Page 18 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

What kind of party?

God, what am I even doing…

Should she call Tora back and tell her not to come? But she was probably already on her way.

Damn.

Alisa could feel herself beginning to panic, because the last time she had been to anything remotely like a party was when she was sixteen or something, when her older sister had forged documents and dragged her, still underage, into a nightclub where they had spent the entire night with her sister’s adult friends, and although it had actually been incredibly fun, it had also been full of unpleasant men with beards who kept bothering Alisa until she wanted to disappear, and afterward that one experience had been enough for her to avoid clubs forever.

But maybe this wasn’t that kind of party.

Maybe this was something at Tora’s house, or at least something smaller, something completely different.

Still nervous, Alisa quickly washed everything off, dried her hair in a rush, leaving it loose around her shoulders, then went to her suitcase and began desperately searching for at least something that looked remotely appropriate, but there was nothing except comfortable sportswear, long T-shirts, jeans, and sport jackets.

She was absolutely not prepared for any kind of party.

In the end she put on the most ordinary thing she had: blue jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and over it her white sports jacket with the name and emblem of the Russian figure skating team from the ice palace where she trained and from the club she belonged to, telling herself that if there were skaters there, they would probably also be dressed in something similar and not in cocktail dresses or elegant suits.

At least she desperately hoped so.

And when she stepped outside the hotel, a bright pink Geländewagen was waiting at the entrance, decorated with rhinestones arranged in the shape of skate blades over the hood and doors, and Alisa immediately understood that it could only belong to Tora, although for some reason she still had not expected something quite so extravagant.

Tora rolled down the window and waved at her with a grin.

“Get in, baby.”

She opened the door, and Alisa climbed onto the soft white seats covered in fur. She immediately took off her jacket because it was so warm inside the car.

Some quiet phonk music was playing softly in the car, something slow and unobtrusive, and Tora nodded her head lightly to the rhythm while they drove in silence, slipping between the streams of cars and gradually moving farther and farther away from the city center.

“Do you live far away?” Alisa finally asked, glancing out the window.

“No, not really, about twenty-five minutes from the arena.”

For a couple of minutes they drove along the embankment, and Alisa looked silently at the harbor, at the lights reflected in the dark water, at the clean streets and the large flakes of snow slowly falling from the sky, and everything around looked so beautiful, so warm and sparkling, that she suddenly wanted, strangely and almost painfully, to live here at least once in her life, not for a few days, not as a guest passing through, but for real.

“I tried to call Lev too, but he didn’t answer.”

“Well, he said he’d be asleep, so I decided not to bother him.”

“Ah… right.”

“Yeah.”

Alisa pressed her lips together, because she honestly had no idea what to say next; the whole day had flattened her like an asphalt roller, and even though the coach had calmed her down and insisted that everything was fine, that nothing terrible had happened and that they still had a chance, something inside her was still burning with anger and disappointment.

“What does it feel like,” she asked quietly after a pause, “to win gold?”

Tora glanced at her briefly and shrugged one shoulder.

“I don’t know. I’ve kind of lost count already, but it feels good every time.”

“You’ve lost count?” Alisa asked, surprised.

“Yeah. Loke and I have been skating together for six years, we’ve won a lot of medals at different competitions, but we’ve never made it to the Olympics, so now we’re planning to finally do it through the next qualifiers. It’s only a couple of months until 2025, and then suddenly it’ll be February 2026 before you even realize it.”

So they were going too. Well, that was obvious, surely after so many gold medals there could not be the other way but to go to the Olympics.