Chapter 8: Vancouver Tessa & Sochi Scott

The National Qualifier crept up on Lily. Two weeks of preparations passed in a flash. Before she'd known it she'd been on a train to Sheffield with James and Malcolm – yes, the Qualifier wasn't nearly important enough for their main coach to go with them.

She'd felt like she'd been in a trance the entire two days of competition. She kept going over every single one of their elements during her downtime. Minerva still wasn't entirely pleased with their twizzles but had accepted them as they were for the time being.

Lily would probably say their lifts were their best element yet. After she'd fallen on the straight line lift exit, she had been nervous to try it again, she wanted to do it, but she couldn't help but eye James's pants pocket warily before he picked her up. James had surprised her though when he'd caught her looking, he'd pulled on the fabric of his pocket a little to show the little disruptor had been sewn shut, and then he'd proceeded to tell her he'd had all his pants' pockets sewn shut. Lily had been so shocked, she'd only responded with an, "oh."

Their step sequences were also a little rough, but she tried to tell herself there was nothing she could do about it at the moment.

As predicted by everyone in the world, they'd won the Qualifier easily. When Lily looked at their protocol sheets though, she wasn't as sure of the direction she wanted the partnership to go in as she'd thought.

She and James had been quiet on the train back home. He had looked at the protocols but hadn't pored over them as intensely as Lily had. Their scores weren't bad, but they weren't as high as Lily had hoped. They'd missed one key point in the Ravensburger Waltz, and none of their step sequences had been level four – the highest – all of which had cost them several technical points. Lily would've liked for their component scores to have been a little higher too. The only section of the program components that she had been entirely pleased with had been their skating skills score, at an 8 and 8.15 in the short dance and free dance respectively. Their performance and interpretation scores had just been sad though.

Now, Lily wiped tables at the diner as she looked at the clock, waiting for the second she could go home. It was a surprisingly slow night for a Saturday, but Lily guessed that was more due to the fact that it was Halloween and people were out partying or trick-or-treating or whatever it was people did on Halloween.

Amita, Lily's co-worker, a woman in her early thirties, approached Lily as she stepped behind the counter. "Hey, look who just walked in."

Lily looked in the direction in which Amita had just wiggled her brows. A boy around Lily's age, with blond hair and kind blue eyes, had just sat at his usual table. Lily knew he was a regular, but as he seemed her age, she'd expected him to be out partying tonight.

"He's sat in your section though."

"I'll trade you for the next customer that sits in your section," there was a mischievous glint in Amita's eyes.

Lily raised a brow. "Why?"

Amita shrugged. "He's cute and you haven't dated anyone since Eugenie, and that was almost a year ago."

Lily huffed but headed over to the blond's table without another word. Lily tried to avoid thinking about Eugenie as much as possible. She'd been a French skater who had trained at Alexandra Palace for about a year, Lily had dated her for half that time. Eugenie had been so independent and free-spirited and cool, Lily had been obsessed with her from the moment she saw her. But then she'd split up with her partner and moved back to France. Lily had thought they were going to do long-distance, but Eugenie had had other plans. It still stung, but a little less with time.

Lily took out her notepad as she reached the boy's table. "Hi, what can I get you?"

He looked up, an easy smile on his face. "Just a black coffee for now, please."

Lily nodded and walked away.

Amita grabbed Lily's arm as she returned to get the coffee carafe. "What was that? You barely talked to him!"

Lily shrugged. "What was I supposed to say?"

"I don't know just be flirty! Smile or something."

Lily scoffed. "Fine."

She went back to the table and poured the coffee.

"Hey, can you help me with something really quickly? I mean, if you have time," the boy said.

Lily looked up at the rest of her tables, only one was occupied, which she knew already. "Sure."

He smiled. "Take a seat, please." He motioned to the seat in front of his.

Lily looked over at the counter. She didn't know where the manager was, but Amita nodded at her enthusiastically, probably having inferred what was happening. Lily sat, setting the carafe on the table.

"I'm Luke," he said.

"Lily."

"You see, Lily, I'm writing a play about a dysfunctional family and one of the main characters is a teenage girl who has a terrible thoughtless boyfriend, and I'm having some trouble figuring out what the girl's no-bullshit best friend would advise her about said boyfriend. You seem like a no-bullshit kind of person – in a good way – so I'm wondering what you would say in that situation if you were the friend," Luke explained.

Lily cringed a little at the words 'play about a dysfunctional family' but decided she would humour the guy. She inhaled. "I guess if it were one of my friends, I would tell her to get a grip and that I know she's a lot smarter than to date that kind of guy. Probably throw in something about how she deserves the entire the world."

His fingers seemed to breeze over his keyboard as he typed, excitedly. "So, girls really do say those things to each other, normally? About how great they think the other is."

Lily couldn't help a small smile. "Have you never seen two drunk girls in a pub bathroom? Even if they're complete strangers, they'll praise each other to high heavens." This warranted a chuckle from Luke. "But, really, yes, even if we casually call each other bitches or whatever, we tend to remind each other constantly how great the other is."

Luke smiled. "That's beautiful."

Lily cocked her head. "Yeah, I guess."

He typed something else. "Thank you so much for that. I really want my script to have a woman's input."

Lily nodded and stood up. "No problem."

Not even a half-hour later, Lily was almost dozing off at the counter when the door opened, carrying in a few laughs Lily was all too familiar with.

She looked up to see Mary, Melanie, and Yuna walk in, all decked out in full Halloween costume. Yuna was a fairy, Melanie was dressed in all black but Lily wasn't sure what she was supposed to be, and Mary in an elaborate witch queen costume, or somewhere along those lines.

The three girls approached Lily at the counter. Mary smiled cheekily. "Hey, babe, we're here to rescue you."

Lily smiled bitterly. "You know I can't, I've still got two hours left in my shift, and I need the money, James and I have two international competitions tentatively lined up without even counting any major championships."

"Lily, if you stay here, you're going to keep thinking about the Qualifier, which you shouldn't do, because it went great, and there's no use."

Amita approached them. "Go, I'll cover for you."

Lily frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's a quiet night, you should go have fun with your friends. It's Halloween."

Lily wrapped Amita into a quick hug. "Thank you so much."

Lily quickly tore off her apron, grabbed her handbag, and stepped out from behind the counter.

As they walked towards the exit, Luke threw a smile and a nod in Lily's direction, which Lily couldn't help but return.

Lily hadn't asked her friends what they wanted to do before agreeing to go with them. She hadn't minded when they said they were going to a party, but when she heard the boys were going to be there she immediately tried to back out. She did not want to see James yet. She hadn't seen him since they'd gotten back from Sheffield the previous day, and she hadn't even complained when Minerva had given them Saturday off.

"Come on, Lily, I promise we'll only be there for about an hour. We want to go watch movies at our place either way," Mary pleaded.

Lily groaned. "But I don't even have a costume."

"Oh, you could wear your white free dance dress from a few years ago, it kind of looks like Tessa's Mahler costume, you could wear a gold medal and say you're Tessa," Melanie suggested.

Lily halted. That actually wasn't such a good idea. "Okay, but the hour for the party starts counting now."

All three girls gasped. Mary yelled, "no! Hurry up, guys!"

Lily's old skating dress really did look quite a bit like Tessa Virtue's 2009-2010 free dance dress, which may or may not have been intentional. If she'd had more time, she would've probably tried to get a brunette wig to really look like Tessa, but at least her eyes were as green as hers. The girls tried to convince her to bring her skates as props, but Lily refused. She wasn't going to wear them, since that would be impractical, and carrying them around the whole time would be too much of a hassle. She settled for white sneakers.

The Halloween party was at one of the hockey players from Alexandra Palace's house. Which made Lily think the main reason for them to attend this party was so that Mary could talk to Xander.

The party was already in full swing as they walked in. Unsurprisingly, most of the attendees were hockey players who were already drunk enough to start wilding out. It didn't even take two minutes for Mary to spot Xander and run off with him.

Melanie and Yuna wanted to dance, and Lily promised to join them right after she got a drink. Lily very rarely drank, as her schedule did not allow time for her to nurse hangovers. But this time, she slipped a bit of rum into her coke.

"Lily," James had suddenly appeared in front of her.

"Hey." She tried so hard not to see 'Performance 7.25, Interpretation 7.35' across James's forehead as she looked at him, but she couldn't quite help it.

James gave her a look that made her squirm. "Are you supposed to be... Tessa?"

Lily nodded. "The red hair kind of ruins it, but, yeah."

"I think it looks great," James said quickly. "I mean, you kind of have the same... vibe as her."

Lily raised a brow and nodded. "What are you supposed to be?"

James looked down, bashful. "Actually, I'm supposed to be Scott."

Lily looked at James's outfit. He was wearing black trousers held by suspenders, a white dress shirt, and a bowtie. "You're Sochi Scott though."

"Yup. I know it's the lazy man's costume but I didn't have time to plan much."

"I like it." Lily had no idea why she just said that.

James cleared his throat. "You should see Sirius's costume, he's Tarzan."

Lily's eyes widened. "So, you're telling me Sirius Black is running around here somewhere half-naked?"

"Yup."

"Well, I have to leave immediately all of a sudden."

James laughed. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something else, but thought better of it. There was a loud cheer coming from somewhere along in the house. "I... guess I'll see you Monday, then."

Lily nodded and sipped her drink. James walked away.

"Lily! Come on!" Yuna called out to Lily. She and Melanie were dancing.

Lily smiled and walked over to Mary. Taylor Swift's I Knew You Were Trouble was playing.

Lily joined her friends who were belting out the song. She gleefully screamed along with the oh, oh, ohs.

When the song was over, one of the hockey players hosting the party stood at the coffee table and yelled for everyone's attention. "Listen up everyone, we're having a couple's costume contest, yell out who you think should win. We'll judge by applause and whoever wins gets, uh... Abbott's dad's fancy whiskey!"

A weak protest from Abbott was drowned out by cheers. Lily tried not to roll her eyes.

People immediately started yelling out the names of a lot of people Lily didn't know.

Mary had suddenly appeared beside Lily. She gasped. "Oh my god, Lily, is James dressed as Scott?"

Lily eyed her friend warily. "Uh, yeah. Sochi Scott."

A shit-eating grin spread across Mary's face. "Lily and James will compete!"

Lily grabbed Mary's arms to stop her from yelling.

Yuna and Melanie immediately looked around at the crowd in search of James.

"It isn't a couples costume, I'm Vancouver Tessa and he's Sochi Scott!" Lily argued.

Yuna gasped as she found James and called him over. She turned to Lily. "You can say it's like a different take, you wanted to represent the two different eras of Tessa and Scott's Olympic journey."

Lily frowned. "But we didn't! It was an accident."

Her friends waved her off. Melanie nudged her. "Come on, Lily, they're great costumes!"

Lily knew their costumes were good, they were just not couples costumes.

James was suddenly beside the girls. "Hey, ladies."

The three girls immediately latched onto Lily and James's arms, as if offering them as tributes. The coffee table guy finally acknowledged them. He gave Lily and James a once-over and frowned. He turned back to the crowd. "Alright, to all the figure skaters here in figure skating costumes, those do not count as Halloween costumes, you cannot compete!"

There were a series of boos and Lily realised that there were a few other figure skaters from the Palace there.

There was a gasp from somewhere in the crowd. "Oh my god, they're Tessa and Scott, let them compete!"

The girl who had spoken was a skater whom Lily had never talked to but now had been added to Lily's list of enemies.

Coffee table guy relented. "Okay, fine, you can come up, whatever."

Lily looked at the three other couples who had gone up to the front of the crowd. There were two dressed as salt and pepper, then another two as Han Solo and Leia, and the last ones Lily couldn't quite tell, but they were wearing very slutty costumes. Lily hoped Han and Leia would win.

Lily's friends pretty much pushed her all the way to the front.

Coffee table guy had them get up on the table with them so everyone could see them. He turned to them. "So, here's Lily and James dressed as..."

"Vancouver Tessa and Sochi Scott!" Mary yelled out.

"I don't know what that means."

Lily huffed and raised her voice. "Olympic champion ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, specifically, me representing Tessa at the Vancouver Games, and James, Scott at the Sochi Games."

Coffee table guy nodded. "Right. Let's hear it for Tessa and Scott!"

They didn't have very many fans, but they cheered quite loudly. Lily spotted Sirius in his Tarzan loincloth whooping loudly from the back. His costume left very little to the imagination. And now that was in Lily's brain forever. She looked away.

Lily and James stepped down from the table. The rest of the couples went up one by one, and Lily went to stand with her friends. She whispered to Mary, "you will pay for this, Mary Ann."

Mary giggled.

The couple in the slutty costumes ended up winning. Mary protested loudly but was ignored by the party hosts.

"Well, let me at least get a picture of you guys together."

Lily frowned.

"You can do the Mahler starting pose!" Yuna piped up.

Oh, thank god for Yuna, thought Lily. She always knew exactly what her friends needed.

Lily and James stood about two feet apart, back to back. Lily looked up at the nasty ceiling, delicately spread her arms at her sides and tried to mimic Tessa's dreamy expression from the Vancouver free dance. She only hoped James was putting in as much effort as her, otherwise, she'd look pretty stupid. She heard Mary's camera click way more times than necessary. "Done!"

James looked in Sirius's direction. He'd just gotten up on the dining table and was starting to dance. He turned to the girls. "You better send me that picture Mary."

"I'll send it to the Minnie and Mal Show group chat."

Lily's eyes widened. She opened her mouth to argue but decided to let this one go. It was just a picture, after all. They'd probably send more from the night to the chat, and realistically, it'd get lost in the thousands of memes Sirius sent to the group on the daily.

James went to join his friends. Lily's friends put their arms around her. "Please don't kill us, babe."

They left the party before eleven o'clock. The four girls took the tube to Melanie's neighbourhood. If it wasn't far from the rink, they would probably hang out at Melanie's house the most, since Mary lived there too, but they usually only went if they'd been somewhere other than the rink and weren't planning on going afterwards – which wasn't often –.

They stopped to buy some pizza at a place a few blocks away from the house and carried it as they walked the nearly deserted streets. As they walked in, Melanie's mum greeted them, holding her tiny Chihuahua in her arms. "Oh, my favourite girls are here!"

"Well, thanks for that, mum."

Lily looked around Mrs McKinnon to see Melanie's older sister, Marlene sitting in the living room.

Mrs McKinnon turned to Marlene. "Well, I'm sorry, sweetheart, but ever since you started college full-time, you've become a dreadful bore to hang out with." She turned back to the girls. "It's always 'I've got to graph this' and 'I have deadline, mum, I can't make margaritas with you at eleven at night'!"

Lily laughed. Marlene did seem to be working on her laptop.

Mrs McKinnon smiled widely. "But you girls keep me young."

After being thoroughly hugged by Mrs McKinnon, the girls went to greet Marlene. Lily had only ever told this to Mary, but when she was fourteen she'd had the biggest crush on Marlene, who had been eighteen at the time. And honestly, she still got a little bit flustered whenever she saw the girl, which wasn't a lot anymore since she'd retired from competitive skating and only stopped by the Palace once in a while.

In fairness, most of the boys at the Palace had also fancied Marlene. With her long legs and flowy brown hair and piercing blue eyes, it was hard not to be attracted to her. For a split second Lily wondered if Marlene would be willing to date her now that she'd grown up, but she knew Marlene probably wouldn't date a seventeen-year-old. Lily sighed internally. She'd hold out hope in a couple of years.

Lily greeted Marlene and tried to act normally.

"We'll be upstairs, we're gonna watch scary movies," Melanie announced to her mother and sister and started up the stairs.

"Maybe I'll join you guys later if I finish this soon," Marlene said. Yuna and Mary cheerfully agreed. Lily managed a small smile and a nod.

What was it with her love life poking its head out today? First, Amita with her insistence on that boy, which had led her to think about Eugenie – and Lily had only avoided moping about her because of her friends' distraction – and now she ran into her very first lady crush and probably the person she'd been the most attracted to (after Eugenie) in her life.

The girls had a brief debate over whether to settle in Mary's or Melanie's room. Mary's room had been Melanie's eldest sister Miriam's room when she still lived at the house, but she'd gladly relented it to Mary when she'd moved in.

In the end, they went to Melanie's room, since all the blankets and pillows for sleepovers were there.

As they arranged their spread in front of the TV, Yuna turned to Lily. "So, you said you'd know if you'd stick out the season with James after the Qualifier."

Lily grimaced, almost reflexively. "Yeah, I know. But our scores... were weird. I don't really know what to think."

Yuna cocked her head in thought. "Weird how?"

Lily frowned. "Well, our skating skills score was a lot higher than our performance and interpretation ones. And I don't think I've ever even seen that before, like, how does that even happen?"

"But, overall, were the scores good?"

"Yeah, they were good. Higher than I ever got with John. I was expecting more, but they were objectively good."

"So..."

"I want to wait until after Tallinn, at least. I guess. See how we do internationally."

"And does James know that you might not stay with him the rest of the season?"

Lily averted her eyes. When Yuna said it, she felt like she was being the asshole in this situation. "Well, he told me I can leave at any time if I'm not comfortable. But we generally agreed that depending on what happens at Nationals, we'll see."

Yuna nodded slowly.

Lily thought for a moment before speaking again. "Do you know what happened with him and Catherine exactly? Last time I saw them they seemed okay."

Yuna shrugged. "No one really knows. She just stopped showing up one day. James seemed quite upset, but he never said anything specific to anyone. I know they still talk often, Remy told me."

Lily nodded. Huh, that was... interesting.

Mary and Melanie walked over from where they'd been browsing movies. Melanie held up two DVDs. "So, The Conjuring or The Shining?"

"The Conjuring." Lily and Yuna replied immediately.

Melanie scoffed. "You guys have absolutely no taste. You wouldn't recognise a good filmé if it hit you in the face."

Mary laughed. "Shut up, dudebro. The Conjuring is literally a masterpiece."

Melanie huffed and shook her head but went to put the disc in.