Yep, I thought. But that wasn't going to de-escalate the situation. I had to remember what Dom said to focus on. “Everything that happens on the ice is an act. You know that. It’snot like two actors who play a couple or two dancers who are lovers in a ballet want to sleep with each other.”
Brandon’s eyes had narrowed. “Why do you insist on saying that about a guy whose job it is to grab your ass?”
“You just said it! It’s our job,” I exclaimed, louder than was strictly necessary. I wanted him to get it through his head, but I didn't need the neighbours hearing this. Forcing myself to lower my voice, I said, “Even when I was thirteen, my friends could grasp the fact that him picking me up wasn’t grabbing my ass because he wanted to cop a feel.” At the time, it had been a big disappointment to my friends and I, but I had done my best to get over it as quickly as possible.
“He still touches you in places that other guys shouldn’t be getting to touch.”
I gritted my teeth to keep myself from snapping at him. I marched over to where he was standing and said, “Turn around.”
“What?” Brandon said, blinking rapidly. He clearly hadn’t made the same leap my brain had.
I brushed it off. “Turn around so I can show you how he holds me.”
Brandon started to turn around, but his head snapped back towards me so fast I worried he was going to give himself whiplash. “So now you’re describing it as holding you?”
“For a few seconds before he throws me.” I couldn’t keep the agitation out of my voice, although I tried. “That’s what I’m trying to show you. If he’s going to toss me for a throw or a twist, his hands are around here.” I placed my hands around his hips, gripping him firmly. The angle was completely wrong, since Brandon was nearly as tall as Dom and much taller than me, but I thought he’d still get the point. “He has to grab me like this for a couple of seconds before helping me up when I jump. If you knew how technical something like that was, you would realizewe don’t have enough brain power left to think about touching when we are so focused on timing.”
“I think you underestimate the male brain,” Brandon countered.
“You wouldn’t be thinking about what you’re touching if you knew that being half a second off pace could have me – your partner, I guess, as the guy – falling.” I gently tugged at one of his hips, trying to get him to turn back to face me. “And if Dom isn’t completely focused on the timing and keeping me safe on the ice, that’s what can happen. I could land wrong and could seriously hurt myself.”
I had learned how to fall and get up from falling gracefully early in my skating career. It had been much easier when I could barely get off the ice when jumping. Now that I could go so much higher, the adrenaline that came with performing came in handy to keep me from noticing the pain.
I inspected Brandon, trying to see how much he really got it, but it was hard when he tried to avoid meeting my eyes. Instead, he was focusing on his hands as he cracked his knuckles, the sound breaking the silence between us. “That’s not the kind of lifting I was talking about.”
“He still doesn’t just grab me. Come here,” I said, taking a couple of steps towards the living room. He didn’t budge at first, so I had to grab his wrist and drag him to the living room.
I climbed onto my hand-me-down couch and stood on the middle cushion,so I was higher up. My bare feet sank into the beige fabric a few inches. He was looking at me like I had lost my mind as I beckoned him closer. “Give me your hands.”
Brandon sighed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to show you a way that I actually do a lift,” I said. He reluctantly held both of his hands out. I grabbed them tightly, twisting his wrists slightly to get a better grip. “I would press against him more like this to get up. He would lift meby my hands. It’s less secure than grabbing me by my hip, so it’s harder to get right. That’s why it is worth more points.” The skepticism in his eyes made me lose my patience. How had showing him not made a difference? “Just watch our program from last year.”
I pulled up a video on my phone, pulling the bar over to around the point of our first lift. “Look, his hand is nowhere near my ass,” I snapped. “Even if it was, it is my job. The fact that you are so focused on this makes me feel like you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you,” Brandon argued, although his tone was not convincing. “That doesn’t mean I trust him.” The venom dripping from the last word took me aback.
“That shouldn’t matter if you trust me!” I countered. “And if I trust him to carry me around with one hand, I hope that would mean something to you, too.”
Brandon raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything. I narrowed my eyes, silently wishing he would try another ridiculous argument so at least it would be out in the open. When he didn’t say anything after several seconds, I hopped down off the couch and went into the kitchen. “Maybe you just need to get to know him better.”
The comment was met with silence, but I refused to turn around and look behind me to see what he thought. Instead, I went to the fridge and pulled out a couple of bottles of salad dressing. When I turned around, Brandon was leaning against the archway near the table. His hands were shoved in his pockets. “Would that make you happy?”
“For the two of you to meet? Of course it would,” I said. “I’ll talk to Dom tomorrow and see if he and Emma would like to do something together. Maybe if you got to meet him and his girlfriend, you’d realize that you’ve been wasting so much energy worrying about nothing.”
I braced myself for another retort, but it didn’t come. Instead, Brandon just said, “Fine.” The tone made it clear he was not fine, but that he didn’t want to discuss this any longer. I could live with that. I didn't want to discuss it either.
The timer on the stove beeped. I slid on my oven mitts and pulled down the door, my face blasted with a wave of heat. That was still preferable to continuing a disagreement where neither of us was making headway. Until I told Dom what I had just roped us into tomorrow, there was no point.
I pushed my shoulders back and let out a slow breath, forcing myself to relax and calm down. When I turned back towards Brandon, I offered a smile and said, “Do you want to serve yourself first?” as a way of a peace offering.
He came over and loaded up his plate, taking heaping portions of everything. I waited behind him, holding my plate in silence. I didn’t know what to say without risking making everything worse. I just hoped that things wouldn’t be so rough after supper, when we both had full bellies and were able to relax without the topic of my skating coming up.
I was putting chicken on my plate when Brandon leaned over and kissed my forehead. A wave of relief washed over me with the thought that he was no longer angry, but it didn’t last long. “Thanks for cooking,” he said.
Despite the sinking feeling in my stomach, I made myself smile again. Not that he saw it. He was already walking away, so my, “You’re welcome,” was said to his back.
Chapter 4
