After three long days, volleyball tryouts for school are finally over, and I made the Freshman A team! I was so happy that I sat down and typed this all out for you guys.

The next morning, I was woken up by the annoying beep of my alarm. I resisted the urge to throw it at the wall, but only because Lissa had managed to stay asleep through the incessant noise and I didn't want to wake her up. The girl slept like a rock, which was good, considering that I wasn't the quietest person in the world.

I sat up. The room was still dark, and I glanced at the clock. 4:30. What the—?

Oh, right. I had private lessons with the Russian.

I sighed and crawled out of bed, changing into a T-shirt and spandex, along with knee pads and crew socks. This time, I also put in Active Ankles in my shoes. There was no way I would get hurt again, at least not if I could help it.

I yawned as I walked to the gym. The sun wasn't up yet, and it was colder than I thought it'd be, but I wasn't complaining. Yet. The cold helped shock my body into waking up. Still, I wished I had eaten more than just a banana and a muffin, considering that I could eat triple what Lissa ate. A 20-gallon jug of coffee sounded good, too.

Too bad we can't all get what we want.

I walked through the double doors to find Belikov sitting in a chair, reading a western novel. Country music was playing, but by the time I had walked over to where he sat, the song had changed to some 80's crap. Admittedly, I didn't like most of the mainstream stuff either, but this was horrible.

Dear. Freaking. God. How old was this guy?

I hadn't realized that I'd spoken until he looked up and said, "Twenty-four." Talk about awkward.

Seven years older than me? He may have had the body of a twenty-four-year-old, but it appeared that, on the inside, he was about sixty.

Give or take a few decades.

"Stretch out. It would be bad," he commanded, "for you to pull a muscle right after getting your scholarship back."

I didn't respond, since I couldn't figure out if he was being sarcastic or not. It would be bad, but considering that I hadn't been an angel during my persuasion of Kirova, he might not share that sentiment. He had the perfect game face: stoic, yet intimidating.

Actually, he just had the perfect face. And body—

No. No. He was my teacher. My seven-years-older teacher, who listened to bad music and read bad books.

My teacher who was, admittedly, super hot. And totally off-limits.

I stretched, trying not to think about him. Of course, I just thought about him more, but I figured that if there was a God, or karma, or something like that, they would appreciate the effort, at least.

Besides, even a blind girl would be attracted to him.

Stop. Focus. Breathe.

After I was done stretching, he simply looked up from his book and said, "Now go run a mile around the track."

Now, a mile really isn't much for me, but this was volleyball, not cross-country or track. Also, I didn't actually like running that much.

"What?"

"Go run a mile, Rosemarie."

Instinctively, I glared at him. I hated my full name. "I go by Rose."

He rolled his eyes. "Go run, Rose."

I scowled and did as he said.

By the time I finished the mile, I was tired. Running in knee pads and Active Ankles was harder than one would think. The pads limited knee movement, and the Active Ankles added weight to my legs.

I turned to walk back into the gym, but to my surprise, my new mentor was outside, holding a stopwatch.

"7:36," he said. "Not bad."

I didn't grace his comment with a response, and began walking towards the gym. He followed.

Once we got inside, he instantly got me working in setting against the wall, first with both hands, and then with each respective hand by itself. That wasn't too bad.

And then he made me do other things against the wall. Things that I had never done before, like spinning 360 degrees while setting, and sinking down to sit in the Indian position before getting back up.

It was bad. If he'd had a good impression of me initially, I was sure it was gone now. And we'd gone through the wall in only fifteen minutes.

He might as well have confirmed that he didn't deem me worthy enough to really practice, because for the rest of the time, he had me practice footwork. I had never really learned a particular way of moving to the ball, and it probably would make me faster, but seriously? Couldn't he let me at leach touch a ball, apart from the wall sets?

Regardless, by the time he stopped me to condition, I was plenty tired from running everywhere on the court. It was nothing, though, compared to what I felt like after conditioning.

It was basically an endless loop of doing approaches, blocking, sprints, pushups, crunches, and a bunch of other exercises that I'd never heard of.

After what felt like the millionth crunch, he finally told me to stop. Thank God, I thought. It was finally over.

Except that it actually wasn't. After a day of uneventful classes, I got to run to our dorms, change, and run to the gym. I got there early, so I started in on my homework while I waited for Belikov.

Eventually, he came through the double doors that led into the gym. I glanced at my watch, which I'd brought because I hadn't wanted to be late.

"You're late, Comrade," I said breezily.

He raised an eyebrow. Damn, I thought. Not only was that something I'd never been able to do, but it also made him look even better, if that was even possible. "Comrade?"

"It suits you."

He gave me a look that seemed to say I doubt your sanity, but didn't pursue the subject. Still, I continued. "It could be worse."

No response.

"If you don't want me to call you that, that's fine, but I probably will anyway. Or I'll end up calling you 'Belikov' all the time like some drill sergeant."

Finally, he responded. "You can call me Dimitri."

I grinned cheekily. "I think I like 'Comrade' better, but I'll keep that in mind."

He ignored it and continued, "And I'm not late."

"My watch disagrees."

I heard him mutter, "And you say I'm old?" under his breath. Louder, he said, "My phone doesn't. And phones are more reliable."

"Your phone could be broken."

"Or your watch is early. Phones rely on satellite signal."

"So your phone is screwed up, or the satellite is."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and shook his head, muttering something in Russian.

"Go stretch, Rose."

I smirked, secretly pleased to be eliciting such a reaction from him, and began to stretch.

My good mood vanished right after I finished stretching.

"Go run a mile."

"Couldn't we skip the running? I don't need to run twice, do I?" I said.

Much to my dismay, he didn't agree with me. Or kiss—

Shut up, Rose.

He laughed.

I was absolutely dumbfounded. Why was he laughing at me?

"Why are you laughing?"

He immediately sobered up and looked at my expression. "Oh. You were serious."

"Of course I was!"

He looked like he was still trying not to laugh again, but to his credit, it was pretty hard to see, since he had put his game face back on. "Go run."

Screw my life.

Once again, he made me practice against the wall and do my footwork for two hours. Then the same intense conditioning.

This guy had no imagination.

By the time we were done with tuck jumps, I was ready to collapse onto my bed. "Can we skip the rest of this and do it tomorrow?" I groaned.

He answered my question with another. "How are you feeling right now."

"Like shit. A very sweaty, disgusting, sore piece of shit."

He looked at me in amusement. "And how are you going to feel tomorrow during training?"

"Like a sweaty, disgusting, more sore piece of shit."

"So you won't be feeling good?"

I gave him my best Are you stupid? look and answered, "I'll be feeling even worse. Shouldn't you already know this?"

"So you should be doing this now, while you're feeling...less bad," he said nonchalantly, completely ignoring my question

I groaned. "What kind of logic is that?"

"Knowing you," he replied dryly, "probably a classic example of Rose-logic."

I couldn't argue with that, so I rolled my eyes and began my five-minute-long plank.

I thought that after our conditioning was over, he'd let me go. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, said the girly voice in the back in my head), he didn't.

"Did anyone teach you how to dive?" he asked.

"Did anyone need to?" I asked. "I thought it was a human reflex."

"I'll take that as a no."

"Comrade," I said, noting the unreadable expression that crossed his face. "I think it would be bad if I didn't know how to dive."

He grabbed a ball from the cart. "I am going to throw this ball far away from you, and I want you to dive for it."

"Okay?" What was he trying to prove?

He tossed the ball low, aiming for the back corner. On instinct, I ran for it, but it was too low, and I dove. I managed to get it, but when I looked up, Dimitri didn't look thrilled.

"You're diving wrong."

I gaped at him. "How is there a wrong way to dive?"

"You're diving on your knees."

"That's what knee pads are for," I said slowly.

He ignored my jibe and continued. "You won't be able to get up as quickly, and it doesn't help much. You move more slowly. You dive forwards, and land on your hips."

"Wouldn't that hurt?"

"Yes. But if you move fast enough, you probably won't have to dive. Also, you need to learn how to roll and get back up."

I tried not to look too displeased. "So you're giving me diving lessons? Sorry, the pool's on the other side of the campus," I replied snarkily.

So much for masking my displeasure.

He didn't seem mad. "Yes. And we're starting now."

So for the next hour, he made me dive again and again, and roll to my side to get back up and out of the way. By the end of the lesson, I hadn't noticed too many changes other than the bruises that were forming on my hips.

"You can go now," he eventually said, right when I was thinking I would punch him if he made me do it one more time.

I could've hugged him.

"We'll continue practicing your diving tomorrow."

Or not.

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