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“I’m not going to be able to partner with you for the Games, Chandler. I know I’m on track with my healing, but I can’t see myself being ready to get back on the ice for months – and I mean several of them – and you can’t lose that time. So, I want you to do this thing with Belle, yeah, but you need to find a guy you can compete with since the IOC isn’t adding same-sex partners to the program anytime soon.”
“You sound like Cat.”
“You take that back.”
She laughed and said, “Fine.”
“Hey, I’m about to pass out. The pain meds they gave me make me sleepy. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I am okay. I want you to be okay, too, so get some rest.”
“I will. Text me tomorrow and tell me how it goes.”
“I will,” she said and hung up.
It wasn’t exactly early, but it also wasn’t late. She couldn’t just lie around in a hotel room, but she also couldn’t go home because she’d made a big deal about them getting rooms for a couple of nights to make it feel like any other competition that didn’t happen to be local. She decided to get up and go to the gym, where she could run off some of her pent-up energy. She changed into her workout clothes, grabbed her room key, her phone, and her wallet, and headed down to the hotel’s gym, which wasn’t nearly as nice as her at-home one, but it would serve her purpose nicely.
She found the place empty, and with two treadmills, she could get a quick run in and then go back to her room for a shower and sleep. Chandler set the treadmill and started her warm-up jog.
“Hey, Chandler. No time, no see.”
She turned in surprise when she heard someone say her name.
“Um… Hi,” she said and quickly ran through every guy she’d ever met, trying to put a name to the face of the one now standing by her treadmill.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked with a disarming laugh.
“No, I’m so sorry,” she said and stopped the treadmill.
“No worries. I’m Griffin Hanks. I’m Tamara’s coach. Or, I was before she moved on with someone else. Now, I’m coaching Emily Hampton.”
“Oh, right. I remember now. We met at–”
“The regional last year, yeah,” he said. “Nice to see you again. I thought you lived here, though.”
“I do. I’m staying at the hotel to make it easier on me instead of going back and forth. Hotel’s closer.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, how have you been? I saw that Walker Wilcox is out for a while, and you’re with a female partner.”
“Belle Elrod, yes.”
“So, you’re not trying to make the team anymore? I thought you and Walker were going for it this cycle.”
“We were. I still am.”
“But–”
“I know we can’t compete in the Games,” she said, knowing where this was going. “Belle is helping me out right now until I find a male partner, which I’ll do any day now,” she added, lying through her teeth.
“Cool. Emily has a chance this cycle, I think.”
“She’s been skating really well. I didn’t know she’d changed coaches, though.”
“Bianca retired a few months ago, so Emily gave me a chance,” he explained.
“Well, good for you and her, I guess,” she said.
“So, what else have you been up to since I last saw you?” He leaned on to the bar of the treadmill.
