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October 14, 2007 - Finlandia Trophy - Vantaa, Finland
“Hello, Daddy,” Iliana says, leaning against the cool glass of the hotel room window.
“And so finally she answers,” her father growls. “Apologize to Russia. Losing to the Finnish, disgusting.”
“I will not lose at Montreal—”
“You will not lose? You just lost by two points. A fucking 161.26, what is that?”
Iliana looks out at the black stretch of parking lot in the window. “I know, Daddy. I am trying—”
“There is no trying. You will not lose to her. Understand me?”
“Yes, Daddy. I love you.” Iliana snaps her phone closed as hard as she can before he has a chance to answer. She tosses the phone down onto the unmade bed, ignoring the way it immediately begins ringing again.
For a moment, she lets herself wonder how perfect little Miss Shayne Hollander is doing, back at her cozy little home rink in fucking Canada, skating around in her tacky costumes to obnoxious fucking indie music. Hollander is spoiled, like all the fucking Americans and Canadians are, by coaches who offer praise and give pity and give her weeks to prepare between competitions. Pretty, perfect Miss Hollander and her pretty, perfect brown eyes and pretty, perfect freckles, bumbling through her life like she has no idea how attractive she is. Like she doesn’t know the effect she has on people.
Fucking Hollander. She stared at Iliana’s tits in that shit hotel gym, then had the audacity to look offended when Iliana looked right back. At least Hollander had a nice chest. She has weak ankles and a coach that spoils her, but at least her tits are good. Shame they had to be attached to Hollander, really. Fuck Hollander.
Iliana combs her fingers through her messy hair. Fuck Hollander. Wouldn’t that be quite the idea? Pretty, perfect Miss Shayne Hollander, on her back in Iliana’s hotel room and begging so prettily for Iliana. Does Hollander even know what she was getting herself into, sitting on the gym floor across from Iliana? Sweet, pretty, perfect, innocent Shayne Hollander.
Probably not, Iliana decides. But that’s fine. Iliana likes having the competitive edge.
March 8, 2008 - International Challenge Cup - The Hague, Netherlands
Well, Shayne Hollander of Canada, bringing her trademark intensity to the ice. She’s got the triple Axel, she’s got all the technical elements, and she just has this magic where you can see the athleticism in her jumps but it seems so easy. She’s got incredible discipline and you can feel the intensity of her passion. It’s remarkable. She’s reinventing what it means to be a world champion. A stellar skate overall.
Shayne takes her seat between Coach Wiebe and her mother on the bench, waiting for her score tally. Her heart feels like it’s in her ears, it’s pounding so loud. Her skate had been clean, no visible errors, and consistent. That’s her real advantage.
At the chair reserved for the current leader sits Rozanova, who is eerily still and unsmiling. The other skaters have all put their national jackets back on over their costumes, except for her. She sits alone, wrapped up in pale blue chiffon and matching above-the-elbow gloves like some untouchable ice princess.
“Shayne Hollander has earned in the free program 132.55 points, a new season’s best. She has a total of 197.17 points, and is in first place.”
Incredible skating today. 197.17 from Hollander, and a 196.83 from Rozanova in second place. These are their new career highs. For Rozanova, it came down to that fall during her free skate, transitioning from her double Axel into the triple toe loop. That cost her a point. We could’ve been looking at a different podium if not for that deduction. It is unbelievable how good these two are. Every competition feels like it could be a coin toss.
July 3, 2009 - One Day Before the Coupe de Montreal - Montreal, Canada
Shayne hates skating at hockey-focused arenas. The ice is fine, sure, but putting a Women’s Locker Room sign up on the Away team’s locker room isn’t the same thing as an actual women’s locker room. The showers are an open room, instead of individual stalls, and there’s only ever a few small mirrors, so doing makeup is a lost cause unless you remembered to bring your own mirror.
At least Shayne’s alone in the shower room. Everyone else cleared the rink at least an hour ago—well, everyone except Rozanova, who’s still on the ice, presumably being berated in Russian by her coach for not trying a quintuple Lutz or something equally ridiculous.
This is going to set Rozanova up for failure tomorrow. On their best days, Shayne knows they’re a pretty even match for one another. Shayne’s got better technique, but Rozanova skates recklessly, like she wants to get a hip replacement before she’s twenty-five. Rozanova has skated on sprained ankles and bad hips, with broken toes; she did almost every event last season she qualified for, even if it meant she had almost no recovery time in between. Rozanova is good, sure, but she’s burning herself out—
The shower room door creaks open, and Shayne flinches, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around herself like an embarrassed child. She keeps her eyes on the tiled wall in front of her as she rinses the shampoo out of her hair.
Whoever it is takes the shower right next to Shayne, dropping a hot pink shower caddy on the tile floor between the two of them. Shayne lets herself glance at who it is.
It’s fucking Iliana Rozanova. Rozanova bends down to pick a bottle of shower gel from her shower caddy, and as she does so, catches Shayne right in the act of staring at her. She grins and sets the bottle back down with an unnecessary stretch, like she’s trying to show off her naked body.
Shayne’s face burns with embarrassment. God, of course it’s Rozanova. Who else would pick the shower right next to her? Is this all part of some mind game, to throw Shayne off? Shayne steals another glance at Rozanova.
Fuck, Rozanova is hot. It’s an objective fact. Rozanova’s rangy but muscular, with tight abs and wide hips. The same silver Playboy Bunny charm Shayne remembers from Lake Placid dangles from her belly button piercing. She’s got a golden chain around her neck, with an Orthodox cross. Her breasts are small, would probably be a perfect palmful if Shayne cupped them, with tight pink nipples—
Rozanova runs the palms of her hands over her own chest, ostensibly to wash herself off. Shayne swallows and rips her eyes away from Rozanova. Right. They’re supposed to be showering. That’s what they’re doing.
But from the corner of her eye, Shayne can see Rozanova lean back on the tile wall, running her fingertips from underneath her tits, down the top of her abs, stopping just short of—
This is wrong. This is a wrong, dangerous thing to be doing. Shayne knows it. She can take a normal fucking shower next to her fucking rival, and be normal about seeing Rozanova’s bare, Brazilian-waxed vulva. That’s what this is. Normal, human, non-sexual nudity. This might as well be National Geographic. They’re showering.
Except that Shayne’s entire body feels way too hot and her cunt is throbbing, and she can barely hear Rozanova’s harsh breathing over her own.
Shayne lets herself look at Rozanova one last time. Rozanova’s face is flushed pink, and she’s got one hand toying with a hard nipple and the other working circles on her clit. Her lips are parted, tongue stuck between her teeth.
“Fuck off,” Shayne says weakly. She half-expects Rozanova to stop abruptly and laugh at her, or for something else awful to happen, like a flood or a lightning strike or a power outage, because this is bad and everyone will know that Canada’s figure-skating sweetheart Shayne Hollander is a nasty voyeur who got turned on by her Russian rival masturbating in the rink showers.
But Rozanova doesn’t stop. She keeps going, actually, even when Shayne starts openly staring, and Rozanova keeps her eyes on Shayne the entire time. Rozanova stares at her tits, at her ass, at her hips and the neatly-trimmed pubic hair Shayne trims herself because she’s always been too embarrassed to get waxed professionally like the other girls on her team.
It is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to Shayne. She feels like she’s on fire, and Rozanova just keeps going, keeps working her own clit, and Shayne wishes she weren’t such a fucking coward because she’s too scared to touch herself, even though it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Shayne’s not a virgin, and hasn’t been since eleventh grade, but just like everything Rozanova does, Shayne feels clumsy and stupid in comparison, like she doesn’t know anything at all.
“Not here,” Shayne mutters.
Rozanova’s abs clench and her eyes squeeze shut as her fingers slow down on her clit. She mutters something in Russian suddenly, and Shayne realizes that Rozanova just came. Rozanova just came, ogling Shayne like her personal Playboy centerfold, and now she’s just smiling, satisfied, like she knows something Shayne doesn’t. Just like fucking always.
Shayne’s almost fully dressed when Rozanova finally meanders out of the shower wearing only a towel around her hips. Shayne carefully focuses on brushing her hair back into a ponytail, so that she doesn’t have to actually look over at Rozanova again.
“Look, we can forget about what happened in there, okay?” Shayne says. She snaps the elastic a little too hard over her ponytail.
Rozanova stops rifling through her gym bag and looks over at Shayne with an unreadable expression on her face. “Is what you want?”
Shayne’s hands are shaking. She can land a fucking triple combo on a fractured pinky toe, but she can’t handle making basic conversation with Iliana fucking Rozanova. “Yes, for sure.” Shayne needs to get her head straight. She’s not a lesbian. She doesn’t have crushes on women. She’s a nice, good girl who works hard and just doesn’t have the time or interest in dating.
Rozanova laughs. She fucking laughs. Like Shayne’s said something funny. Shayne’s pulse rattles in her ears.
“Wow. You are a really bad liar,” Rozanova murmurs, sauntering into Shayne’s personal space still wearing only the wet pink towel and way too much Viva La Juicy perfume. She brushes the red-painted nails of her left hand down Shayne’s jaw.
Shayne swallows. Her throat feels way, way too dry. She should give Rozanova some token protest. She should insist that she meant it, that they need to let what happened in the shower stay there.
But she doesn’t.
Because Rozanova, like always, knows something Shayne doesn’t. Rozanova’s smile slides across her face. “What is your room number?”
I don’t remember. I’m sharing a room with my mom. I need to sleep before the short program tomorrow. The excuses float around in Shayne’s head. She watches Rozanova lick her own lips.
“1410,” Shayne mumbles.
Rozanova looks like the cat that got the cream. “Well, if I come to 1410 at nine tonight...”
“I... I might open.”
“I might knock.” Rozanova leans over and kisses Shayne on the temple before flouncing back to her locker, pulling clothes from her gym bag.
This is a terrible idea, Shayne thinks, like she has since she first saw Rozanova in the shower. This will not end well.
But so help her God, Shayne will be in her room at nine tonight, waiting for a knock.
For some reason, Hollander turned off all the lights in her hotel room except for the two bedside lamps. Perhaps Hollander thinks it’s atmospheric, or perhaps she’s worried someone might somehow look up fourteen stories and see through the closed curtains what they’re getting up to. Hollander’s anxiety is almost charming.
Hollander is wearing a plain gray t-shirt over a pair of jeans, her long black hair tucked behind her ears. Fucking Hollander, pretty perfect brown eyes and pretty perfect freckles, cheeks pink with embarrassment about things they haven’t even done yet.
“I thought you might chicken out,” Iliana murmurs. She shimmies her shoulders back, pushes her chest forward, as Hollander’s eyes roll down her body.
“I’m not—” Hollander’s throat clicks. “I’m not chicken. I just think we should talk.”
The press was right, Iliana decides, when they called Shayne Hollander a sweetheart. She is sweet, and she is naive, and she is a good girl who donates her prize money to charity; the only place she is ruthless is on the ice, and on the ice, she skates like a machine programmed to execute perfect maneuvers.
In the press, Iliana is a bitch. They do not ever say the word “bitch,” but they say enough other words that it means the same thing. She does not smile politely when she loses. She does not try to make friends with other skaters. If she were a worse skater, these things would cause problems for her. Nobody likes a bitch in their skating clubs or on their team. But depending on the judges, Iliana is either the very best or the second very best figure skater in the world, and she is allowed to be a bitch. Maybe if other skaters worked as hard as she did, she would be interested in friends.
Maybe that’s why Iliana’s standing here in Hollander’s hotel room, brushing her hands over the shoulders of Hollander’s soft t-shirt.
“Do you... wanna sit?” Hollander looks so nervous. It is cute, really. Iliana slowly pushes Hollander back towards the wall, hands coming to rest under the hem of her t-shirt. Hollander’s skin is very soft, yielding so well under Iliana’s fingertips.
Iliana shakes her head before leaning in, pressing her forehead against Hollander’s. Hollander smells like the Bath and Body Works lotion she used at the rink, some type of vanilla scent, and minty toothpaste.
“This is... such a bad idea,” Hollander mutters.
“What is?” Before Hollander can answer, Iliana presses their lips together.
Kissing, Hollander is not good at. Not yet, anyway. She is clumsy, and their teeth clash together once. Her tongue slides across Iliana’s and then runs across Iliana’s teeth like she’s trying to brush them. It is a good thing for Hollander that she is cute, and that Iliana is patient. Iliana lifts her head back, just long enough to tug her own striped lace camisole off.
Immediately Hollander’s hands slide up Iliana’s back, tracing over the lace on the edges of her bra.
“Can I...” Hollander starts, but then Iliana grabs her chin in between her thumb and forefinger and kisses her. This time, Hollander lets Iliana lead the kiss. Like her skin, her lips are so soft. Iliana reaches behind herself and unhooks her bra, tossing it somewhere across the room. Hollander’s hands come to her chest, cupping her breasts and thumbing at her nipples. It’s good, and it’s good in a way that suggests Hollander might not be the blushing little innocent she acts like, or at the very least, that Hollander spends a bit more time than Iliana imagined when she gets herself off. Hollander breaks away from the kiss and drags her lips down Iliana’s neck, licking over her left nipple before sucking it into her mouth.
Iliana’s always had sensitive nipples. It feels fucking fantastic, and the visual—Shayne Hollander, Canada’s fucking sweetheart, with dilated pupils in her sweet brown eyes and cheeks flushed with arousal, playing with Iliana’s tits—the visual is even fucking better.
“Fuck, Hollander,” Iliana gasps, wrapping one hand in Hollander’s hair and pressing her against her chest for a few seconds, long enough for Iliana to want her attention on her other nipple now. She uses her grip in Hollander’s hair to pull her away.
Hollander’s pretty pink tongue darts out and wets her lips. “Was—was that okay?”
Iliana laughs breathlessly. “Ah, yes. Very good. Your clothes, now.”
Hollander has the gall to look shy all of a sudden. If Iliana were any less horny, she’d want to think about just how much of Hollander’s girl-next-door act was fake and how much was real, but Iliana is horny, and so she grabs the hem of Hollander’s shirt and yanks it off.
Underneath Hollander is wearing a plain white bra. Simple, unfussy, and the clasp is easy enough for Iliana to undo one-handed. Hollander winces when Iliana throws it to the floor, and Iliana politely does not laugh about that. Pretty, sweet, tidy Shayne Hollander, with tits larger than Iliana would’ve guessed from her cheap, tacky skating costumes.
“Is your first time with a girl?” Iliana asks, brushing the back of her palms up Hollander’s stomach, resting her hands just below Hollander’s breasts.
Hollander nods. “Is it... yours?”
“Ah, no.” Iliana smiles as she leans in for another long kiss. Hollander’s kissing improves every time their lips meet.
“Really?” Hollander whispers, pulling back. She actually looks a little surprised.
Maybe Hollander is more innocent than Iliana is giving her credit for. “Really.”
“With who? Another skater?”
God, leave it to fucking Hollander to be thinking about skating with her tits out. Iliana rolls her eyes. “My coach’s daughter. Back in Russia.”
Hollander nods, like that’s an acceptable answer.
“I like trouble,” Iliana murmurs as she cups Hollander’s chin in one hand. Maybe some other day, Iliana will take her time and kiss every one of the freckles sprinkled over her cheekbones. If Hollander turns out to be a worthwhile fuck.
Iliana is lying to herself about this already. She already knows she’ll be back here. Something about Hollander has crawled its way under her skin, latched deep into her nervous system.
“You... you didn’t worry? About getting caught?”
Iliana licks her own lips. It would be nice to lie to Hollander, to tell her that it all meant nothing and was never serious; it was just sex, just a way to blow off steam. The same excuses Iliana made when she chose to leave for Boston, really.
“No,” Iliana says. “We had the same secret, so...”
That seems to reassure Hollander enough, and she lets Iliana kiss her again. If only Iliana could shut her up on the ice this easy.
Shayne keeps waiting for the guilt to hit her, to feel bad. Mostly, lying sprawled out on top of the hotel sheets, she just feels sticky with sweat and Iliana’s spit. And she wishes she’d folded her clothes instead of letting Iliana throw them all over the room.
“God, I want a cigarette,” Iliana sighs. She stares at her purse, still tossed by the door. It’s a Louis Vuitton, brown leather and plastered in the logo, the kind of purse that probably cost more than Shayne spends on new skate boots in a year.
“Smoking is bad for you.” Shayne realizes how childish it sounds once she’s said it, and she cringes.
Iliana giggles and smacks Shayne on the shoulder. “Oh, is it?”
“Yes.” Shayne nods solemnly. She sits up in bed and scoots closer to Iliana, so she can rest her head on Iliana’s shoulder. It’s weird how easy it is to be close to Iliana. Since they were fifteen, they’ve been neck-and-neck at every single skating event. Half the time it feels like it comes down to who’s skating on an injury they shouldn’t be, or who slept better the night before, or who gets fresher ice, or some other completely arbitrary factor. But no, the world wants drama, and so the Canadian Skating Association and the Americans have turned the two of them into the modern-day Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Just... minus the violence, hopefully.
“Why you laugh?” Iliana asks. She pokes Shayne in the collarbone.
“You wouldn’t break my knee, would you?” Shayne smiles up at Iliana.
Iliana pauses theatrically, frowning. “Hm, no. You are my only competition. Would get boring without you. Plus, you are good fuck. Terrible waste.”
Shayne laughs.
“How are you feeling about skating for the first time at Skate America, Iliana?”
Rozanova smirked, leaning in towards the camera. “Good. About time.” She fiddled with the zipper of her American Figure Skating Association team jacket.
To anybody else, Rozanova playing with the zipper probably looks absentminded, just innocent fidgeting. But Shayne knows Rozanova better than that. It’s a fucking show-off, intended specifically to piss Shayne off.
“This is the first time as a Senior skater that you aren’t skating against Shayne Hollander at a Grand Prix qualifier. How does that feel? Does that take any performance pressure off, knowing you won’t be skating to defend your title from last year’s silver medalist?”
“Mm, no. Hollander, she skates same routine every time, just in different order. Gets very boring. Now I will skate against Soo-Jin Kim, Kendra Evans. I am excited for new competition.”
Fuck Iliana Rozanova.
Like Hell will Shayne take a silver at Grand Prix Finals this year. She’s not going to give Rozanova the fucking satisfaction.