"Did you get the flowers I sent?" Ian asked, approaching Emily with the excuse of helping her set up the spring board for her vaults.
"Yes," she replied, colder than expected, "I did."
"And?" he pressed.
"And what?"
"Don't you have something to say?" he said pointedly. "A thank you, perhaps?"
"Oh, right. Thanks," she deadpanned. If she weren't so proud, she would've confessed to him that when she'd read the card in the bouquet, a brilliant smile had grown across her face. He might not have seemed the type, but Ian could be exceedingly sweet and tender when he wanted to be...and the flowers had reminded her of just how deeply he loved her.
"Well, now, try to hold back some of your enthusiasm," he remarked, shaking his head.
"Excuse me?"
He sighed heavily. "Emily, I don't know how to deal with you anymore. It seems like everything I do is wrong..."
"Ian, I'm just asking for a bit of consistency... You don't want me to show you affection in the gym, but you get jealous of every boy that so much as looks at me – when, might I remind you, you're surrounded by girls all day long. You ask me to marry you, but then you make a big jealous scene over a stupid commercial I filmed with some jerk from school, then the next week, you send me flowers. So, excuse me if I don't know how to deal with you either."
For a moment, he just started at her, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, and she started to worry that his infamous temper was going to flare out at her in front of everyone. Then, voice uncharacteristically small, he said, "You're right."
She blinked up at him in surprise. "What?" she finally managed to stammer. She'd never heard him admit he was wrong before...
"You're right," he repeated. "I've been behaving childishly. If you tell me there's nothing going on with this boy, then I should trust you."
She pursed her lips to keep herself from rubbing in the fact that that was exactly what she'd been saying all along...but he was admitting fault and she didn't want to discourage that.
He continued on, "It's just that sometimes I have a hard time believing that you want me, when you're surrounded by boys like him – young, handsome athletes who aren't, well..." He gestured vaguely at himself as he trailed off.
If they hadn't been surrounded by people who could never know about their relationship, she would have wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him to reassure him that there was no one else she wanted. As it was, though, she simply smiled up at him and whispered, "There's no one else."
He smiled back at her for the briefest of moments, then cleared his throat. "I want to see that extra practice paying off today."
Ian had been working with her in the evenings after the gym was empty to try to improve her vault score. They'd been practicing the Amanar Vault – she could make it through the round-off onto the springboard, the back handspring onto the table just fine...it was the following two and a half twists that she couldn't quite hit. Namely, the last half a twist.
Emily groaned, but nodded.
"Let's get moving, Ladies!" Ian called out to the crowd of gymnasts moving through their warm-ups. "I want to see medal-worthy performances today!"
Moving off to the side to watch the other gymnasts practice their vaults, Emily tried to resist the urge to chew her nails. Vault was her least favourite event – it had never been her strongest event and it frustrated her to no end that she couldn't quite master it no matter how hard she tried.
She stretched out her shoulders, rolled out her neck, keeping warm and limber while she waited. She wasn't looking forward to practicing in front of everyone, least of all Chloe who excelled at vault and who would never ever let her live it down if she couldn't land a solid six point vault today.
Ahead of her in line, Chloe bounced in place a few times, then sprinted down the runway towards the springboard, launching into a round-off, then a half turn onto the table, and into a Rudi. It was a notoriously difficult vault with very few gymnasts even attempting it, let alone doing it well.
Silently, Emily wished she'd bobble her landing, but of course, she stuck it perfectly. Cheers rang out from the waiting gymnasts. And, to Emily's great displeasure, Ian clapped.
As Chloe stood there panting, grinning at the accolades, Ian approached, clapping her on the shoulder. "Well done, Chloe," he murmured to her, just loud enough that Emily could hear. Then, raising his voice to be heard across the gym, "See, Ladies, this is how you train when you want to make the Olympic team. Chloe worked her ass off and she just landed a flawless Cheng Vault. I want to see the rest of you working this hard and then, maybe we've got a shot at Gold this year."
As Ian turned back to Chloe, leaning down to murmur something in her ear, Emily sank her teeth into her bottom lip, trying to stifle a growl. Who the fuck did Chloe think she was? And how dare Ian kiss her ass just because she landed a vault a tenth of a point higher than the one she was working on?
And how dare he give her shit for spending time with Derek when his hand was on the small of Chloe's back, dangerously close to her ass...
Quietly seething, it took her a moment before she realized everyone was staring at her, waiting for her to take her turn at the vault. Chloe stood there, hands planted on her lips, grin entirely too smug, like she was already expecting Emily to fail, ready to rub it in her face when she did. And Ian...well, he wasn't even looking at her.
With a slow measured breath, she shook out her limbs and made a split second decision before taking off sprinting. With a forward handspring, she landed on the table, into a forward tucked double salto.
For the briefest of moments, she thought she was going to land it. Then, she came crashing to the floor, landing on her neck with a sickening crunch of bone.