Mariana Zapata

"You could need a kindney replacement and not ask anyone you know for one, Jasmine." He shook his head, a frown crossing his mouth. "You think I don't know you?"
Well. Shit.
"You are so stubborn. So fucking stubborn it drives me insane. You know how many times I've wanted to choke you ?"he asked, shaking his head in clear exasperation.
I blinked. "Probably half as many time as I've wanted to choke you too."

"Nobody else is going to take as good care of you as I will."

Ivan snickered. "That doesn't mean much. You're little too, but you're heavy as hell."
"Oh shut up. I'm not that heavy." I turned to look at him over my shoulder as I extended my arms out to my nephew.
"You are. You're the heaviest partner I've ever had."
"It's all muscle."
"Is that what we're going to call it?"

And he hugged me. He hugged me so tight to him I couldn't breath, and I hated myself. I hated myself for being a hypocrite. For not being nicer. For expecting the worst all the time. I hated myslef for so many things, I wasn't sure I could count them all and survive.
And the arms around me somehow got even tighter, until every bone in my spine was curved into every bone in his upper body.
"You're the best figure skater I've ever seen," this man whispered directly into my ear, his hold the strongest thing I had ever felt in my life.

"Ivan," I told him, sounding calmer than I flet, barely realizing he had put on his skates before coming out to hunt me down. He was skating toward the boards, and O didn't know where we were going. "Ivan, put me down right now, or I'm going to kick you in the face and not feel bad about it."
"Meatball," he said, just as calmly and quietly as I had been talking. "I'd like to see you try," the asshole claimed, mirroring my words right back at me just as what had to be his forearm locked down over my calves, holding against hischest before I did what he figured I was capable of.
And he would be right.

I wasn't going to pick at that comment with a stick. Instead, I blinked at him? "Why are you looking at my ass?"
The corners of his pink-pink mouth tilted up the tiniest bit. "Because it's there, in my face all day."
I guess he had a point. It wans't like I didn't look at his ass from time to time? Because it was there. "Then don't. Friends don't look at each other's butts."
The way he rolled his eyes did something uncomfortable to my stomach. "Jasmine, this body - these thighs you think I'm going to make fun of you over, and this ass you think the same thing of - are going to win us first place from now on. I wouldn't make fun of it. I wouldn't make fun of you. We'll do it like we always do. When we step out on the ice, it's work. It's us focusing, not fucking around."

"How can you laugh at me being attacked? Tali gasped, reminding me she was the second biggest drama queen in the family.
"Your ten-year-old sister punched you in the face. Do you know how hard it was for me to not laugh when it happened ? You had it coming. I warned you, she had warned you, but you did it anyway," mom cackled, sounding like she was proud of me in a fucked-up way.

To me, his face reminded me of one that would belong to a prince or something. Royal.
Not that I would ever admit that.
And it wasn't like it mattered when under that pretty face and pretty skin was evil incarnate.

"Get in," he kept going.
"I-"
"I'll give you a ride. Stop overthinking it. You don't even have to pay me."
Og God. I hated him. I hated him even more when he smiled like he thought he was hilarious.

Nothing and nobody would ever come between my dreams and me.
And imagining Ivan not owning the ice wasn't a reality I could picture, because he was the same as I was. Just evil. Well, annoying and evil.

"What is Jasmine's favorite food?"
The idiot beside me didn't miss a beat. "Chocolate cake."
How the hell did he know that ?

Then his lower thigh bumped into my knee. Again.
"Why are you touching me?" I whispered, barely moving my lips, eyes on the door. I didn't trust myself to look at him.
"You're touching me," was his smart-ass - and stupid - response because he'd been the one to move.
I still didn't glance at him. "Why are you sitting next to me?"
"Because I can."
"You're too close."
"I've been closer too you."
I side-eyed him. "Because you have to be. Go sit over there. Away frome me."
He was already watching me with those creepy clear blue eyes. "No."
I blinked and he blinked right back at me.
Bitch.
"Then move so I can go sit accross the table."
"No."

Neither one of us said a word, but our eyes let.
And I mouthed "you suck".
And he whispered back with his pale pink mouth, "you suck more".

"I also tell her you and Ivan will kill each other if you talked to much."

I glanced at Ivan again, but he'd beat me to it. He was already looking at me...
And I didn't like it.
Stop looking at me, I mouthed.
No, he mouthed back.

He just ...looked. With his mouth shut. And his hands - and fingers - tucked into his armpits.
If I had been anyone else, he would have made me uneasy with that gaze. But I wasn't his groupie. I knew him well enough not to be distracted by the bodysuit he wore over his natural form. He worked hard, so he was good. He wasn't a unicorn. He definitely wasn't a Pegasus. He didn't impress me.

Some days I deserved a medal for being so patient with idiots. If ony they had a competition for that, I could have won.

But it was when you started taking the most basic things for granted that life decided to teach you that you're an ungrateful idiot.

Aiden et moi n’étions pas des amis. Comment aurait-il pu en être autrement, de toute façon ? Cet homme avait le choix entre trois personnes quand il décidait de s’extraire un peu de son sport. Les vacances ? Il n’en prenait jamais. À mon avis, il ne savait même pas ce que c’était. Il n’y avait aucune photo de famille ou d’amis dans sa maison. Sa vie entière tournait autour du football ; c’était le centre de son univers. Dans le grand plan de la vie d’Aiden Graves, je n’étais vraiment personne. Nous ne faisions que nous tolérer, en quelque sorte. Bien obligé. Il avait besoin d’une assistante, et moi d’un travail. Il me disait ce qui devait être fait, et je m’exécutais, que ça me plaise ou non. De temps en temps, je tentais vainement de le faire changer d’avis mais, en mon for intérieur, je savais pertinemment que mon opinion n’avait aucune importance à ses yeux.

Avec son mètre quatre-vingt-dix-sept, un poids pouvant monter à cent vingt-cinq kilos en milieu de saison creuse, et une présence lui donnant davantage l’air d’un héros de la mythologie que du commun des mortels, Aiden était une bête, même tout habillé. Il n’avait pas de muscles pour faire joli. Il était juste super balaise, naturellement. De partout. Je ne serais pas surprise si une radiographie révélait que même ses os étaient plus denses que la normale ! Ses muscles semblaient avoir été conçus dans le but précis de bloquer les passes et de plaquer les quarterbacks adverses".