Tough Ice

Tough Ice: Chapter 14 - Valery

She's still pissed at me. We're on the plane now, and we got seated next to each other. There's no use swapping with Natasha because a random guy got seated in between them. I look to my right and see her asleep, she's so cute. There's still 10 hours left of the flight, I don't really know what to do, I can't usually sleep on planes. My eyes look down to the empty seat on my left, then I feel something on my lap. Her head is now lying on my lap, not that I'm complaining, but I can't move now. I stroke her hair and close my eyes, hoping to get some sort of sleep.

I wake up to find that Katerina's head is no longer on my lap, rather staring at the back of the chair in front of us, clearly very annoyed.
"Katerina are you oka-"
"Shut it." I close my mouth and turn my gaze around the other way, then I bring my legs up and put them out on the other seat.
"Do you want another seat?" I turn around to her and look deep into her eyes.
"Yes." I move into the aisle seat so she has two seats, she lies down instantly and goes back to sleep. I tuck my knees up to my chest and stare down at her, I'm so glad we did all that stretching before she would try to teach me stuff, otherwise I wouldn't be able to sit like this. She wriggles around so she's lying on her back, giving me full access to her forehead. I lay a soft kiss against it, then I turn away from her.

I tap Kat's arm lightly, she groans and opens her eyes.
"What Orlov?"
"I- just we land in 30 minutes." She nods and sits up slowly, pats her hair down, then looks out the window. I stare at her the entire time, I wonder if I should tell her.
I decided to finally read through my emails halfway through the flight, when I saw one about a pair figure skating program that's going to take place November this year. I couldn't reply to it obviously, but I will when we land, and I'll sign up for figure skating lessons at our new rink, that way, when she finds out about it, I'll be right there.
"Stop staring at me Valery." I shake my head and re-treat into my seat.
"Sorry."

We get to the hotel, check in, we only have one room because apparently it sleeps four. Natasha unlocks the door and walks in. She grabs Ares' hands and runs into one of the rooms.
"We call this room." Kat rolls her eyes and looks to find the other one, so I follow her, she opens the door. One bed.
There is one bed. I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly.
"What are we going to do?"
"You're going to sleep on the floor Valery." Oh, I know she's mad but she's treating me like shit, she's mad because I was just so worried about her than I didn't believe her, you could see it in her eyes that she was lying.
"Whatever you want prin- Katerina." She scoffs and puts her suitcase on the bed, unzips it, and pulls out a new set of clothes, and her toiletries, then she stalks off into the bathroom. Maybe there's a couch outside? I think I saw one, I'm going to go check. I walk out of the room and walk down the hallway, then I find a small lounge room, the couch is absolutely tiny, I will be super curled up, but it's better than sleeping on the floor. I find a cupboard and pull out a proper pillow and a blanket, throw it on the couch, then I walk back to the bedroom.

I'm sitting against the wall when Ares walks in.
"Hey guys- oh, Valery where's Kat?"
"Shower."
"You don't look too good."
"I'm fine." I grab my phone out and reply to that email: 'I'm interested.' Then I look into the rink closest to us, to sign myself up for figure skating lessons, Ares and I already got into the NHL, we don't need to worry about hockey. The bathroom door flies open and out walks a fucking angel. Her long brown hair tied up in a slightly messy ponytail, her skin glowing, and her beautiful green eyes peering out of her long lashes. I can't bear to look at her any longer, I fear I may just end up kissing her.
"I'll be going now." They both turn their heads to me.
"Where are you going?"
"Doesn't matter, bye." I walk out of the room, take a key card and call an Uber, then I tell them to take me to our new skating rink, apparently our new coach wants to speak with me.

"Hello, you must be Valery Orlov?"
"Yes, and it's pronounced Val-ir-ri sorry."
"Don't be sorry man, I'm your new coach, Allen."
"As in your last name?" He nods and points to a seat in his office.
"Take a seat." I sit down in the chair on the right and look around his office. "I understand you're coming from Russia's NHL?"
"Yes, Moscow." He nods and pulls out a clipboard.
"You're English is astounding."
"We talked English for about a month whenever we were at our apartment to get used to it, we still spoke Russian everywhere else."
"Ah, and we?"
"Well Petrakis, my friend, I'm assuming you have him down somewhere, his sister and her best friend, are both figure skaters, his sister wanted to move here so she could get onto team USA."
"I do have him down, but how did she manage to drag all of you here?"
"She just sat us down and talked about it, and we all agreed, not much to it coach"
"Alright then, I don't really have much else to ask, you can go get a feel of the ice if you have your skates with you."
"I do, thank you sir." He nods and I get up out of the chair and walk out of his office. I shove my feet into my skates and hop on the ice, immediately feeling better. There's no one around, I can start doing some figure skating things rather than hockey, I need to be prepared for when she finds out about that program. I flinch when I see her and Natasha walking through the doors, staring at me in shock.
"Since when could you figure skate Valery?" I skate up to the wall near them and rest my arms on it.
"Katerina taught me some a couple weeks ago, ever since then, I'd go to the rink at night and practice by myself, I love hockey, but figure skating is fun too." Natasha's smiling, and I can see a very faint smile on Kat's lips.
"Why are you doing it right now?" I look over at Katerina, slightly nervous.
"I found out about this pair skating program, and I thought maybe we could, do it together when you found out about it." She smiles even wider and walks over to me.
"Maybe I will forgive you." I look deep into her eyes and smile.
"That would be preferred." She laughs and puts her skates on. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Our new coach told us to come down and that we should be able to get in, so we could get a feel of the rink."
"Ah." Katerina skates over to me after entering the rink. "Hey princess."
"I haven't forgiven you fully yet."
"Sorry." She giggles and pushes my shoulder softly.
"You're so gullible."
"Mean." She laughs and grabs my hand.
"If we're going to do that program, we should get started." I nod and skate to the middle of the rink with her. "Since you're apparently now a star figure skater, I guess we can get started on pair moves."
"Have you ever done pair skating?"
"I did for like 3 years when I lived in Greece, 12-15, it was pretty fun." I nod and look at her.
"Well?"
"Right, let's get started." She asks quickly grabs her phone and shows me some moves that we can try, and we get started.

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YAYAYYY, also if Valery's name pronunciation didn't make sense, it's:
Val-ir-rdi, the l is kind of r pronounced, and the d is sort of silent? Like it's still in it, but kind of more rolling the r, anyway, bye