“Oh, that’s nice,” a new voice piped up, nearly getting lost into the volume of Ivan being a pain in the ass.
And just like that, he stopped, the sound of his laugh replaced with silence.
We both looked toward the door at the same time. Sure enough, there was a woman standing there at the doorway holding a messenger bag in one hand and a purse in the other. “You don’t have to stop on my account,” she said, smiling.
I didn’t say anything, and neither did Ivan.
She kept her smile on her face. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she went on, without offering an explanation.
If she was expecting an “it’s okay” out of me, she wasn’t getting it. I couldn’t stand people that were late. Apparently, Ivan wasn’t a fan either, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him bob his head. “We’re ready whenever you are to get started. We both have other engagements and can’t stay late.”
He had something to do too? Since when? He didn’t have a job. I used to think I wouldn’t have one either if I had the opportunity to stay at home, but the truth was, I’d probably go apeshit without things to do. I could barely sit still for ten minutes.
But… what the hell did Ivan have to do?
The other woman nodded and began making her way into the break room, clutching a bag in each hand. “I understand, all I need is a minute to get ready,” she said as she dropped her messenger bag on the table in between the bench seat that Ivan and I were sitting on and the chairs on the opposite side. She had to be in her mid-thirties, maybe even a little older. I never trusted guessing people’s ages because neither one of my parents looked like theirs. “Amanda Moore,” she said, thrusting a hand out in my direction first.
“Jasmine,” I responded, taking her hand and giving it a shake.
She did the same to Ivan, who said, “Ivan. Pleasure to meet you.”
Pleasure to meet you? What a suck-up. But I kept my attention forward on the lady, because as much as I wanted to shoot him a side-look, there was no way I’d be able to hide my “you’re full of shit” face.
She gave us both a tight smile before beginning to go through her bag. She pulled out a laptop, a small black device that had to be a recorder, and a small yellow notebook along with a pen. “One minute,” she said, as she opened her laptop.
Ivan’s leg touched mine underneath the table, but I didn’t look at him.
Not too long afterward, after moving things around, the woman gave us a tight smile. “Okay, I’m ready now.”
The idiot beside me touched his leg against mine once more. That time, I hit my knee against the side of his thigh at the same time I folded my hands and stuck them between my thighs out of view. I wasn’t going to be the one to break. No way. Lee wasn’t going to get the chance to give me shit.
“I already thanked Ms. Lee for reaching out to Ice News for the interview, but I wanted to thank both of you myself. When the rumors started coming in that you and Mindy weren’t going to skate together, we were wondering who would replace her,” the woman named Amanda started, her gaze shifting to Ivan’s direction as she spoke to him.
Good. I didn’t know what they thought or knew about Ivan’s situation besides that they wanted to keep the details under wraps. They could figure that out and deal with it. All I wanted was to compete.
“So,” she continued on, glancing down at her notebook for a moment. “I’m going to record this conversation, if that’s okay with both of you.”
I nodded at the same time Ivan said, “Yes.”
The woman beamed. “I have it here that you’ve been training together at the Lukov Ice Complex for the last fourteen years?” she asked me.
“Yes,” we both answered at the same time. Was he trying to answer for me?
She bobbed her head. “And, Ivan, you’ve been here since it was built twenty-one years ago?”
“Yes. Before that I lived and trained in California,” he replied, like he’d answered that question countless times in the past, maybe because he had.
The reporter switched her attention to me. “You’ve known each other since you started coming here?”
I could do this.
“No,” I answered, trying to keep from instantly thinking her questions were dumb. Wasn’t it common knowledge that Ivan had been doing this longer than I had? “He was more advanced than I was. We met about a year or two later.” She didn’t need to know we had “met” at his house instead of the LC.
The woman gave me a little smile. “But you’re close friends with the family, aren’t you?”
I blinked. How the hell did people know that? “Yes.”
“You were in the same classes as—” She paused and glanced at her notebook. “—Karina Lukov, Ivan’s sister. Correct?”
I nodded. Unlike Ivan, her parents hadn’t put her into figure skating until she was a lot older. She had taken dance classes instead. The only reason they put her into figure skating was because Ivan had won a gold in the junior level and she had wanted to try. You know, since her family already owned an ice rink and all. Why not? I had shaken my head the first time she told me that story.
“How long did that last?” the Amanda woman asked.
Luckily, Ivan decided to answer that question. I didn’t want to. I didn’t even want Karina being brought up into our conversation. She didn’t like having attention on her of any sort, and I respected that. “My sister stopped at fourteen. She decided to pursue other things.”
Did his voice sound weird or was it my imagination? Maybe he didn’t like talking about her either.
“But you two were best friends?” she asked me.
I nodded again and didn’t miss the funny look the woman gave me. Maybe she wanted more than one-word answers and nods, but that’s all she was getting, until I had to say more.
“This partnership is a decade in the making then?”
I froze. Don’t look at Ivan. Don’t look at Ivan. Don’t—
His knee knocked mine, and it was only because I was familiar with his voice—mostly his smart-ass voice, but whatever—that I noticed how off it sounded, almost choked, a little gravelly… weird. “You can say that,” he said slowly in that awkward voice.
I was not going to laugh. I was especially not going to laugh at this idiot. So all I did was nod. Slowly. Very slowly in agreement.
Amanda Moore’s eyes slid to my direction to see me agreeing, and a little smile came over her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve seen the video of you,” she pointed at me, “telling Ivan some things. There was so much feedback from his fans toward you after that—”
She was bringing that up, wasn’t she? Great. Now whoever didn’t know about it was going to look it up.
Shit.
“—was that simply both of you playing around then?” she kept going.
I went tense. I was pretty freaking sure that my eyes were almost bugging out of their sockets, and the fact I was pressing my lips together, probably made my face even worse. Shut up. Don’t say anything. Shut the hell up.
So I nodded. Slowly again. Feeling like I was about to burst from the lying.
Beside me, the idiot, the complete moron, hit his leg against mine again, and he said in that ragged voice that wasn’t his at all, “Yes. We play around all the time.”
Damn it. Damn it. I wasn’t going to laugh. I wasn’t going to deny. I couldn’t.
I had promised Lee that I could do this. That I could pretend we were friends.
“Jasmine is wonderful,” Ivan basically choked out, somehow not bursting into flames as he said them. “What a sense of humor.”
I had to fist my hand and dig my nails into my palm to keep from reacting. What a shit liar. Oh my God. And he gave me hell for being bad at lying.
I cleared my throat and plastered on a smile that felt like melted rubber as I said, “Ivan is great,” I pretty much spit out, going “heh” at the end, as I remembered our conversation not that long ago about having voodoo dolls of each other.