Page 84 of About to Fall

We didn’t talk. Not at first. There was nothing to say that our bodies weren’t already saying—every touch carrying the weight of that corridor, Renaud’s face, the way Adrian had stepped in front of me like protecting me was the most natural thing in the world.

I pulled his shirt over his head. He dragged mine off just as quickly, and then his mouth was on mine, his hands on my hips pulling me close. It wasn’t the frantic collision of Osaka. This was just as intense but there was nowhere to hide inside it.

I held on to him, fingers buried in his hair, and kissed him with all the things I couldn’t bring myself to say. There was still urgency between us but it no longer felt like an escape valve. It felt like surrender—the need of two people who were finally too exhausted to keep pretending this was something they could resist.

After, tangled in the sheets with Paris glittering outside the window, Adrian traced patterns on my shoulder and said, “I don't want this to just be hotel rooms.”

I turned my head to look at him. “What?”

“This.” He gestured vaguely between us. “I don't want it to just be competition hookups. Sneaking around. Pretending we're just training partners.”

“What do you want?”

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was smaller than I'd ever heard it.

“You know, no one's ever actually asked me that?” He stared at the ceiling. “My parents want an heir. The public wants their Olympian. Renaud wants me to medal. Everyone's always had a plan for me. I've just never been consulted on it.”

“So what does Adrian want? Not what anyone else wants for you. Just you.”

He exhaled—slow, shaky, like the question itself was something he had to brace for.

“I want to try. For real. Dating. Boyfriends. Whatever that looks like. I genuinely don't know what that looks like. My parents' marriage is a business arrangement and I've never made it past a third date. I don't know how often you're supposed to text someone. I don't know if we tell people. I don't know what the rules are.” He met my eyes. “But I want to figure it out. With you.”

My chest ached. Not the tightness that preceded the panic and the spiralling. This was the ache of being offered something precious by someone who had never offered it to anyone before.

What did I have to offer him? A whole collection of issues, curated over 21 years. The people pleasing, the inability to be alone for more than five minutes without reaching for the nearest warm body, the pills on a bathroom floor. I would get clingy. I would overthink. I would try to be whatever he needed instead of what I actually was.

But Adrian had issues too. The avoidance. The deflection. Keeping everyone at arm’s length because his parents had taught him love was a transaction. He would pull away when things got real. Make a joke when things got too heavy. Flirt with everyone in a room because it was easier than being sincere, then get jealous the second someone else looked my way.

I knew all of that. He knew all of mine. Neither of us had flinched.

Maybe that was the whole point. Not two whole people building something perfect, but two broken ones wanting to be there for each other despite their shortcomings.

“Adrian...”

“You don't have to answer now. I know it's complicated. I know Renaud is going to be a nightmare. I know we've got the Olympics in two months and this is probably the worst possible timing for two people who should be focused on literally anything else.” He laughed, hollow. “I just needed you to know. That this isn't casual for me anymore. Maybe it never was.”

I reached up and traced the script along his collarbone. Fall seven times, get up eight.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Okay. Let's try.”

His smile was blinding.

36. Adrian

I took second at the final. Eked out by fractions of a point by Shimizu. Normally it would bother me—silver when gold was right there, the podium but not the top of it—but I was too wrapped up in Nicky to care.

The fall had followed him into the free skate. Another underrotation, another hand down, the kind of cascading errors that happened when you were stuck inside your own head. He'd finished fifth. Not catastrophic for Olympic qualification but not the statement he'd needed to make either. Renaud's scowl in the kiss and cry had been brutal. No encouragement. No acknowledgment that Nicky had pulled himself together for the second half of the program. Just that cold, disappointed silence that I was beginning to understand was worse than yelling.

We landed back in Toronto after midnight. Multiple delays. A fitting end to a trip that had been equal parts breakthrough and torture. Nicky was mine now—officially, undeniably mine—but I still wasn’t allowed to touch him in public. Not even in front of Sabrina, who had caught him sneaking out of my room that very morning and hadn’t said a word, just shook her head and walked toward the elevators.

We were too recognizable. Pink hair and a golden prince weren’t exactly inconspicuous. All I wanted was to hold him, kiss him, pull him against me and let the rest of the airport blur into nothing. Instead I sat next to him on the plane and held his hand under the blanket while we watched Avatar, which was as close to romance as we were allowed in public.

Renaud was staying a few extra days to visit friends, which meant at least we didn’t have to dodge him. Nicky’s car was waiting for us in the extended stay lot. Ever the gentleman, he dropped Sabrina off first, then glanced at me.