They were kicked out of the museum not much longer after the Simms left. One of Lily's greatest rues about museums was how early they closed; she would've loved seeing this place after dark. But they took another UberPool back to Old Town since Lily still wanted to hit the Christmas Market before going back to the hotel.
It was already dark out when they arrived at Old Town. They walked through the market in silence at first. Lily looking at all the very cute trinkets and fighting the urge to buy everything. James had been quiet since dinner, and Lily had a slight feeling she knew the reason why. Although she'd be very embarrassed if it wasn't actually what she thought.
James's silence was starting to bug her.
She took a deep breath. "So... just out of curiosity, did you... did you think that I was a lesbian?"
James looked at his feet bashful. "Well, honestly... yeah."
Lily couldn't help the bout of laughter that escaped her. James relaxed slightly. She bit her tongue. "Why?"
He shrugged exaggeratedly. "Well, you never labelled yourself because you never came out properly, there was no long Instagram post about how you hid this part of yourself and it was time to let the world know, not that you're obligated to do that. We found out you were not straight when you started dating Eugenie, and neither you nor your friends ever gave you a label, and believe me I've listened very closely, not that you have to label yourself either. I just kind of judged by the fact that you still gossiped about boys with your friends that you definitely liked guys too, which I know is kind of dumb to judge by that, but back then I just really wanted you to like men as well. And I did believe that."
Lily frowned. So what was the truth?
He took a breath. "Then earlier this year someone pointed out to me that you've never explicitly said to anyone that you do like men and that I'd really just been assuming for the past few years. And I realised that was true and I felt really bad that I assumed you liked men as well."
"So, is that why you stopped asking me out?"
He nodded. "Well, I also realised you might not actually want to go out with me. I wanted to apologise to you for asking you out even when I technically knew you were gay, but I was kind of scared to bring it up. But, just so you know, I am sorry."
Lily frowned. "You just learned that you don't actually have anything to apologise for."
He shook his head. "I should still apologise. For assuming. At least I wasn't stupid enough to ask you about it directly."
Lily laughed. "Well, it's not like I wanted to keep it a mystery whether I did like men or not, I just really wasn't sure until not too long ago. But, yeah, sadly, I do like men."
James had now relaxed a lot more. "That's good to know."
"You're not planning on asking me out now, are you?"
James smirked. "Oh, no, Lily. I've done my fair share of asking. If you want to go out with me, you'll have to ask me."
Lily gaped at the boy as he walked ahead of her to check out a cookie booth.
As they went through the booths, Lily patted herself on the back for the amount of self-control she was exhibiting. So far, she'd only purchased two snowglobes, one pair of mittens, and two things of cookies. She still wanted to go through the entire place again in case she'd missed anything, but as she turned to James to tell him this a drop of water fell on her hand. She looked down at the ground to see a series of droplets littered it. "Oh, fuck."
The rain was starting to come down properly now. "Did you bring an umbrella?" James asked.
Lily scoffed. "Do you see an umbrella on me?"
"Well, you could have one of those umbrellas that folds up into a tiny thing. You seem like you'd have that."
Lily tried to keep the rain off her hair with her arms. "Well, I don't!"
It was starting to get harder to hear with the noise of the water. People were scramming already.
James neared her, almost yelling to be heard. "We should get into one of the pubs." He nodded at what looked like a pub with a sign in Estonian that Lily couldn't read. She nodded.
They ran in and went straight for the only two seats left at the bar. Lily let out a breath as she sat down. James took her coat. She breathed into her hands and absentmindedly looked at the TV mounted in one of the corners of the bar. There was a football game on. The time was displayed at one corner of the screen. 9:36 PM. Something clicked in Lily's head. She gasped.
"What?" James asked as he sat down.
"I forgot about the protocols," Lily said in a tiny voice. She scrambled to get her cell phone out of her pocket. Minerva had texted them to her earlier but she hadn't seen the notification.
She moaned in distress as the pdf file charged.
"Lily, calm down, you already know the score either way."
Lily didn't dignify that comment with a reply. The document loaded. She looked at the first page. "We're in second! Oh my god."
"That's good. Right?"
Lily rolled her eyes. "Yes, of course, it's good." Her eyes quickly scanned all the little numbers on the page. There were seven judges and each of them gave a Grade of Execution – or GOE – that ranged from minus three to plus three. "I think our highest GOE was for the first section of the waltz, as expected. We didn't get negative GOE on anything! We only got... three zeros on the second section of the waltz. We also got one three on the lift!"
James leaned over Lily's shoulder to look at the document.
"I think it's quite good. For having had a major mistake and a deduction," Lily said.
James sat back in his chair. "I wouldn't call it a major mistake."
Lily locked her phone and side-eyed James. "If it led to a deduction, it is a major mistake."
"We weren't hit too hard on the GOE though."
Lily leaned on the bar and looked at the menu in front of her. "I am sorry though. It was a really stupid mistake. I don't know what came over me."
"'S okay. It was the first pancake."
Lily smiled bitterly. She looked at James. "Yeah, but is it such a crime to want your first pancake to go well? When I make pancakes I sure don't want the first one to turn out bad. It does, but you still damned try to make it turn out nice."
James chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I just don't want you to beat yourself up about it. We've still got tomorrow."
Lily looked at the time again. "Speaking of, this rain better let off soon, because we need to get a good night's sleep."
They both looked out the windows where the rain was still pouring pretty hard.
It didn't let off.
Lily had started looking longingly every time a person with an umbrella left. She and James had had to order three drinks each so they wouldn't get thrown out. Lily had thought she'd ordered an alcohol-free drink, but after she'd sipped it, she realised that was not the case. But it was really good, and the barkeep hadn't carded her. So she stuck to it. Now, after three drinks she'd started feeling a little buzzed. Not quite tipsy, but definitely buzzed.
Lily had considered just getting an Uber and running to it, but they'd definitely get soaked and then they'd get thrown out of the Uber.
When the rain finally started to slow down, James couldn't find an Uber anywhere closer than thirty minutes. But it was 1:30 AM and Lily was starting to get desperate. So they asked the barkeep and got instructions on which public transportation to take to get to Tondiraba.
As they boarded the bus on the street corner, Lily found that she wasn't nearly as anxious as she normally would've been in this situation, which was probably the fault of the Estonian fruity drink.
"It doesn't feel real that just this morning we competed for the first time as partners," James said. As soon as he sat down, he started manspreading, and Lily would've said something, but the bus was nearly empty, so she did have enough space either way.
"I know."
"How do you feel about tomorrow?"
Lily sighed. She felt her chest tighten. "I... actually have a really good feeling about it."
James smiled. "Yeah, me too."
Lily looked away from him. He was starting to get that look in his eyes again. And Lily wasn't sure if it was the alcohol, but her entire body felt like jelly. She pushed at James's leg with her own. His thigh was almost horizontal against the seat. "Stop manspreading."
He shrugged. "There's no one here!"
"Still a nasty habit."
The bus came to a stop. They were in Tondiraba, but Lily wasn't quite sure what direction their hotel was in. "Are you sure you know how to get to the hotel?"
"Yeah, of course." He got up.
Lily tried to keep calm as they exited the bus to the deserted street. At least the street lighting was good. She instinctively wrapped her hand around James's arm. They walked a few blocks in silence. "Are you sure this is the way?"
"Yeah, I remember it was Vilisuu street and then... a right turn and a couple of streets over."
Lily eyed him worriedly but didn't say anything since she didn't want to argue. A group of three loud men turned the corner and walked along the sidewalk in the opposite direction of Lily and James. They were laughing and talking loudly in Estonian. James freed his arm from Lily's grip and wrapped it around her instead. His hand rested at her waist and very slightly tugged her into his side.
The three men leered at Lily, they spoke among themselves but didn't address her or James. Lily exhaled as they went out of sight. James took out his phone. "Yeah, okay, it's two blocks that way." He let go of her. Lily kind of didn't want him to.
The hotel was, in fact, two blocks that way. Lily texted Minerva to let her know they'd arrived.
James walked Lily to her door and handed her the plastic bag of the things she'd bought. She was about to take out her key card when she remembered something. "Fuck. Mia texted me earlier to tell me she was going to sleep and to call her when I got here so she could remove the deadbolt."
"Why don't you try it? Maybe she forgot."
Lily pulled the key card into the slot but, as expected, it didn't budge.
James shrugged. "So, call her."
"I'm not gonna wake her at 2:00 AM, she competes tomorrow too," Lily said.
"Just sleep in my room then."
Lily frowned. "What? No!"
"Come on, I know you're really tired and I am too, so let's just go. You can have my bed, I'll sleep on the sofa."
Lily thought for a moment. "You have to take care of your back, though, you can't sleep on the sofa."
James sighed. "I'll sleep in Peter's bed, then."
"Are you really that close friends with Peter?"
"We used to be really good friends back when he was still at Ally Pally. I'm sure he won't mind."
Lily let out a small sigh. "Fine."
James led the way down the hallway to his room.
Under normal circumstances, Lily probably would've come up with a better solution, but she felt like she was about to fall asleep on her feet, so she didn't even bother trying to think.
James opened the door and took Lily's hand. "Be careful, there's a lot of stuff on the floor."
Lily nearly tripped over several things in the dark but made it safely to the empty bed. James walked over to what Lily believed was his suitcase. He handed her a bundle of clothes. "Here, you can't sleep in those clothes."
Lily's first instinct was to reject the clothes, but he was right, she did not want to sleep in jeans.
She dragged herself to the bathroom and changed into James's clothes, which were simple flannel pants and an old Toronto Maple Leafs shirt. She then tried her best to take her makeup off with just water.
James sat on the bed where Peter snored lightly. "'Night," he whispered.
Lily laid down and was asleep within seconds.
Lily's pillow was vibrating.
She frowned, refusing to open her eyes just yet. But the vibrating wasn't slowing down. She reached under the pillow and pulled out her phone. She opened her eyes just enough to see Minerva's name on the caller ID. She picked up.
"Lily! Where are you? Mia told me you weren't there when she woke up and that she's not sure if you came in at all last night. The bus to the rink's already left, we're going to have to take a cab."
This made Lily wake up properly. "I am so sorry. We'll be right down, I promise."
Minerva started to say something, but Lily hung up. James wasn't on the other bed. She sat up.
He was sleeping on the sofa on the other side of her bed. She threw a pillow at him. "Wake up!"
He jumped up as the pillow hit him in the face. "I'm up, I'm up."
Lily got up. She wanted to ask how he'd ended up on the sofa, but there was no time. She gathered her stuff. "We're late. Minerva's waiting for us in the lobby, hurry up!"
James scrambled up from the sofa. Lily then noticed that he wearing only boxers. Which she was not prepared for. Her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. Lily had seen a lot of half-naked men in her life. Not because she was a slut or anything. But usually, during competitions, it was kind of usual for everyone to have very limited space to change. But looking at James's toned bare chest was giving her heart palpitations. She shook her head to try and clear it. "Hurry!"
She scrambled out of the room. As she walked down the hallway, Lily heard the elevator doors open. She then realised how this must look. She was walking out of James's room wearing his clothes, carrying her handbag and yesterday's clothes.
Lily's heart almost stopped when Minerva came into view.
"Lily?"
She froze. Her room was only a few doors down, but it was definitely too late to make a run for it.
Minerva looked behind Lily to James's ajar door and then back to Lily, her eyes glowing with what seemed like anger mixed with resignation.
"Minerva, I can explain. We got here late and Mia had turned the deadbolt of our room and – "
Minerva cut her off. "We'll talk about this later. Just hurry up and get ready. We're already late enough as it is."
Lily nodded and walked to her room with her tail between her legs.
The free dance practice had already started when they got to the rink. They only managed to get thirty minutes on the ice before they were called off it.
The feeling she'd had last night that everything would go great today was quickly evaporating. She did her makeup in the bathroom and then went to change in the locker room.
Lily had no idea how she had been convinced to wear a red dress, but their designer had somehow done it. Given, it wasn't entirely red. The bodice had black lace covering the red almost completely, but the skirt was very loudly red. As she fixed her hair, Minerva walked into the room. Lily felt herself go red at the memory of what had happened that morning.
"How are you feeling?"
Lily managed a small smile. "Alright. Not as nervous as yesterday."
"Good." Minerva cleared her throat. "Well, there are only two things I want to know. One, are you two being safe? And two, will you let this new... development affect your training?"
Lily almost fell off her seat. The compact mirror in her hands actually dropped into her lap. "What?"
"Well, I had expected you two to become... friendlier as time passed, I didn't expect this particular development so soon, but I did think it was bound to happen."
Was this actually happening to her? "We're not – nothing happened. When we got to the hotel last night, Mia had turned the deadbolt and I didn't want to wake her so James told me to sleep in his room and he lent me some clothes so I wouldn't sleep in jeans and he slept on Peter's bed. But we're not – we're not... I don't see him like that," she explained in a breath.
There was a small hint of surprise on Minerva's face. "Oh, alright then. I guess I'll leave you to it then."
Lily nodded absentmindedly. She felt like she'd just imagined this conversation.
Lily didn't watch anyone else skate while she finished getting ready. She felt like it was a bad omen. She finally dragged herself out of the locker room before their group was set to go on the ice.
They were to go third in the last group of five teams. As they took to the ice for their five-minute warm-up, Lily heard a loud cheer coming from the stands as their names were announced. It was the Simms. She smiled and waved at them. As she and James went through some of their elements, Lily's feeling of confidence from the previous night started to return. Seeing the Simms had reminded her of how at ease she'd felt with James yesterday, which had even led to the comments from Mrs Simms about how they fit well together.
The five-minute warm-up was over in a flash. They headed to the off-ice warm-up area to wait for their turn and James watched the small screen there as the first two teams had their turn. Lily avoided looking and just did a few stretches. When the couple before them was about to finish their program, James stood up. "We should get going."
Lily followed James out of the room but stopped him before they walked out into the rink area.
She took a deep breath. "Listen, I just wanted to say, before we go out there, that I think you're a great skater and a great partner and a hard-worker and I really do trust you."
His smile widened. "Well, Lily, I also think you're an amazing partner and skater and human being and I am unbelievably lucky to have you as a partner. And I'm really glad you feel like you can trust me."
Before she would change her mind, Lily took a step forward and lightly wrapped her arms around him. He immediately slipped his arms around her waist and squeezed her slightly. "Now, let's go out and get them, kiddo."