Page 24 of About to Fall

“As if I would willingly step foot in Toronto.” He shoved another handful of cereal in his mouth and talked around it. “Sounds like you’re making friends though. How’s it going by the way?”

“It’s… you know. Fine, I guess.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. What’s ‘fine’?”

“Renaud is a bit of a dick. The program is very serious. And the other skaters aren’t exactly welcoming me with open arms since I kinda threw off the food chain and all.”

He swallowed. “How’s the prince that was promised?”

I should have expected it.

I had mentioned Nicky in passing in a few text messages, always framed in annoyance. He had listened to me complain about him on and off for years. The golden boy. The nepo baby. The prince on his pedestal.

How was I supposed to tell him that Nicky had brought my drunk ass back to his apartment when I couldn’t remember Cam’s address? That he’d taken care of me? That I’d drunkenly confessed I was attracted to him?

Just thinking about it made me queasy all over again.

“Fontaine is Fontaine,” I said.

“So you still hate him.”

“I never said I hated him.”

“Bro. You told me—and I’m quoting—that he was ‘everything wrong with figure skating.’”

“That’s not hate. That’s an observation.”

“You said his face made you angry.”

“It does make me angry. That’s a different thing.”

Bash chewed slowly, watching me through the screen. “Okay. So you don’t hate him. Beef squashed. You guys cool?”

I pressed the back of my head into the couch cushion, not wanting to see his face when I confessed what had happened.

“I was so wasted last night,” I said. “And Fontaine was the DD. And even though we’re far from friends, he offered me a ride home because that’s how much of a good guy he is. But I was drunk off my ass and couldn’t remember Cam’s address and my phone was dead.”

Bash snickered. “Classic Adrian.”

“So he took me back to his place…”

“Oh no. Did you fuck him?”

I tilted my face back to the screen to glare at him. “I don’t fuck everyone I go home with.”

“Your body count says otherwise.”

I rolled my eyes. “I was way too drunk to fuck anyone.”

“But you wanted to?”

“Did I say that?”

“You didn’t not say it.”

“Fine, he’s objectively attractive and I’m not dead inside.”

“Just horny.”