’t. My relationship with him was the mostimportant one in my entire life. I trusted him completely, and he felt the same about me. To break that faith was unthinkable.
That was when it hit me. I trusted Dom completely. When I wasn’t sure about something, I would look for his judgement because I trusted it more than anyone else’s. Even Mark and Olga’s thoughts about whether something was a good idea didn’t have as much influence over me as Dom. If he was so sure that we needed to be flirty and relaxed off the ice to get our top performance, I trusted him. I didn’t trust my own gut because half of me was certain it was only telling me it was a good idea to flirt with Dom because I liked it so much. Because I likedhimso much.
Fuck it. Maybe it was reckless. It certainly could come back to bite me in the ass long-term. But I couldn’t think long-term now. We had already made it to the Winter Games. This would be the most important competition of the season by far. Any fallout would be after the medals had been awarded. We could deal with whatever the consequences were then.
I briefly debated telling Dom what I’d thought, but decided against it. It was going to be clear what I had decided as soon as we practiced again. And if he really wanted to go back to what we were like before his Christmas party, it was more fitting that I just do what felt right in the moment without trying to make it a discussion.
It went against everything I had learned over the years, but I wanted to search my name to see what people online said about my short program. There was nobody I could talk to in real life, but anonymous people online wouldn’t hold back. I had recruited Kendra and Alexis to check what people thought after we had debuted the program. I knew that if I tried to do it myself, I would inevitably end up spiraling and reading everything I could get my hands on. By telling my oldest friendsto only bring me the most common comments, I had been able to sate my curiosity without reading too much into everything.
They had assured me that people online had positive things about the skate. “People are losing their minds about it,” Alexis said, “but in a good way. I didn’t realize how common it was for people to ship real-life people. I thought it only happened with characters.”
That was old news to me. There were a few pairs and ice dance teams from the past that people had gone crazy over. At least a couple of them ended up getting married, but one of the most popular had insisted that nothing romantic had ever happened between them. As a kid I had been sure it was a lie, but I had since seen how out of control people could get about their hopes when Dom and I got successful. “People bought the story we were trying to tell?” I asked.
“Big time,” Kendra had replied.
“Some of them are already saying that it is your best skate of all time,” Alexis said with a giggle. “They are going to be talking about it all year.”
My main thought then was that Mark would be happy that his plan worked. Now, I wracked my brain for any specifics about where my friends had gathered their information. What was most effective at making people believe it? As hard as I tried, I couldn’t think of any specifics. Surely there had been some, though. You didn’t convince people it was the best skate of your career after seeing it once. There must have been something specific that they appreciated. I just wished I could remember the details.
I wished that I could call my friends to ask if they remembered. Unfortunately, it was the middle of their university break. While I was competing for my life, they had booked the cheapest airfare they could find to a beach for a week of sun, sand, and endless drinking. Their phones were probablytossed in their bags while they tanned and drank tiki drinks by the pool. Even if I got a hold of them, they weren’t going to be in any state to help me.
I stared at my tablet on my bedside table. Was I really going to do this? Everything I had ever learned told me it was a terrible idea. The urge was overwhelming, though. I needed to use everything in my arsenal to win. If I didn't when, knowing that there may have been something people loved that I hadn't utilized would eat me alive. Because I knew me. If I lost, there was going to be nothing to keep me from scouring the Internet to read everything about what went wrong.
I opened up my browser and typed, “Hazel Pierce Dominic Hughes short program” before I could change my mind. Thousands of results popped up immediately. I was going to need to narrow this down further. I added the name of the song and searched again. There were still tons of results, but I would have less weeding to do.
A few results down, I found a social media site that was about skating. The first suggested post from it was titled, “Can we talk about that Pierce/Hughes skate!?!?” The double exclamation marks and the double question marks were promising. You didn’t use that much punctuation unless you had very strong feelings about the subject. I glanced at the date of the first post to ensure it was from the start of the season, then clicked it.
Who else watched their skate and had to see what other fans thought? Because there is nobody in my real life who will get when I say OH MY GOD!!! Their chemistry is off the charts. And the way he looked at her when their scores were being read?It was followed by three heart eye emojis.
Great. Now I was going to need to look up when we heard the results to see Dom’s reaction after I scrolled through all of this.
The most upvoted comment was,I can’t believe they say there are no romantic feelings between them. You can see thelove.Immediately under it, the original poster replied,If that is platonic I must be hopeless because nobody ever looked at me like that.
I kept scrolling until I found something that was focused more on my reaction.The way they always stay so close is what does it for me. There’s pairs close and then there’s “I have to be right against you close.” Especially when they dance against each other.
A little farther down, somebody else posted,Forget when they’re on the ice. Watch how they lean towards each other before and after they skate. There’s also a ton of stolen glances. Somebody compiled a lot of their cutest moments here. The following line was a link, which I eagerly clicked. This could save me some time.
The video opened in a new tab. The title read “Pierce and Hughes forever” which was a little over the top for my taste from somebody who didn’t know us. Not that it stopped me from tapping my fingers impatiently while I waited for the video to load.
What followed was a series of clips from our past skates and interviews. The fan who made the video had selected a song about noticing the person around you and played it over each of the clips. It started with the opening to this year’s short program, with Dom and I staring into each other’s eyes like we wanted to jump each other. I glanced at the writing on the boards. That tracked. This was before we had actually slept together and made things weird by acknowledging the attraction. It was followed by our reaction to winning Nationals last year. As soon as we knew we had won, I screamed and jumped up to give Dom a hug. He had wrapped his arms around me instinctively when I threw my arms around his neck, looking stunned. I don’t think he’d had time to process that we had won before I was hugginghim. That was what I had attributed his shock to, but clearly this person had read more into it.
