I waited for the room to settle before answering.
“We knew people would react,” I said at last. “At some point it felt weirder to keep hiding it than to be honest.”
I got the feeling I’d said something interesting. Several reporters started speaking at once before the moderator restored order.
“So, the kiss wasn’t spontaneous?” somebody called out from the middle row.
Luka answered before I could. “No, it wasn’t impulsive. We’d both spent a long time deciding what we were no longer willing to hide.”
A few people stopped typing after that, and I felt the mood in the room change.
They just realized this isn’t recklessness unfolding in front of them.
I knew Luka had thought about every word before walkingthrough that door. He sounded controlled, but underneath it sat years of restraint finally cracking open.
The next question was more cautious.
“Does this affect your future professionally? Are you reconsidering where or how you train?”
Luka’s shoulders tightened, and I reached across the narrow space between our chairs to rest my fingers against his wrist. He breathed deeply, then gave me a warm smile before facing the audience.
“I’m not making major decisions today. But I am done making choices based around fear.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Mark’s expression. For a second there he looked proud enough to break my heart.
Luka wasn’t done.
“For a long time, I let other people tell me what parts of myself were acceptable. I’m not interested in doing that anymore.”
A murmur rippled through the room at that.
I leaned forward. “We’re handling things the same way anyone else would.” Then I smiled. “We just happen to be doing it in full view of Olympic cameras.”
That earned a few laughs, enough to break the tension. A reporter near the aisle spoke next.
“Will you continue publicly as a couple moving forward?”
We’d expected this one.
“Yes,” Luka said, his chin held high. “In the sense that we’re no longer pretending otherwise.”
I picked up the thread before anyone could twist it and make it uglier. “But we’re not turning our relationship into a performance either.”
Several reporters exchanged more looks after that, and I saw curiosity, as if they were trying to recalibrate the story they’d expected to tell.
The moderator checked the clock. “We have time for one final question.”
A journalist on the back row raised her hand.
“What happens now?”
Luka rubbed a hand across his mouth. I could see how exhaustion was catching up with him, visible in the slower movements he’d stopped bothering to hide.
“I rest,” he said with a shrug. “I spend time away from cameras. Then I decide what I want my future to look like without other people making those choices for me.”
The honesty in that answer silenced the room more effectively than any rehearsed response could have.
I looked toward the room. “And whatever comes next, we’ll deal with it privately.”
