“So?”
Did this bastard just say “so” like it wasn’t a bad thing? “So, one time I said that I thought the judging system was still not correct, and they turned it around to make it seem like I thought the person that won another event didn’t deserve it. I got hate mail for months after that. Another time, I said someone had a beautiful Y-spin, and suddenly they weren’t any good at anything other than that,” I told him, remembering those two things because they had bothered me for months. And that was just a small fraction of the things that had been twisted and turned until they weren’t at all what I thought or said. I hated people for doing that kind of stuff. I really fucking did. God. “And don’t get me started on videos.”
Ivan didn’t say anything for so long, I had to glance at him. His thigh was still against mine, but he was frowning. I thought about shifting my leg away, but fuck it. He was in my space. I wasn’t going to give him anymore. His question came so unexpectedly, it surprised me. “So, you never said you thought the WHK Cup was rigged?”
Shit.
Tipping my head to the side, I glanced up at him and shrugged. “No, I said that.”
He looked down at me and made a face. “Nothing has been rigged since they changed the scoring system.”
I did know that. The scoring system had been changed when I was a kid after things had been rigged. What had once been a subjective point-system based on a “perfect” 6.0 score, had been ripped apart and reformed based on a stricter point system where each element was worth a certain amount of points; points that would be deducted if the element wasn’t performed well. It wasn’t a flawless system, but it was better.
But I’d been mad at the WHK Cup back then, and who the hell could be responsible for what came out when they were pissed as hell? “Your partner landed double-footed and you almost dropped her doing a triple twist. It was rigged.” The second sentence was a lie, but the rest of it wasn’t. I remembered the incident perfectly.
He snorted, and that time it was him who twisted his entire body to face mine. “It wasn’t rigged. Our base score was a lot higher than yours was, and she completed all of her rotations.”
I knew that, but I was going to be damned if I admitted that his program had much harder elements in it that equaled a much higher score than what my ex and I had. Plus… we hadn’t been perfect. Almost, but not. I probably remembered every single mistake I had ever done in every program ever. Some nights, it kept me up going over everything, even programs from back when I was a teenager. If I hadn’t been so cocky or if I had done just a little better.... How different could my life be if I had just lived up to my potential and not fucked up almost every single thing in my life?
“Okay, it wasn’t rigged,” I agreed, just because I would be more of an idiot if I kept trying to say that it was. By some miracle, I kept myself from smiling. “One of your people just paid off the judges. Whatever you want to call it is fine with me.”
Ivan blinked, and I blinked back at him.
The tip of his tongue touched the inside of his cheek, and his face was smooth when he said, “I won that fair and square.”
“I won third place that night, and I landed everything fine.”
He blinked again. “You landed everything fine, but your choreography was atrocious and you pulled back on your jump sequences after what’s-his-face bailed on the 3S in the event before that one. You also looked like a robot, and your partner looked like he was on the verge of throwing up the entire time.”
He had a point but….
Ivan shrugged so casually I wanted to backhand him. “Your music sucked too.”
The only sucking going on in that moment revolved around me sucking in a breath. “Excuse me. What are you? A musical genius?” I snapped.
He lifted a shoulder. “I have a better ear than you do. Don’t get mad. You’re either born with it or you aren’t.”
I would have gaped, but I didn’t want him to know that he could get that reaction out of me.
Then he kept going. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you choose the music for any of our programs.”
Now that had me turning my whole body on that bench seat to give him this “the fuck did you say” look. My knee was pretty much on top of his thigh as I leaned toward him. It wasn’t like I didn’t touch him a hundred or three hundred times a day and had for weeks by that point. I could pick him out in a crowd by smell alone, I bet. “What?”
That light pink mouth twitched for the second time that day. “You heard me. Nancy, the choreographers, and I will pick it. It’ll be perfect.” Then his mouth twitched again. “Trust me.”
I had to throw my head back and laugh. “Ha!”
“It’s okay, Jasmine. I’ve always chosen. It’s probably more important than the choreography. You want to win, don’t you?”
No shit I wanted to win, and honestly, he did have great taste in music. His arrangements always surprised me. They were good, but I wasn’t going to admit that. “There’s no ‘I’ in team, you know that?”
The son of a bitch had the nerve to wink. “But there’s an ‘I’ in winning, and if you want to win, you have to listen to me.”
I scoffed. Then I laughed, even though I didn’t want to. “That doesn’t even make sense, you idiot. And quit doing that thing with your eyes. It’s freaking me out.”
Those broad shoulders hunched up without the least bit of apology, straining at the seams of his beautiful sweater that I didn’t have to touch to know it had to be soft as hell. “Makes sense to me.”
“Because you’re a dumbass. You’re not the boss of me. We’re partners. There’s no ‘I’ in partners either.”
He winked again. “We can argue about costumes and choreography, but I’m choosing the music.”
Sheeeit.
I’d take it, but what was I going to do? Say okay? Really, I didn’t care about the music. I’d skate to anything. Now the costumes… “Remember your Chiquita Banana Mambo costume nightmare? I’m sure as hell not letting you choose the costumes without seeing them first. And I already have someone who will make mine.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched for all of a second before it stopped, and he ignored my comment about our costumes. “Who’s a national champion, world champion and Olympic champion?” he had the nerve to ask.
I reeled back. And then couldn’t form a single fucking word. Not one other than one that started with an m, ended with an r and sounded like trucker wucker.
Until this slow smile crept over his mouth.
Then I could. “You’re such an annoying shit. God, I just want to punch you in the face sometimes. Who’s a champion? Shut the hell up.”
What did he do? How did he respond? He laughed. Ivan Lukov laughed loud.
“You probably paid the judges with your Russian mafia money,” I kept going, which earned me another laugh so loud that I almost smiled back at him. When Karina and I were way younger, I had asked her how her parents made so much money that they could live in their giant mansion, and she had said she thought they were in the mafia. They weren’t, but it still made me laugh.
“You’re such a sore loser,” he got out after a moment. “I thought I was bad, but you’ve got me beat.”
“Oh please.” I wasn’t the one who got rid of partners every time one of them failed.
But I didn’t say that.
“You probably sit in your Tesla and cry every time you wrinkle your sweaters.”
Ivan barked out another laugh that was pretty much shouted up at the ceiling.
“What are you laughing at? I’m not trying to be funny,” I said, watching him lose his shit for the first time in the more than ten years we’d known each other. The most I’d ever seen out of him was a smile or two around his family, specifically Karina.
But that was it.
I hadn’t even known he knew how to laugh…. Unless he was doing something shitty, like taking people’s souls and stuff.