Rodrigo’s face shifts, hope trying to break through caution. “Like, paying attention how?” he asks carefully.
Cecilia’s gaze turns to him. Protective again, immediate. It’s almost automatic.
It does something sharp and warm inside me at the same time.
I keep my voice steady. “In the way people should have paid attention sooner,” I say. “We’ll see what we can open up for you by the end of the program. What do you think?”
Cecilia watches me like she’s weighing the sincerity. I don’t want to say too much just now. We don’t know yet what we can actually make happen, although I’m willing to try anything.
I can feel the room behind us. The noise. The movement. The way this sport is always performing even when it claims it’s relaxed. I know there are people waiting to talk to me, to remind me of all my achievements in a long, numbered list because it seems it’s the only thing that matters now that I’m retired.
Rodrigo shifts his weight in his too-small suit. “Ceci,” he murmurs, like he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing.
Cecilia’s attention stays on me. “We’re here to train,” she says flatly. “Not to be recruited into someone’s narrative.”
Nina’s eyebrows lift, impressed despite herself. She glances at me like she’s sayinggood luck with that.
My throat tightens in recognition.
Because Cecilia’s right. This sport eats people. It chews them into inspiring stories and spits them out when theystop being profitable. I’ve seen it again and again with countless Team USA athletes across all winter disciplines.
I hold her gaze. “Fair,” I say simply.
Cecilia blinks once. Like she didn’t expect agreement.
Rodrigo looks between us, confused and anxious. “Ceci?—”
Cecilia’s hand comes up, a small gesture that stills him. Then she turns to him and her voice softens again, her own private dial for him and no one else.
“Eat something,” she tells him. “Then we go.”
Rodrigo nods, obedient. He picks up a piece of bread from the table beside him like he’s been given permission to exist again.
I take the opening before Cecilia can disappear.
“I noticed your calm at the boards,” I say, keeping it casual, not a compliment that begs for gratitude. “When he rushes, you don’t rush with him.”
Cecilia’s gaze snaps back to me. “You were watching that closely.”
I shrug lightly, like it’s nothing. “It’s what I do.”
Cecilia’s mouth tilts, barely. Not a smile. Something sharper. “Commentary is usually louder than that.”
“Commentary is performance,” I say. “This isn’t that.” I regret the sentence as soon as it’s out, because it sounds too personal, too close to true.
Cecilia watches me, and something in her eyes changes.
Nina clears her throat quietly. A reminder: the room is watching, even if we pretend it isn’t. Cecilia glances past me, scanning the space the way a coach always scans the ice.
Then she looks back at me. “Enjoy the reception,” she says, polite just like a door is polite when it closes.
I should let her go. I should.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Cecilia.”
The way her name feels in my mouth is the most inconvenient thing I’ve experienced all week.
She pauses. Just a beat.
