“Davorin.”
Years of habit took over before conscious thought had a chance to intervene. My shoulders straightened.
Sokolov stood near the entrance with Mila beside him. Neither looked pleased.
When I looked back at Dean, his attention hadn’t left me.
The realization sent a fresh pulse of unease through me.
I’d shown him too much.
Dean
Luka stepped back,and whatever had shifted between us folded neatly out of sight.
“Sokolov.” His voice was composed.
Across the rink, his coach stood at the boards with his arms folded, his attention fixed squarely on us. “You need to practice.” The words were directed at Luka, but his gaze lingered on me for a moment before moving away. “Now.”
Luka pushed off without another glance in my direction. Within seconds Mila had joined him, and whatever had existedbetween us a moment earlier vanished beneath the precision of practice.
I stayed where I was, watching them cross the ice together.
A few minutes ago, he’d been smiling. Now it was as though the conversation had never happened. The shift was unsettling.
The conversation might have been over.
I wasn’t done thinking about it.
Back in my room,I stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Normally that would have been enough. Give my brain twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, and whatever strange interaction had happened during the day would sort itself into perspective.
This one refused.
Montreal kept resurfacing. Not the training camp itself, but Luka’s reaction to it. The same abrupt withdrawal I’d seen in the corridor. The same sense that I’d wandered into territory he guarded without ever explaining why.
I rolled onto my back and scrubbed both hands through my hair.
They wouldn’t let you.
The words still sounded ridiculous, not because I doubted him, but because he hadn’t sounded surprised by them, as though being told where he could train, who he could learn from, and what opportunities he was allowed to take was simply part of the landscape he lived in.
I got up and crossed to the window.
The view was forgettable: another Olympic building, more glass and concrete, lights glowing against the evening sky.
Usually having something external to focus on helped.
Tonight it didn’t.
My thoughts drifted back to the rink, to one sentence that hadn’t left me.
I do not know what I would be allowed to like.
The memory weighed heavy in my chest.
He hadn’t said it for sympathy. He hadn’t even seemed to realize how strange it sounded.
