Текст книги "These Battered Hands"

Автор книги: Laurel Ulen Curtis

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Together.

That’s how we always traveled to events in my parents gym, and the Olympic trials were no different. Most of the girls were traveling as spectators, or for a lucky few, as volunteers for the event. They’d act as runners for judges, communicating and shuffling scores, and getting water or other necessities. They’d help with the exchange of mats and equipment that needed to be moved, but mostly, they’d just get to live a childhood experience they’d never forget.

But coaches and gymnasts traveled in the same van, the same plane, the same train—whatever. It was one of the rules of the gym. And it hadn’t changed even now, at twenty-six years old and two Olympics deep.

But this time, it meant something different.

It meant traveling with Nik.

As I stood in line behind him at security in Atlanta International Airport a little less than two weeks after the first time we’d made love, my hands itched to touch him. Just to hold his hand and brush the ridiculous hair out of his face.

The problem with affection had shifted, going from inexperience and insecurity with the newness of it to the inability to stop doing it in just the matter of that time. The scrutiny and limitations traveling with my parents imposed only enhanced that urge.

He’d been wearing his hat all day, but with security regulations he’d begun the routine of stripping down. First went the shoes and belt, followed by the hat and sunglasses he had perched atop his head.

His jeans still looked good, and the laughable plain white t-shirt party had yet to end. I guess it made his outfits easy to coordinate, and the switch from athletic wear to motorcycle garb seamless, but I couldn’t help but laugh about it.

He heard me.

“What?” he asked, as he stepped away from the conveyor belt and into the line for the scanner machine behind several of the younger girls within our party.

They all laughed and giggled in front of him, too young to let the serious scrutiny of the TSA stop their antics for a second. My mom and dad had gone through first, so that they could be on the other end to keep track of everyone as they came though, and Nik and I were bringing up the rear to keep everyone together.

I could tell they were crushing on Nik, checking out his many assets and wondering what it’d be like to be with a guy his age. They weren’t coached by him directly, as I took up all of his time, but it wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to romantically idolize him even if he was.

After all, no one knew how attractive and talented he was better than I did.

Cognizant of his tendency to poke fun at my expense, I nearly bounced on my toes at the prospect of getting back at him.

“Oh nothing,” I said loudly enough that everyone in the nearby area could hear. I waved a hand in front of my nose like a flag and scrunched my face in distaste.

“I was just imagining all the boys in the security office who just got a nice video shot of your fart.”

“What?!”

The girls behind him covered their mouths and giggled, bringing their free hands up to their noses to guard against the imaginary smell. They probably actually smelled it too, such was the power of persuasion.

I continued on with ruse, smirking more with every ounce of annoyance that coated his handsome face. “They’ve got an infrared camera, you know,” I explained with a smile. “It shows the cloud and everything.”

“Cal!” he whispered, exasperated.

I bit my lip to stop my smile.

God, he was cute when he got annoyed. Maybe this was why he poked at me all the time.

When the girls moved through the scanner and out of eye and earshot, I scooted up behind him and fit my body to his.

“Sorry, dear,” I apologized insincerely.

He smiled and shook his head, turning to look at me. “What the hell was that?”

I shrugged and put both of my hands on his hips. “The girls have a little crush on you.”

He scoffed a laugh. “I’m pretty sure you can change that ‘have’ to past tense now.”

My smiled through a facial shrug. “Probably. Good thing my crush is still very much present.”

“Good thing, indeed,” he agreed, looking around before pecking me softly on the lips just one time.

His feet moved into an easy jog when I shoved him gently at the prompting wave of the screener. He held my eyes until he couldn’t anymore.

Hands above his head in the required position, the scanner scooted to one side and back again, and I used the brief window to admire the small strip of skin that had been exposed at the bottom of his t-shirt.

The process moved quickly, and I stepped into the machine just as a female TSA agent stepped forward to read my scan. Everything came back clear, and given permission to move on, I stepped forward to the conveyor belt and retrieved my belongings. Flip flops slipped on easily and my cross body bag passed easily over my head to settle on the opposite shoulder.

Nik was already halfway dressed, shoes on and his belt through the first three loops. My parents and the giggling set of girls stood ten feet away waiting.

I looked up to find my dad’s eyes watching closely, so I didn’t linger, instead scooting by a still dressing Nik and over to the waiting group.

One of the girls cleared her throat a couple of times after being pushed and prompted by the two others. I watched with curious disinterest until she finally got the courage to do what she intended.

It just so happened, the thing she intended was talking to me.

“Um, Calia?” she murmured timidly.

My eyes snapped into focus, taking in her sweet preteen face and the confident and mature way she held her body. In some ways, gymnastics forced you to grow up fast. It took more discipline than most adults could manage.

“Yeah…” I paused, hoping someone would fill in her name.

“Amanda!” all three girls answered at once.

I smiled. “You’re all named Amanda?”

Panicked eyes flashed between them as they hurried to explain.

“No!”

“No, just me.”

“She’s Amanda.”

“Right. Got it. So, just the one Amanda…what’s up?”

Her mouth curved up to frame her bright green eyes and a nervous hand reached up to twirl the end of her blond ponytail. “We were just wondering what it feels like to be in the Olympic trials.”

“Yeah! Is it intense?” one of the others chimed in.

“Are the other gymnasts nice?” Amanda added.

I took a minute to think about it. “It’s kind of the same as every other meet,” I said. “Sure, there’s pressure, but there’s always pressure. And yeah, I’ve never met anybody there who isn’t nice.”

As I spoke, I felt Nik come up behind me. He kept his distance, and all accounted for, the group started to walk. My dad started up a conversation with him, but I found it virtually impossible to pay attention to them and the girls at the same time.

“But isn’t it weird not to have your teammates there yelling for you and stuff?” the final one asked, speaking for the first time.

Almost at a loss, I tried to make the answer as upbeat as possible. “Well, I don’t know. I haven’t competed with a team there to root for me in a while. I guess it’s probably a little different.”

“We’ll root for you!” Amanda promised immediately.

“Yeah!”

“Totally!”

The others agreed. “We’ll make sure we yell real loud for you and everything,” Amanda promised.

Overcome with emotion, my eyelashes fluttered with an unstoppable series of blinks and my throat tightened noticeably. Maybe because I hadn’t expected it or I’d grown accustomed to going without it, but for some reason, the feeling of not only acceptance but friendship was so overwhelming it nearly brought me to my knees. I couldn’t believe how wrong I’d been about everything and everyone and the way I related to them.

And it kind of made me wonder what else I’d so strongly thought was right, was really all wrong.

Somehow, I forced a smile. “Thanks, guys. That’s…Well, that’d be really great.”

“You got it, Calia!”

Finally to our gate, they settled into their seats and my dad ended his conversation with Nik on a handshake. My mom settled in next to the girls with a book, and my dad headed off to the bathroom or to get food or something.

Nik came and sat next to me.

“What did my dad say to you?”

He could tell I was worried and shook his head. His voice was low. “He just told me that he sees a difference in your gymnastics. Thinks I’m doing a good job.”

“Wow.” I frowned a little. “He didn’t say anything to me.”

He usually didn’t though. He believed in punishment and critique but not so much in praise. I always kind of felt like it should be the other way around.

Nik tried to comfort me, doing so without touching me because of all of the prying eyes. “Hey.” I looked back to him. “He noticed, right? And now I’m telling you what a good job you’re doing. You don’t need him to say it to you.” He pushed his hands down the line of his thighs and sat back. “In fact, you don’t need me to say it to you either. All you need is to say it to yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“Besides,” he smirked. “I hear you got yourself an enthusiastic cheering section of eleven and twelve year old girls.”

“You heard what they said?”

“Couldn’t have tuned them out if I tried,” he laughed. “High pitched.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that’s a twelve year old thing too.”

He pretended to ring his ear with a shaking middle finger.

My dad moved to his seat beside my mom as our conversation came to a close, and with it came a change in our interaction. He kept his body angled away from me and the topic turned strictly to business.

He reminded me of all the skills I’d been doing really well with and what he thought to be the reasons, and I picked his brain on the things that seemed to give me trouble. My tumbling had been making steady improvements since I’d started tumbling with him at night. He had the best pointers and did a great job of explaining.

And when I was open to suggestion, he became endlessly patient. He didn’t expect me to get it in one go, and he didn’t get mad when I messed up.

He only did that when I stopped remembering who I was talking to and foolishly thought I knew better.

The sound of the gate check agent starting boarding forty-five minutes later was like music to my ears. I’d played it down with the girls, but the truth was, I was nervous. Big time.

People had expectations of me, and I had plenty of myself. This was my last shot at everything. My last Olympic trials, my last chance to do the best I possibly could.

I wasn’t eighty, but my time was up. My body didn’t have four more years to give, and more importantly, I didn’t want it to.

Once on the plane with Nik seated next to me, I relaxed. My dad was on the other side of the cabin several rows back, and I finally felt like I had some time to decompress. I wanted to be able to lean on Nik physically and emotionally, and for now, I had to do it in secret.

Nik leaned forward and reached into his bag, pulling out a smaller brown paper bag from inside. When he sat back in his seat, he turned to me and smiled his most boyish smile.

“What?” I asked, knowing something was up by the way he was acting.

“I got you something. Just…for a little extra good luck.”

My face pinked with excitement, and the bag landed in my lap with a thump as he dropped it there. “It’s not much, so I don’t want you to get overly excited.”

“Shush,” I demanded, unrolling the top of the bag and digging around until I came out with one of the items.

Bandaids. All purple.

Skepticism ripened my face and puffed the very tops of my cheeks as I dug around for the next item.

A keychain with miniature grips.

I smiled, thinking they were cute, but not knowing the reasoning behind them and good luck.

I shook the bag and still heard a rattle, and he nodded in confirmation that something was left, so I reached inside one last time and pulled it out.

A tiny bottle of New Skin Liquid Bandage.

My eyebrows pulled together in question.

He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just stuff for your battered hands.”

My eyes met his as he socked me with one of the most powerful gifts anyone had ever given me.

“So you can keep fighting and clawing and scratching. That stuff—and I—will be here to take care of you when you’re through.”

“Nik,” I breathed out in a heartfelt whisper.

“Oh, wait,” he called as if he’d just remembered. “There’s something else too.”

Confusion clouded my face. The bag had been empty after the New Skin. I knew it had.

Reaching over and grabbing that very item out of my hands, he twisted off the cap, and pulled out the handy little brush that was attached.

“Turn over your hand,” he instructed, waiting for me to place my palm up in front of him. I did as he asked, smiling at the feel of his hand as it cradled the back of mine, and the precision with which he painted the thin layer of clear coating onto my skin.

But when I looked down, it wasn’t clear—at least not entirely—a pretty purple glitter glinting out of the coating and off of my hands as the bandage dried.

“What…” I started unable to finish.

He shrugged both of his broad shoulders and pressed his palm to the still tacky surface of mine. When he pulled it away, the a shiny, glittery layer of new skin covered both of our palms.

“Just a little extra magic.”

And better yet, when I looked at it, I could imagine his hand on—

Mine.

She was mine, and I was hers. The way she’d looked at me thanks to a few stupid gag gifts had nearly blown my mind.

So much so, it had made the trip to Michael’s first thing that morning to buy purple glitter more than worth it.

But I had to be on my very best behavior now. She’d been through five or six press interviews before this and was finally finishing up her last one. They all asked her the same stupid questions about being too old and too greedy, and at the repetition of them all, it wasn’t hard to see why she’d formed such a skewed view of herself in the first place.

Finally, one of them asked a different question, but I wasn’t certain it was better.

“Word is that you were outstanding in practice yesterday. That you’ve always been talented but taken it to a whole new level. If that’s the case, what do you think has helped you reach such an unlikely peak at an age that’s largely considered too old for the sport?”

Arms crossed on my chest and feet shoulder width apart behind the guy asking the questions, I rolled my eyes.

Callie’s eyes came to me.

“My new coach. He’s really helped me look at things in a different way lately.”

My chest squeezed double the amount I considered comfortable, both affection and panic exerting their grip simultaneously.

Just as I suspected it would, the reporter’s interest skyrocketed. “And who is your new coach?”

Callie gestured over his shoulder to me, and I did my best not to cringe. I didn’t want her to feel like she’d done the wrong thing, but I wasn’t excited about the new attention either. The more they watched me, the more I’d have to watch myself, marking my actions in some hollow version of their normal intensity.

I’d have to watch the way I looked at her and spoke to her, and I’d have to do even more than I already had to.

“Nikolai Bagrov,” she touted proudly.

I smiled if only at the affection in her voice.

“He’s the third ranked power tumbler in the world and makes my tumbling look like child’s play.”

I closed my eyes briefly in resignation.

The interviewer turned to me and back again. “What’s he doing coaching you then?”

Callie went to answer, but I cut in and did it before her.

“I’m retired,” I explained simply.

Callie’s eyes opened wide in surprise, perhaps because I hadn’t officially told her, or maybe because I spent all of my nights tumbling with her. She knew I was still in competitive shape, but from the moment my parents died, I’d been done. My heart still loved the sport but I didn’t have the competitive edge.

I just wanted to have fun. And now, I wanted to coach Callie.

I’d deal with what came after that when I got to it.

I did my best to steel my face, schooling my expression in to one of dry disinterest. I didn’t want him to get the inkling that there was something more or less to the decision or that anything about me was worthy of his interest.

The media on scrutiny was well and intrusive enough.

The interviewer shrugged, turning back to Callie to ask more questions.

With a nod and a jerk of my head, I signaled her that it was time to be done.

She understood.

“I don’t want to cut you short, but I’ve really got to get going and get prepared for tomorrow,” she explained with a sweet smile I recognized as fake from a mile away.

No one else was any the wiser.

I knew part of it was a genuine disinterest in the interview, but the other fraction of its plasticity came from me and her inability to get a read on why my mood had taken a nose dive into the shitter.

“Right, no problem. Good luck tomorrow,” the guy agreed easily, knowing the long day she had ahead of her tomorrow and counting it as normal.

“Thanks,” she replied, shaking the man’s hand and coming to meet me where I stood.

“Let’s go,” I directed shortly, careful to walk beside her without touching her as I did.

She could feel the uncertainty wafting off of me, a nervous fidget making her normally smooth walk choppy. But this wasn’t the place to explain, so I ignored it, walking with my eyes pointed on the ground as we weaved through the crowd in the lobby of the hotel, waited on the elevator, climbed on, and rode it in silence to the sixth floor and our rooms.

“My room,” I directed, knowing that the possibility of her father coming to her room was much higher than him coming to mine.

“What?” she asked as soon as the door closed behind us. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Nik.”

Frustrated, I ran my hands down my face, and then pulled off my hat and pushed them through my hair. She shoved my arms out of the way and stepped into my body, wrapping her arms around me and looking up with big eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, concerned.

“Nothing, Cal,” I non-answered.

She glared at me.

I widened my eyes in apology and opened my mouth like a fish before the words formed. “Really. I’m sorry for worrying you. They’re just gonna be watching us now.”

“What do you mean? They were always going to be watching us.”

“No,” I corrected. “They were going to be watching you. I was going to be just another part of the white, fuzzy background noise.”

“Oh,” she mumbled as she tucked her face into my chest , distraught.

“It’s fine.” The cotton of her shirt rasped slightly with the soothing motion of my hands up and down the back of it.

She pulled back enough to look at me again, forcing me to loosen my arms marginally. “I just didn’t think it was fair that I was getting all of the attention when you’re better than I am.”

“I’m not better than you are,” I denied.

“At tumbling?” Her scoff cut the otherwise silent air. “You so are.”

I shook my head good-naturedly, my frustration easily replaced with affection.

Man, I was in deep with her.

“It’s just hard not to touch you,” I admitted, capturing the end of a strand of her long, brown hair and wrapping it tightly around my finger.

“Oh,” she murmured, enlightened. “I understand.”

Her arms tightened their hold, fingertips digging in through the material of my shirt and scraping at the skin underneath. I nodded at how in sync we were. Marveled at how our thoughts seemed to connect to one another.

“You’re horny,” she said simply.

Exactly.

Wait. What?

That wasn’t what I thought she was going to say.

“No—”

“If you wanted me, you just should have said something.”

“Cal—”

“After all,” she said, widening her eyes meaningfully, “We’re alone now.”

Glancing around the dark room, I noticed the drawn curtains and the closed door and the utter silence from the rooms on either side.

Oh. OH.

I smiled and lifted narrowed one eye playfully, dropping my voice to a raspy whisper. “Do you want me, my little Pea?”

Nodding, she smiled in victory, and my body reacted almost immediately. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Would you say that my fulfillment of this want is essential to your focus during the competition tomorrow?” I prompted with a raise of one brow.

“Yes,” she agreed, bouncing her head enthusiastically. “Definitely.”

“So, really, I’m just doing my job,” I reasoned jokingly.

She pushed me to the bed, happiness radiating from her eyes and straight into the heart of me, and broke me with one simple line.

“Come on, Nik.” Climbing me like a jungle gym, she settled one leg on each side from the top. “Get to work.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked as we lingered in the hall waiting for her name to be announced and the grand march into the gym to begin. Her mother and father were in the stands, and for that I was grateful.

I didn’t plan to have any inappropriate conversations or picture the things we’d done the night before, but we had a routine.

Day in and day out we worked together alone, and that was what we’d become accustomed to. I needed her to feel free to tell me anything she needed to, and I needed to be able to do the same.

In one smooth move, she stood up from her bag and turned to me, lifting both of her hands in the position for a double high five.

I obliged without complaint or question, smiling just as she did when our hands came together and I felt the sticky indication that the gesture wasn’t about high-fiving at all.

“Great,” she said as I pulled my hands away and immediately looked at them. Purple glitter sparkled from the surface. “Ready to fight.” I looked from my hands to her eyes, and that’s when she finished. “Like I have a little bit of magic.”

“I can’t wait to watch,” I told her truthfully, knowing it was going to be the likes of which I hadn’t seen before.

She was more than ready.

The music of the march started, and knowing I had to, I stepped away. She forced her eyes forward and bounced her head to the beat, her tight, smoothed-back ponytail bopping as she did.

Her shoulders were low and her head was raised high, her feet pointed to precision as she began her elegant walk out to the floor.

The line surrounded her, some in front and the rest trailing behind, and when the majority of them cleared I stepped to the end of the hall and turned left to head straight for what I knew would be her first event. She was starting on Vault, what I liked to think of as her neutral event. I didn’t expect her to bring in her highest score, but it wouldn’t be bad either.

She’d recently learned to harness her power a little better. I waited to the side with the other coaches and glanced to the floor as they announced her. She looked up to the crowd with a smile and a wave, turning from one side to the other and back again before standing still back in line. Down the line like a wave, the rest of the girls followed suit in alphabetical order, most of them nearly ten years younger than she was.

Some glanced at her with curiosity, but the others stayed focused, keeping their eyes on the ground or blankly ahead of them, no doubt running through some form of detailed visualization.

It was a heady thing, coming to a competition where you had to show your best or risk losing everything. You could be one of the best performers in the sport at your home gym, but if you didn’t leave it all on the floor on competition day, none of your fancy skills meant squat.

The introductions finally done, the floor cleared and gymnasts scattered in every direction. Callie came directly to the vault, going over to her bag that I’d carried over for her and pulling off her warm up suit.

Her leotard was still purple, the short clipped velvet of the suit portion fading into the mesh and sparkly sleeves with a gradual ombre effect.

She rocked her ankles back and forth, curling the toes of each foot into the ground and pulling back on her toes with her fingers, before bending at the hips and stretching her palms straight to the carpeted floor.

Bouncing to move the muscles further, she came back to standing, twisting back and forth at the hips and then finally throwing each arm individually across her chest to loosen those.

Drills took over, the act of throwing her arms above her head as if setting up for a skill nearly getting lost in a sea of girls doing exactly the same thing.

She wasn’t the first up, so I walked to her instead of standing up by the vaulting table. I didn’t intend to talk to her unless she talked to me because, honestly, she knew everything I could possibly say to her. She didn’t need me to clog her head with a rote listing of the rules, and she didn’t need me to know what was at stake.

She knew all on her own just by looking at the crowd and the judges and into the eyes of her competition.

All of these girls wanted it. Wanted it in a way that clouded the air and threatened to choke you with its oppression.

Think about the pressure you feel after studying for a test for a week, putting in the work and time and effort to do well, and magnify that times a million.

Every athlete there had spent their life preparing for this very day. Whether that meant twenty-something years or seventeen, it didn’t get much more intense than that.

I pulled my eyes from Callie to watch Jillian Kristone take her turn on Vault. She chalked her hands and wiped her feet on the floor, cracking her neck from side to side, then practicing her set and twist.

I knew she’d be doing a Yurchenko two and half, just like Callie, what had become the new standard since every gymnast was capable of it in the Olympics four years ago. A skill that once seemed impossible now towed the line as the minimum. The progression was staggering.

The difference in scoring mostly came from the height and distance, as well as the form.

Jillian Kristone was one of the best vaulters in the country and arguably one of Callie’s biggest competitors for the day. Large and explosive, she knew how to convert her body’s energy into useful speed and blocking.

But where Jillian excelled in power, Callie dominated artistic merit.

And, thanks to a little pushing from me, my girl was looking pretty powerful in her own right.

With a salute to the judges, she scooted onto the runway, glancing at her mark on the thick foam carpet to make sure she was at the right distance. It was the kind of thing girls double checked and triple checked, Callie included, because one step off would be the bearer of more than one step of consequences.

Down the runway she went at a hard run, into her round off, backwards off of the springboard and onto the table, and up and off, twisting and soaring with great form and distance. She took a big step on the landing though, her power almost too much for the amount of rotation.

I looked back to find Callie looking on, a determined gleam in her eye and a smile hugging just the corner of her mouth.

She was in the competitive zone, ready, feeling the experience of having done this two times before and excited to use it to her advantage.

She climbed the stairs to the vaulting platform without a word, knowing she was next, and I did my part by walking down to the end of the platform with the table.

I climbed the stairs as well, adjusting the springboard to her positioning and making sure the mat was snug around it.

I cleared the space, going back down the stairs and standing back to watch as she repeated much of the same routine Jillian had performed. Chalk on the hands and feet, wiping the feet on the floor.

She did do one thing differently though, saluting the judges and looking down to check her spot, but stopping to look at her hands on the way back up.

My chest swelled and heaved as I glanced at my own hands. Excitement tore through my body at the same speed as her run, each step toward the springboard like a pound of my heart. Her body stretched in preparation, twisting into her round off, slamming off of the board and onto the table, blocking perfectly, and soaring through her two and half twists.

Her feet hit the mat and stuck as if suctioned to the ground.

Raucous cheers hit me like a wave, the crowd instantly on their feet to cheer for her.

I couldn’t clap my hands hard enough or scream loud enough, the cupping of my hands around my mouth meant to help Callie, and Callie alone, hear my voice.

“That’s it!” I yelled as she stepped off the mat and jogged down the steps closest to me.

She flew into my arms for a hug, and I embraced her fully, savoring the scant second before I released her again.

We walked together toward the other end where her bag lay on one of the chairs and her smile was infectious.

“Three more events like that, yeah?” I asked as she walked next to me, her hand on her hip and her breathing labored from the exertion.

She smiled and nodded, grabbing her bottle of water from her bag and taking a big swig.

Immediately, the lion’s paws came off and the focus shifted. She’d be going to Bars next, and the preparation started then. It didn’t matter what her score was or what had happened only moments before because it was in the past and nothing could be done to change it.

Not all gymnasts had the ability to compartmentalize like that, breaking a meet up into parts and separating them with bolted and locked doors once they were done. One fall on one event couldn’t be the reason you crumbled, just as one success couldn’t be the reason you lost focus.

Her grips came out of the bag along with a roll of pre-wrap and tape. I grabbed it from her hands without saying anything and directed her over to the side and out of the way. I helped her wrap both wrists, enjoying the opportunity to be close to her as I did.

Her score flashed on the LED screen that ran the circumference of the arena just as it blasted over the loud speaker. Her head came up to take a look at the fifteen point eight, but that look was it.

I could feel the camera over my shoulder, zoomed in on her face to get her reaction.

This was a huge event, and every moment of it would be immortalized on TV and internet everywhere. Maybe that was the reason we didn’t say all that much. Neither one of us knew when someone was there or when the camera was on.

Callie didn’t let it bother her though. She moved with the ease of someone watched and filmed twenty four hours a day for a reality show—like the cameras weren’t there.