I froze. Don’t look at Ivan. Don’t look at Ivan. Don’t—

His knee knocked mine, and it was only because I was familiar with his voice—mostly his smart-ass voice, but whatever—that I noticed how off it sounded, almost choked, a little gravelly… weird. “You can say that,” he said slowly in that awkward voice.

I was not going to laugh. I was especially not going to laugh at this idiot. So all I did was nod. Slowly. Very slowly in agreement.

Amanda Moore’s eyes slid to my direction to see me agreeing, and a little smile came over her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve seen the video of you,” she pointed at me, “telling Ivan some things. There was so much feedback from his fans toward you after that—”

She was bringing that up, wasn’t she? Great. Now whoever didn’t know about it was going to look it up.

Shit.

“—was that simply both of you playing around then?” she kept going.

I went tense. I was pretty freaking sure that my eyes were almost bugging out of their sockets, and the fact I was pressing my lips together, probably made my face even worse. Shut up. Don’t say anything. Shut the hell up.

So I nodded. Slowly again. Feeling like I was about to burst from the lying.

Beside me, the idiot, the complete moron, hit his leg against mine again, and he said in that ragged voice that wasn’t his at all, “Yes. We play around all the time.”

Damn it. Damn it. I wasn’t going to laugh. I wasn’t going to deny. I couldn’t.

I had promised Lee that I could do this. That I could pretend we were friends.

“Jasmine is wonderful,” Ivan basically choked out, somehow not bursting into flames as he said them. “What a sense of humor.”

I had to fist my hand and dig my nails into my palm to keep from reacting. What a shit liar. Oh my God. And he gave me hell for being bad at lying.

I cleared my throat and plastered on a smile that felt like melted rubber as I said, “Ivan is great,” I pretty much spit out, going “heh” at the end, as I remembered our conversation not that long ago about having voodoo dolls of each other.

The leg beneath the table hit my knee, and it took all of my self-control to not say a single word, because obviously he was thinking something similar. Don’t laugh. Don’t choke. Keep it together. Professional. United and all that shit.

But the lies must have been evident because the reporter almost immediately frowned and glanced at Ivan—who I had no idea what kind of facial expression he had on his face because I might die if I actually looked at him—and then glanced back at me. “Is there something funny?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ivan shake his head. “No. Nothing. We respect and admire each other a lot.”

Oh my God.

My shoulders shook for the two seconds it took to get them under control.

Respect and admire. Of all the things he could have said, he literally went there. That time, it was me that banged my leg against his beneath the table.

Something, which I was pretty sure was the back of his hand, hit my forearm under it too.

“So much respect and admiration,” I ground out, barely holding in a choke as I nodded.

“I’ve always been a big fan of Jasmine,” the idiot continued on.

“Me too,” I warbled out, trying to smile again and more than likely looking like a serial killer. “Ivan is a very likable guy.”

She gave us both a funny look for a moment before either deciding to let it go, or believing us. I didn’t care. “What are your favorite strengths of Jasmine’s skating?” the woman asked.

“Oh, you know….”

I didn’t even move my knee that time, I just kicked him. Straight-up kicked him in the shin. Not hard, but hard enough.

“She’s a tremendous athlete,” he finally got out, hitting my forearm again.

“And you, Jasmine, what drew you to want to partner up with Ivan? Other than the fact he’s the reigning world champion,” she asked.

“What more is there?” I got out with a shrug, taking the easy route, despite her comment rubbing me the wrong way.

“I know you haven’t been together very long, but if there was one thing you wanted to say to the other, as a criticism, what would it be?”

I jumped on that real quick because I didn’t trust Ivan. “Criticize this guy?” I ground out, tapping my heel against his, lightly as a warning and a reminder. “Oh, there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Everything he does is… perfect.”

I almost gagged at the effort those words took.

The smile that came over the reporter’s face was just about a beam. “That’s sweet.”

Ivan’s heel hit mine.

“And you, Ivan? What about Jasmine?”

It hit it again.

“A criticism? Jasmine is… too nice.”

The woman blinked at the same time I did. “Too nice?” she asked, not even offending me because really? That’s what he was going to go with?

I glanced at him at the same time he was nodding. “Yes. Too nice.”

She probably wasn’t even expecting the “huh” that came out of her mouth because it came out so swiftly. I looked over at her and blinked. Then she blinked too… like she couldn’t believe that had slipped out of her mouth.

Bitch.

Maybe I wasn’t the warmest, cuddliest person in the world, but I was nice.

Or as my mom would say, “when I wanted to be.” But that was my mom. She had earned my love and deserved it. She could say whatever she wanted to me.

“What do you think about your old partner and Mary McDonald announcing they’re competing this season?” she asked out of nowhere.

Just the mention of my “old partner” and then bitch-ass Mary McDonald afterward ruined everything about the day so far. Just like that. My whole body tensed.

Then Ivan kicked me. Literally kicked me.

But it snapped me out of it. It only took me a second to get my thoughts together and say, “I don’t think anything about it.” Maybe I should have said, I wished them luck or the best or something, but I wasn’t that good of a person.

“Is it true you haven’t spoken to him since your last season together?”

I wasn’t going to count the one night I had called him drunk and upset right after he’d ditched me. He hadn’t answered, but I had taken advantage of it. I was pretty sure I had called him a weak little pussy bitch, but… I wasn’t positive. All I knew was that I didn’t regret anything that had come out of my mouth. Whatever it had been, he deserved.

“No, we haven’t.”

“Is it true that he sent you a text message to tell you?” she had the nerve to ask about the rumor that had been circling for some reason I didn’t understand. I had never brought it up to anyone other than my family, so I knew it hadn’t come from me.

Plus, the truth was… he hadn’t told me. Period. I’d found out when he’d announced Mary and him were taking the next season off to train together. That’s how I’d found out. From an article. Two days after we had started our planned one-month break.

Spineless bitch.

“Can we talk about Jasmine and me instead? I thought Coach Lee had mentioned that we didn’t want to talk about our partners in the past,” Ivan cut in suddenly, his tone that snooty shit one that I usually hated.

…until then.

The woman’s face went pink, and she nodded quickly. “Yes, sure.” But she didn’t apologize for bringing up a topic that they had already told her not to. I hadn’t known they had done that, but I appreciated it. A lot more than I thought. “What are your expectations for the season?” the woman continued with, not missing a beat.

“We’re going to do well,” Ivan answered, almost immediately. “Better than well.”

“What do you mean by that?”

The heat and muscle of his thigh fully rested against mine, but I didn’t move. “That means I don’t expect this season to go differently than any other season.”

The woman’s eyes went wide. “You think so?”

I was watching him as he did his slow nod. “I know so.”

“You’re not taking the season off?”

Little did she know we only had a season together. I didn’t have time to spare.

“No.”

“You’re that confident?” she asked with a smirk of amusement on her face, like she loved his confidence. Ugh.

“Yes,” Ivan answered immediately.

She tipped her head to the side like “okay” and glanced at me. “What do you think? Is it possible?”

Maybe normally I would have made a joke, but she had already insulted me more than I deserved. So I didn’t. “I think Ivan is one of the best competitors in this sport. I think I’ve already learned a lot from him, and I’m going to keep learning a lot from him.”

Damn, that sounded good. Even I almost believed it.

“But you think it’s possible to skip through a learning period?”

“Yes.” At least I could hope. But no one ever believed someone who sounded hesitant.

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you think you’ll be able to get over the nerves that have plagued you in the past?”

She was back at it again with the condescending shit that fast? Goddamn.

Be better. Be better. Be better. You can do it.