“I have already been awake for twelve minutes.”
He managed a rough chuckle. “And you are also way too precise.”
I laughed, and some of the heaviness still lingering from the night before eased from his face at the sound. He slid his hand up my back to my neck. “You okay?”
I smiled. “I should be asking this of you.” But it was clear the panic that had seized him yesterday no longer held him in its grip. And he had slept.
That mattered.
Right then I didn’t want to think about the enormous pressure waiting for both of us that evening. I wanted to lie there and enjoy his warmth, his scent.
“I think I was out like a light the second my head hit the pillow.” He pulled me closer, and I drew the smell of bed-warmed skin into my nostrils.
“He will be fine,” I murmured. I knew his father had to be in his thoughts.
He let out a sigh. “If there’s any change, Mom will call. Well, she’d better. But she did sound positive.” Dean rested his forehead against mine. “Breakfast with the team in an hour.” He paused. “You should come.”
I tensed up in a heartbeat.
“Luka.”
I looked away. “That seems unwise.”
Dean cupped my chin, turning my face toward his. “It’s breakfast, not a hostage negotiation.”
I tried for lightness. “You Americans approach breakfast with alarming enthusiasm.”
Another rough chuckle. “There’ll be other skaters there too. Keisha’s meeting us. Ingrid probably will if she’s conscious before noon.” I frowned, and he traced the line of my cheek with a finger. “Keisha Thompson, Canadian figure skater. Ice Dance. Ingrid Solheim, Norway.”
I nodded. “I know of Ingrid. A pairs skater.” Actually, I knew ofboth of them. They were on the same short list that also contained Ethan Miller.
This was still a bad idea.
I knew I’d be expected to have breakfast with my teammates, coaches, and Federation delegates, the way we’d done every morning since we’d arrived. It was supposed to be informal, relaxed.
It was never that.
Dean brushed his fingers up and down my spine. “You don’t have to walk in with me. Just… join us.”
Something in his voice made it impossible to dismiss outright. He wasn’t applying pressure, but offering an opportunity to experience something different.
That was harder to resist.
“Let me go to my room. I will meet you in the cafeteria after my shower.”
His eyes twinkled. “You could always use mine again.”
I laughed. “I think that is also unwise. I learned about the Archimedes principle in school. You learned this too?”
He frowned. “Er, yeah? Buoyancy, right? But what does that have to do with?—”
I smiled. “In your case, whenmybody is immersed in water, you climb into it with me, and washing becomes the last thing on our minds.”
Dean stared at me for a heartbeat. Then he barked out a startled laugh loud enough that I instinctively glanced toward the corridor outside his room.
“Oh my God,” he said, still laughing. “That was a science joke. You’re flirting with me using physics now.”
“It was technically hydrodynamics.”
