“PINCH OF SAFFRON. No, a pinch. A pinch, Robbie! That isn’t a pinch!” Anastasia takes a deep breath, forcing a smile as she fishes out the mountain of saffron Robbie just added.
“My bad,” he mumbles, taking a real pinch this time.
“It’s okay. Sorry for shouting.”
Stassie is teaching Rob how to make tajine zitoune, which is Sabrina’s favorite meal. I bet Stas ten bucks she’d lose her cool with him before the food was cooked. It’s a chicken dish with olives and vegetables, which Stas claimed would be easy for him to make, but I think he’s sweating from the stress, and every time she’s about to say something, her eyes flick to me first, and she says it calmly.
Brin feels a bit homesick knowing she’s not going back to New York for winter break. Her family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so her parents are traveling to Algeria to visit family, and she doesn’t want to stay with one of her brothers.
Robbie was supposed to be traveling home with me, but after speaking to his parents last night, they’re going to come here. Reece, Robbie’s older brother, is a bodyguard and is currently deployed overseas, so he won’t be home anyway, and they’re looking forward to a warm Christmas.
He hasn’t told Sabrina yet, which might be why he’s suddenly motivated to make her favorite meal.
“You’ve got to let it all get to know each other in the tajine,” Stassie explains semi-patiently. “But you can’t let it burn because I did that when she taught me, and she got super mad.”
“No burning. Friends in the pot. Got it.”
Walking around the counter, Stassie slides into the seat beside where I’m working, reaches for her textbook, and resumes studying.
Weirdly—now I’m forced to bow to the planner—I’m on top of all my schoolwork for the first time since I started at Maple Hills. We train together, brush our teeth side by side, and cook the same meals. I have no clue what we are, but I like it. We’ve taken playing house to the next level.
She doesn’t say anything about my ten bucks as she sits next to me, concentrating on her work; she just lets her leg gently rest against mine.
This is where I’m at right now—grateful for leg touching. Having her here all the time but not being able to touch her has been difficult, continues to be difficult, and will likely only increase in fucking difficulty.
It’s been two weeks since Aaron reacted in the most Aaron way possible by swearing at her and insinuating she’s a slut. She was a wreck when I picked her up that day, sobbing as she stood outside her building clutching an overnight bag.
Promising it would only be one night, we built a pillow barricade to respect our agreement not to overstep our friendship. That was two weeks ago and I’m still sleeping on the other side of the pillow barricade. On the bright side, we’re getting to know each other properly. When we’re lying on either side of our barricade at night, we talk about anything and everything until one of us falls asleep first. It’s always her; I’ll never get tired of hearing her talk about herself.
In a weird, twisted way, I’m glad. If things were different, I’d have spent the past two weeks buried inside her instead of getting to learn what makes her tick. We’d have achieved nothing. I might have even dropped out of college to stay home and find out exactly how many ways there are to make her scream my name…
But I can’t think about it because we’re friends now, and the only time she screams my name these days is on the ice.
“Stassie?” Robbie calls. “I think they’re buddies now. What do I do?”
Hopping off her stool, her fingers trail across the bottom of my back as she walks past, sending a jolt up my spine. She looks at the dish, nodding proudly. “Looks good. Take it off the heat, and we’ll get the other stuff out when she’s here. Nailed it.”
“What are we having, chef?” I ask her playfully, closing over my textbook, officially bored.
My calculations were correct, and she was undereating by following Aaron’s plan. It’s one of the only times in my life I’ve hated being right. Brady approved the plan I designed, perplexed why Anastasia would ever eat so little in the first place. Stas didn’t want to drag Aaron into it, pointing out that she’s still going to have to skate with him, and ratting him out to her coach would only make her life difficult in the future.
Anastasia and Sabrina don’t believe Aaron would be so messed up to do it on purpose, arguing he’s just too stubborn to admit when he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but that’s an argument for a different day.
Part of the changes to Stassie’s eating plan is giving her more exciting food to eat than salad and chicken. We’ve all taken turns teaching her different dishes, or she finds something online she likes the look of, and I adapt it to meet her macros. I don’t think either of us anticipated the fear she’s developed through this disordered way of eating.
She can rationalize having what she calls a cheat meal to a certain extent, but understandably, changing 99 percent of what she eats has been highly overwhelming for her to process. I tried to plan things slowly, but she said she doesn’t have time for slow, and she’ll just get on with it. I know warning signs when I hear them, but she’s promised to talk to her therapist about it, so there isn’t more I can say.
It’s not that she doesn’t like the food she’s eating, she has this unwavering fear of gaining weight and being too heavy to lift or not fitting into her skating outfits. It’s scary—practically conditioning—making me question how many times she’s heard it.
“JJ wants to teach me how to make an authentic Indian curry. I accidentally told him I’ve never made one that didn’t originate from a jar, and he said something about offending his ancestors.” She takes her phone from her pocket, and I know she’s checking her calorie app without even looking. She looks up at me for reassurance. “We can make it work, right?”
“Traditional Indian food is good for you. It’s basically vegetables, spices, meat, lentils, or whatever you’re putting in. Nutritionally, it’s very well-rounded,” I explain, emphasizing the nutritional benefits first. “It’s the westernized convenience version that’s pumped full of crap. Somewhere along the line, the whole cuisine has been demonized. We can definitely make it work.”
“Okay, he should be home from the gym soon.” She tucks her phone away and holds out her hand to me. “Let’s stretch you out, my little figure skater.”
I groan, putting my hand in hers and letting her drag me to the living room.
It’s been two weeks of sore thighs, toe picks, and fucking ballet. Two weeks of her proving she’s a better skater than I am. Two weeks of Brady staring at me like she’s staring into my soul and learning all my secrets. Everything fucking aches: my ass, my thighs, my calves. I might be strong, but I’ve learned I am not supple.
Lying down on the floor, I raise both of my legs. Using the weight of her body, she holds my legs against herself and leans forward, stretching my hamstrings.
Me moaning with my legs in the air is always the perfect time for JJ and Henry to get home. It’s hard to judge their expressions from my position on the floor, but I hear JJ laughing to himself. “Me next, Stassie.”
Henry stands beside us, head tilted as he assesses what we’re doing. “Does it feel weird to be on this side of the body bending, Anastasia?”
She presses down a bit more, making my hamstrings scream. I love it and hate it in equal measure, but the discomfort means I don’t register what Henry says until she answers him. “You know what, Hen. It does feel weird, yeah.”
As much as their shit is usually at my expense, I’m glad the guys keep Stas distracted enough to not obsess over Aaron. He’s been blowing up her phone with apology after apology. It was a moment of anger, he said, he didn’t mean to shout at her. But she’s hurt, and she’s questioning her judgment.
Friendships are important, but so is living in a healthy environment, I overheard her say to herself when she rejected his tenth call. Everyone has progress to make.
I tell her every day she can stay as long as she wants to. Selfishly, I love having her around all the time, and so do the guys. They’re as on board with her staying as I am and told me to stop being a dipshit when I offered to book the two of us into a hotel. They don’t want her going back to Aaron any more than I do.
Sabrina is Switzerland in all of this. Naturally, she was ready to incinerate Aaron, but Anastasia asked her not to get involved and live where she felt comfortable. Robbie immediately tried to tell Sabrina she should stay with us away from Aaron, but she hit him with the most patronizing “Aww Habibi” I’ve ever heard.
She told him there was an error with his membership, and trying to tell her what to do was husband tier. If he wanted to upgrade from the boyfriend tier to the husband tier, he needed to provide a gigantic diamond. Robbie immediately pointed out she wouldn’t listen to him if they were married. To which Brin smiled smugly and pointed out she said trying and not that she’d actually do as he asked.
Despite Robbie’s boyfriend-tier status, Brin is here all the time anyway, which I think makes living with four men easier for Anastasia. Not that she likes people to see it, but Sabrina does have a soft side, and how much she loves Stassie and Robbie is definitely at the center of it.
After Brin gets home and inhales the food Robbie made for her, she and Anastasia claim that being surrounded by so much testosterone is rotting their brains, so I drop them both off at the movies for some girl time.
Not to make things uncomfortable with the planner slander, but Stassie has been filling her time with unnecessary stuff. Living here has been a culture shock for her because nothing gets done when it’s supposed to.
I can see how uncomfortable it makes her when she feels behind, so I do my best to stick to her timeline while still reminding her that sometimes taking a change of plan is good—like an impromptu trip to watch some romance movie.
Pulling into the driveway back home after dropping them off, I notice a car I don’t recognize parked in my spot. My phone rings as my keys twist in the door, and when it swings open, I don’t need to ask who is calling me or why.
“Nathaniel,” my dad says curtly. “It’s nice to confirm you’re alive.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I blurt out.
“You mean in the house that I paid for, where my only son lives? Or in California?”
The superiority in his tone has bile rising in my throat. I truly don’t know how Sasha and I have been raised by someone so fucking obnoxious and not turned out like him.
Visually, it’s like looking in a mirror that shows your future. Same hair, same eyes, same face basically. There’s unfortunately no doubt whose son I am. But his personality, Jesus Christ. It would be like if I had Aaron’s personality or something.
“Both.”
“You haven’t been answering my calls.”
“You flew one thousand miles because I’ve been too busy to answer your calls? Are you for real?”
I haven’t even noticed the guys are also here until I notice them all shuffle into the den in my peripheral vision. It’s always been awkward for me because all their parents are nice. Henry’s moms live in Maple Hills and even they don’t drop in on us unannounced.
“I traveled because I have business in California. I’m here because I wanted to see you.” The caring father act has always been a favorite; if you don’t know him, it’s almost convincing. “As I said, you haven’t been answering my calls.”
I sit on the couch, mirroring his seated position on the chair across from me. It’s all suspicious, my gut is yelling at me that something is off.
“What business could you have in LA? You know it doesn’t snow here, right?”
“Don’t pretend to know anything about our family’s business.” His façade slips. “You don’t mind spending family money on your tuition, or your house, or that hundred grand car you drive. You just don’t like contributing anything.”
Leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees, I sigh, refusing to engage in the same conversation we’ve been having since I graduated from high school and told him I wasn’t going to study business at Colorado State. “Why are you here, Dad?”
“Your sister is unhappy.” No shit. “I need you to talk to her. She says she wants to quit skiing.”
Sasha doesn’t want to quit skiing. It’s the only thing she can say to him to get him to listen to her. “What else is she saying?”
Eyebrows furrowed, his hand rubs against his jaw. Fuck, even our movements look the same. “What do you mean?”
“She didn’t just come to you and say she’s quitting. What is she asking for that you’re ignoring? What does she want? God, I shouldn’t have to teach you to parent your sixteen-year-old.”
“Watch your tone, Nathaniel.”
“Do you even listen to her?” My voice gets louder, the anger bubbling in my chest. “She’s not a freaking racehorse, she’s a little girl. She doesn’t exist to win trophies for you. She has needs! You’re lucky she hasn’t filed for emancipation.”
I want him to shout back, for us to argue this out, but he just stares at me with a blank expression.
“She loves skiing, you know she does. She wouldn’t be as good as she is if she didn’t love it. But she needs breaks, Dad. She needs care and attention, and to know that how much you love her doesn’t depend on how clean her runs are.”
“She wants to go on vacation for Christmas.”
I knew he’d know; I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s been asking for months, and he’s ignored it. “See? Easy. Take her to St. Barts or something. Let her lie on a beach, read a book, chug a virgin piña colada or two.”
Without missing a beat, he ignores what I said and nods toward the stairs. “There appears to be a woman living in your bedroom. Where is she?”
He catches me off guard, clearly his intention. His only intention usually, as demonstrated by turning up here uninvited. When the initial shock subsides, the realization hits, and for the first time, I’m glad Anastasia isn’t here.
“How did you get into my room?”
Standing from the chair, he straightens his suit jacket. “Because I remember my own wife’s birthday.” The air changes. Cools. Suffocates me. I don’t even know. “Well, you’re clearly busy and don’t want me here. I’m staying at The Huntington if you decide you can tolerate the man who has given you everything you’ve ever wanted for the length of one meal. I fly home in two days.”
And with that final fake self-pity act, having gotten what he came here for, I watch him leave.
