Page 83 of About to Fall

Something in my chest loosened. Just slightly. Just enough to take in a full inhale.

I turned to find him leaning against the wall, arms crossed, expression deceptively casual. He was still in his competition makeup, glitter catching the fluorescent lights. His eyes found mine for a moment—I'm here, I've got you—before shifting to Renaud.

“This is a private conversation,” Renaud said.

“Sounded like an invitation with how many times you dropped my name.” Adrian pushed off the wall and moved closer. My breathing started to even out. He was here. I wasn't alone. “He's had a difficult year and he's been struggling with his mental health and you just keep pushing and pushing. You don't get to speak to him like that. I don't care who you are.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Adrian's voice was calm but there was steel underneath. “He's not distracted. He's exhausted. You rushed him back. He needed months, not weeks, and you knew that—you're his coach and his uncle and you should have been the first person to pump the brakes.” He glanced at me. Continued anyway. “Instead you put him back on international ice before he was ready because your Olympic timeline mattered more than his recovery.”

Renaud's face went purple. “You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I have eyes. I watch him train every day. He's running himself into the ground and you're standing here telling him he's unfocused?” Adrian stepped between us, putting himself physically in Renaud's path. “He fell. It happens. He'll come back in the free skate and land every jump and you'll take the credit like you always do. But don't stand here and blame him for struggling when you're the one who built the machine that's grinding him down.”

The silence was absolute. No one talked to Renaud like this. No one.

“Zhao.” Renaud's voice was ice. “I suggest you remember who is trying to help you get back to the Olympics.”

“I suggest you remember that I've got six other coaches who'd take me tomorrow.” Adrian smiled, sharp and dangerous. “My talent isn't the problem here. Neither is Nicky's. Maybe look a little closer to home.”

He turned, grabbed my arm, and pulled me down the corridor before Renaud could respond.

“Adrian—”

“Don't. Don't apologize, don't make excuses for him, don't tell me I shouldn't have said that.” He pulled me into an empty warm up room and shut the door. “Someone needed to say it.”

“He's going to make your life hell.”

“Let him.”

He said it like it was nothing. Like standing in a corridor and telling Jean-Pierre Renaud that he was the problem was barely a thing and not the kind of move that could end a career.

And he'd done that for me.

Adrian's hands came up to cup my face. His thumbs brushed across my cheekbones and I leaned into the touch without meaning to. “Are you okay? Forget the scores. Forget the fall. Are you okay?”

I stared at him. At this ridiculous, impossible man who'd just torched his relationship with his coach to defend me.

“I don't know,” I admitted. And the honesty of it—the sheer, exhausting relief of not saying I'm fine—made my eyes burn.

“That's honest.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Come to my room tonight. I don't care if Sabrina sees. I don't care if Renaud finds out. Just—come.”

“Adrian—”

“Please.” His voice cracked on the word. Adrian Zhao, who never cracked. Who wrapped everything in sarcasm and swagger.

I kissed him instead of answering. Grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into me and kissed him like I was drowning and he was the surface. It was reckless and desperate and tasted like salt because at some point, I'd started crying. His arms locked around me and he held on—just held on—and I let myself be held.

◆◆◆

I watched Adrian's short program from the green room with my hands clasped between my knees and my heart in my throat. He skated like a man with something to prove—every jump explosive, every transition sharp, his whole body channelling the same furious energy he'd aimed at Renaud twenty minutes ago into something the judges had to reward. The quad flip was massive. The step sequence was electric. He attacked the program like it had personally wronged him and by the time his final spin wound down, the arena was on its feet.

First place after the short. Of course.

I went to his room that night.

He opened the door and I kissed him before he could say a word. Pushed him back into the room, kicked the door shut behind me, and pressed him against the wall with a force that surprised us both.