The look he gave me….
“You’re my friend, Jasmine. Not just my fucking partner. Don’t give me that bullshit.”
I reeled back at his tone and watched his face get furious.
“I want you to be safe because you matter to me. You think I bring my partners to my house? You think I let them into my life? You think I spend time with their families? I don’t, and I never have. I learned my lesson when I was a teenager and my partner tried to blackmail my family by saying they paid for us to win our junior events. That’s why I do contracts now, to keep it professional. I don’t ever want to be as unhappy as I was after my first partner did those things to my family and me. But you….”
Well… I hadn’t known, had I?
And if I suddenly wanted to open two cans of whoop-ass on his bitch of a juniors partner, I would think about it later.
“You. Matter. To. Me. You. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you because of me,” he kept going, his voice rising. “I’ve known you since you were a little kid, helping my sister off the ice when she fell. You didn’t treat her different because of her last name like everyone else did. You didn’t ask her about me. You and Karina just picked each other. I know the things you did for her, she told me. She told all of us about Jasmine Santos who isn’t scared of anybody. About Jasmine who doesn’t like unicorns because she likes Pegasus, because they can fly.
“I wanted you to be my partner for years, dumbass. When Karina had told me you were thinking about switching to pairs, I had thought you would say something to me, even in passing as a joke. I thought you would say you were going to kick my ass, and I had planned on talking to you over it. But you never did. The next thing I knew, you had a partner. Some dipshit that wasn’t half as good as you.”
Was I on imaginary drugs again?
“Do you remember that? Do you remember that I didn’t talk to you for six months after that?” he asked me, his entire focus on me.
And I nodded because I did. I remembered how he’d come back at me with a vengeance out of the blue, talking so much shit over those next two years, I wasn’t sure how my ears didn’t bleed and how I managed not to key his car.
“You’ve been in my life for thirteen years. How could you not think I don’t care about you? We fuck around with each other because we both like it. Because there’s nobody else we can fuck around with that can handle it.”
I mean… he was right. He drove me crazy, he always had, but he was the only one I could talk to on that level. He had annoyed the shit out of me for years.
But…
But…
My mouth gaped open, and I was silent.
I—
He—
Well—
His hand went to take mine from where it was laying limply on the table because… I was shocked. Surprised. Totally and completely caught off fucking guard. “I don’t want anything to happen to your stubborn, mouthy, mean ass. My partner or not my partner. Do we have that clear?”
What. The. Fuck?
“But I’m not letting you get away with this crap. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy. But I’m not putting up with your secretive shit, or your bullshit, so you need to get used to it. You could have told me about your mom’s accident. About the letters and the comments. You could have told me you weren’t feeling well, Jasmine. But this ends now. This is the way it’s going to be. Okay?”
Safe. Happy. Not putting up with my shit.
I didn’t say a word, but he must have taken it as an agreement because he let go of my hand and sat up straight, ending the conversation with a look I wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Now that that’s over with, I’m going to take the dogs for a walk. Want to come? If you get too tired on the way, we can drag you back.”
Chapter 16
“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
Behind the wheel of his Tesla, Ivan shrugged a shoulder and spoke the second sentence he’d decided to deem me with all day. “You won’t get anyone sick. Your contagious period is over already.”
If he said so.
I’d spent most of the day sleeping on and off in the guest room that Ivan had dumped my stuff in the day before. I’d been so distracted by his pets, that I hadn’t noticed when he’d gone back outside to grab the bag that I’d dropped on the ground.
After dinner, we had taken the dogs on a long walk. Apparently he had 103 acres forty minutes outside of the city, and he took the dogs—and the pig—on a walk every day he could. Twice a day, he had a woman named Ellie come by to feed all of them, give them their medications, and let them out to run around while he was at practice. With me.
Who the hell would have known?
I wanted to know what had made him get so many animals, but the truth was, I didn’t know how to speak to him after the night before. No one had ever spoken to me like that before. At least no one that wasn’t my mom.
He said he wanted me to be safe and happy. And that it had nothing to do with us being partners.
What did it have to do with? I wanted to know. But I was too scared to ask and find out because what if his answer ruined what we had built up?
I didn’t think the truth was worth it.
So after a walk I’d bet was at least a mile long, I’d silently followed him to the living room and taken a seat on the opposite side of the couch from him, getting surrounded by Russ and an eight-year-old, three-legged Husky named Queen Victoria who had decided she liked me a lot. Ten minutes on the couch with a dog on my lap and one along my side, I passed the hell out and only woke up hours later when Ivan flicked me on the forehead and marched me half asleep to my room with his hand on the back of my neck.
And I hadn’t been too half asleep to not remember that I’d crawled under the covers, and that it had been him who had dragged them up to my chin, then followed that up by palming my forehead before he’d turned off the light and left.
I slept in the next morning and didn’t get up until almost noon, which said just how awful I felt. Ivan had been gone, but he’d left a note on the fridge that said he’d be at the LC and would be back around one, and that I shouldn’t worry if a woman came into the house because it was the pet-walker/caretaker, Ellie, who usually came at seven in the morning. I’d been asleep, obviously.
So I took advantage of it. For the next hour, I snooped through his house and found more things about Ivan that surprised me.
The rabbit alone had a big, fancy play area and house in one of the five bedrooms. It was honestly nicer than my own room.
He had four big dog beds and one small one in his giant master bedroom, and I was pretty sure they were custom Tempur-pedic mattresses. I’d sat down on one with Russ, who had been laying down outside of the room I was sleeping in with the Husky, Queen Victoria, and decided even their beds were more comfortable than the one I had back home.
Ivan kept a tube of lube in one of his nightstands—and my stomach had only given a dull pulse of dread that I pretended hadn’t happened.
His house was immaculate.
There weren’t any beauty products in his bathroom, which meant that perfect skin of his came naturally—total bullshit. But I did find a tin container of organic hair shit in one of the drawers.
I didn’t find any condoms anywhere.
But I did find a room filled with trophies, plaques, and two gold medals.
He had a desktop computer with a password I couldn’t break into.
The only pictures he had up were either of him with his family, candids of his pets, and his family in general. I happened to be in two of them.
It was all very interesting.