A few guilty coughs rippled through the room.
Nathan sat up straighter, though he still whispered, “Worth it.”
I elbowed him in the ribs. “Time to start thinking with thebighead, dude.”
Mark waited until the noise settled before continuing.
“You’ve all seen the media coverage by now. Predictions, rankings, narratives.” He shrugged once. “None of that changes the job. We execute. Everything else comes afterward.” He made his way around the room, handing out folders.
The room steadied after that because Mark understood athletes better than most coaches ever did.Strip away the noise. Return people to the work. Keep them moving.
I let the words settle while the meeting rolled on around us: travel timing, practice ice, recovery schedules, media restrictions.
Usually that rhythm pulled me back into place.
Tonight another face kept intruding.
Blue eyes. A measured voice.
The way his face changed whenever he forgot to control it.
I stared down at the folder in front of me without reading a word.
The unsettling part wasn’t that I kept thinking about him.
It was that I no longer seemed capable of stopping.
Luka
The meeting broke apartthe way federation meetings always did, efficiently, with nobody questioning the expectations that had just been handed down.
Mila rose from her chair, and I followed her into the corridor without discussion. Years of partnership had made that automatic.
For a while we walked in silence.
Then Mila said, “Where exactly are you right now?”
My stomach tightened. “I am here.”
“With me physically, yes.” She kept her eyes ahead. “Mentally is another issue.”
“We are five days fromcompetition.”
“That is not an answer.”
I looked at her. Mila’s expression remained calm, which was usually a bad sign.
“You stopped listening halfway through the meeting.”
“I heard every word.”
“That is not what I said.”
My jaw tightened. “I am thinking about skating.”
“No, you are thinking about something else.” We walked a few more steps before she added, “I need to know whether it becomes our problem.”
The wordourhit harder than the rest.
