One Tryout
Matteo DeLuca knew the twelve-year-old pairs team was about to crash three seconds before either child did.
The boy’s shoulder rose.
The girl’s entry narrowed.
Their coach, standing beside Matteo at the boards, inhaled sharply.
Matteo lifted one hand.
“Abort.”
Neither child listened.
Of course they didn’t.
They were twelve, ambitious, and currently possessed by the specific athletic delusion that if an element had failed six times, the seventh attempt deserved more speed.
The girl stepped in.
The boy’s grip landed too high.
Matteo was already through the gate.
“Down.”
This time they heard him.
The boy bent his knees instead of forcing the lift. The girl folded out of position, both blades hit the ice, and they stumbled into a messy two-person crouch instead of becoming a medical incident.
Matteo stopped in front of them.
The girl looked furious.
The boy looked terrified that Matteo would be furious.
Matteo held out both hands.
“Congratulations.”
They stared.
“You have successfully demonstrated why I said abort.”
The girl’s eyebrows drew together. “We almost had it.”
“You almost had an ambulance.”
Her coach made a choking sound behind him.
The boy looked down.
Matteo softened his voice.
“What did you feel?”
The boy hesitated. “I was late.”
“Where?”
“Hands.”
“Earlier.”
He frowned.
Matteo tapped his own shoulder.
The boy copied the movement without meaning to.
“There,” Matteo said. “Your shoulder knew before your brain did. If that comes up on the entry, you do not get stronger by pretending it didn’t happen. You get smarter.”
The girl folded her arms.
“What did I do?”
“You saw him late and tried to save it by making yourself smaller.”
“I can get tighter.”
“I know. That is why it’s dangerous.”
She looked offended.
Good.
Offended athletes occasionally listened better than frightened ones.
Matteo crouched enough to put himself closer to their eye line.
“You are not luggage. His job is not to throw you somewhere and hope physics becomes supportive.”
The boy smiled.
The girl tried not to.
“And your job,” Matteo told her, “is not to disappear when the entry goes wrong. You speak. He listens. Both of you live long enough to complain about your coaches.”
Their coach pointed at Matteo.
“See? This is why I invited him.”
The girl muttered, “You invited him because he has an Olympic gold medal.”
Matteo pressed a hand to his chest.
“At last. Respect.”
“You also made us do crossovers for forty minutes.”
“Gold medal crossovers.”
“They were still crossovers.”
He stood.
“Young people have no appreciation for branding.”
The boy laughed.
The girl rolled her eyes, but the tension had left her shoulders.
“Again?” she asked.
“Entry only.”
“No lift?”
“Not until the entry stops looking like a hostage negotiation.”
She skated away muttering.
Matteo watched closely.
The second attempt was better.
The third was good.
By the fifth, the boy’s shoulder stayed down and the girl stopped collapsing her line to compensate.
Only then did Matteo let them take the element to half height.
He stood at the boards with his arms folded, eyes on their hands.
That was the part people misunderstood about pair skating.
Strength looked impressive in photographs.
Attention kept people alive.
“Better,” he called.
The girl landed and spun toward him.
“Can we go full now?”
“No.”
“Matteo.”
“Using my first name will not unlock premium features.”
Her coach laughed outright.
The girl groaned.
“Tomorrow.”
“That is practically next year.”
“Excellent. Imagine how prepared you’ll be.”
She skated off.
Matteo checked the time.
2:43 p.m.
His phone had been vibrating in his jacket pocket for the better part of twenty minutes.
He knew who it was.
That was why he had left it there.
Enzo Marino was sprawled across two seats in the first row of the bleachers, wearing black training pants, white sneakers, sunglasses indoors and the air of a man who had been born expecting an audience.
“You are avoiding adulthood,” Enzo announced.
Matteo picked up his water bottle.
“I am coaching children.”
“Exactly. Easier demographic.”
“You once lost an argument to a nine-year-old about whether ice dance has jumps.”
“She was aggressive.”
“She was correct.”
“That is irrelevant.”
Matteo drank.
Enzo took off the sunglasses.
“Your agent called me.”
“Why?”
“Because you refuse to answer.”
“That is not a reason to call you. That is a reason to enjoy the silence.”
“He says the federation wants you.”
“They have had me for twenty years. I’m difficult to miss.”
“With Quinn.”
Matteo lowered the bottle.
Enzo’s expression changed.
The performance was gone.
That was the useful thing about Lorenzo Marino. He could turn a funeral into a five-minute set if the grieving family needed air, but he knew exactly when laughter became disrespect.
Matteo looked back at the ice.
The junior pair had started stroking laps.
“Don’t.”
“I said two words.”
“You were about to say more.”
“I was about to ask whether you’re okay.”
“Tragic. You’re becoming emotionally literate.”
“Answer.”
Matteo twisted the cap back onto his bottle.
“I’m fine.”
Enzo waited.
Matteo looked at him.
“Do not make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you pretend silence is a therapeutic technique.”
“It is. Very advanced. Costs two hundred dollars an hour.”
Matteo’s phone vibrated again.
He took it from his pocket.
Three missed calls from his agent.
One from the High Performance director.
Two texts from Sofia.
The first read:
CALL ME BEFORE YOU SAY SOMETHING STUPID.
The second:
Actually call me before you say something charming. That is usually worse.
Matteo smiled despite himself.
Enzo leaned forward.
“What happened with Mercer?”
“Retiring.”
“Injury?”
“Partly.”
“You knew?”
“This morning.”
“And they called you immediately.”
“Apparently subtlety has been removed from the federation budget.”
Enzo studied him.
“Are you retired?”
“No.”
“Are you competing?”
“No.”
“Helpful distinction.”
“I’m doing shows through winter. I’m choreographing. I’m coaching. My shoulder likes me again.”
“Your mother likes your shoulder again.”
“My mother has never liked any part of skating that can be visualized on an MRI.”
“A wise woman.”
Matteo looked down at the High Performance director’s missed call.
He had known Rory Quinn since she was sixteen.
Known of her longer.
At nineteen, she had become a line in his life he stopped crossing.
There had been a corridor.
Victor Sloane.
Her face.
His own anger, too large and too public.
Then the aftermath.
Years had sanded down the details people discussed. Headlines disappeared. Sponsors found newer scandals. Coaches changed rinks. Athletes won medals. Everybody learned how to stand in the same banquet room and look somewhere else.
Matteo had become exceptionally good at somewhere else.
Enzo rose.
“I’m going to leave before you accuse me of interfering.”
“You are interfering.”
“Yes, but elegantly.”
He clapped Matteo once on the upper back, carefully away from the left shoulder.
“Call Sofia.”
“Why her?”
Enzo stared at him.
“Because she spent sixteen years being the person you trusted with your center of gravity, and if anyone is allowed an opinion on whether you should do that again, it is probably her.”
That was annoyingly sensible.
“I liked you better when you were decorative.”
“No one has ever liked me better than decorative.”
Enzo put his sunglasses back on and left.
Matteo watched the door close.
Then he answered the next call.
His agent did not bother with hello.
“Please tell me you haven’t spoken to the federation yet.”
“I haven’t spoken to the federation yet.”
“Thank God.”
“I did draft a press release announcing my engagement to Róisín Quinn.”
Silence.
Matteo grinned.
“Still there?”
“I hate you.”
“That is why our relationship works.”
“Can you take this seriously for one minute?”
The grin faded.
“I am.”
His agent heard it.
“Okay.”
Matteo sat in the bleachers.
Across the ice, the junior pair had moved on to side-by-side spins.
“What exactly are they asking?”
“One closed tryout. No commitment.”
“Who’s coaching?”
“Mara Kovács. Theo Bennett likely assisting.”
That mattered.
Mara did not build dangerous pairs for television.
“What medical information?”
“Relevant current restrictions exchanged before overhead work. No broad records. Functional clearance only.”
Matteo looked down at his left shoulder.
He rolled it once.
No pain.
A faint pull at the back.
Normal.
“Whose condition?”
“Quinn’s.”
Of course it was.
“What else?”
“No media. No public footage. Either athlete can end the session at any time. They’re putting it in writing.”
“Good.”
“She requested that you be able to stop without federation consequence too.”
Matteo went still.
His agent continued.
“Apparently she was extremely specific.”
“She usually is.”
“You sound like you’ve been studying her.”
Matteo looked at the rink.
“Everyone studies everyone.”
“Not what I meant.”
“Then ask a better question.”
His agent sighed.
“Do you want to do it?”
“No.”
The answer arrived easily.
Too easily.
“All right.”
Matteo frowned.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want, a hostage negotiator?”
“I expected an argument.”
“I represent you. I don’t own you.”
Matteo leaned back.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. For the record, the federation thinks the technical fit could be exceptional.”
“Federations think lots of things.”
“Mara apparently thinks it’s worth testing.”
That landed differently.
“Did Mara say that?”
“Yes.”
Matteo looked toward the ice again.
The girl in the junior pair had lost synchronization in the spin. Her partner slowed half a revolution to find her.
Matteo noticed the adjustment before the coach did.
His brain did this automatically.
Partner position.
Speed.
Timing.
Risk.
It had not stopped simply because Sofia retired.
His agent said, “I’ll tell them no.”
Matteo rubbed his thumb across the seam of his training pants.
“Wait.”
There was a pause.
“Matteo.”
“What?”
“You just said no.”
“I know what I said.”
“What changed in nine seconds?”
“Nothing.”
“That is never comforting.”
Matteo stood.
“Tell them I’ll call at four.”
“And then?”
“And then I’ll say no personally.”
His agent was quiet.
“You could have done that this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Do I want to know why you didn’t?”
“No.”
“Fantastic. Four o’clock.”
The call ended.
Matteo stayed where he was.
At 3:02, Sofia Bellini walked into Rink Two carrying two coffees and the expression of someone prepared to use one as a weapon.
She had retired three months earlier and somehow already looked more rested than Matteo had seen her in fifteen years.
It offended him.
“You look healthy,” he said.
“You look evasive.”
“Retirement made you rude.”
“I had more time to practice.”
She handed him a coffee.
He accepted it.
“Is this poisoned?”
“Not yet.”
They sat.
Sofia looked onto the ice.
The junior pair began another entry.
“Shoulder?”
“Fine.”
“Actual answer.”
“Two out of ten after yesterday’s show rehearsal. Zero this morning. Mild tightness now.”
“Thank you.”
“You are not my doctor.”
“No. I’m the person who had to listen to you insist it was ‘basically nothing’ when you couldn’t put on a coat.”
“That was one time.”
“Four winters.”
“Outerwear is structurally hostile.”
Sofia sipped her coffee.
“Rory.”
Matteo took a drink.
It was exactly right.
Sofia had made his coffee correctly for so many years that he sometimes forgot coffee could be bad.
“Subtle transition.”
“I learned from the federation.”
He looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
“Evan called me.”
“Of course he did.”
“He wanted me to hear the retirement from him before Friday.”
“That was decent.”
“He is decent.”
“I know.”
“He also said nobody is to make this about him abandoning Rory.”
Matteo nodded.
“Good.”
Sofia watched his face.
“And then he said they’d contacted you.”
“Less good.”
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Matteo laughed once.
“There are at least seven hundred answers to that question.”
“Give me the top three.”
“No.”
“Matteo.”
“Sofia.”
“You called me.”
“You came here.”
“Because Enzo called me.”
“Everyone in my life has become an informant.”
“Answer.”
Matteo looked at the ice.
“Shoulder.”
“Valid.”
“I’m thirty.”
“Also true.”
“I had a plan.”
“Shows, choreography, coaching.”
“Yes.”
“You were happy with that?”
He opened his mouth.
Sofia waited.
Matteo took another sip instead.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Interesting.”
“Do not.”
“You hesitated.”
“I drank coffee.”
“You weaponized coffee.”
“I learned from the best.”
Sofia leaned back.
“What’s number four?”
He didn’t answer.
She did.
“Her.”
Matteo’s hand tightened slightly around the cup.
“That is not a helpful category.”
“No. It is a person.”
“A person who dislikes me.”
Sofia gave him a look.
“Matteo.”
“What?”
“She does dislike you.”
“Thank you.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to rewrite it into something simple.”
His smile vanished.
Sofia’s voice softened.
“I was there for enough of it.”
“Then you know.”
“I know you got hurt.”
He stared at the boards.
“I know she did too,” Sofia said.
His gaze snapped back to hers.
“I didn’t say she didn’t.”
“No. You never do. That’s your favorite trick.”
“What trick?”
“You defend her from accusations nobody made, then insist you don’t care.”
“I care in the broad humanitarian sense.”
“Of course.”
“Very broad.”
“Continental.”
“Possibly global.”
Sofia smiled.
Then she let the joke die.
“You don’t owe her a partnership.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe skating another year.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe the federation a good story.”
“I know.”
“And if you’re still angry, you’re allowed to be angry.”
Matteo looked away.
The junior pair left the ice.
Rink Two emptied.
The sudden quiet felt larger than it should have.
Sofia continued.
“But if you say no, make sure you’re saying no because you want the life you planned next.”
He did not move.
“Not because eight years ago still gets to make decisions for you.”
Matteo laughed without humor.
“Did Mara call you too?”
“No.”
“Apparently every woman in skating has formed a union.”
“We meet Thursdays.”
“I knew it.”
Sofia bumped her knee against his.
“Do the thing you always do.”
“What?”
“Stop talking and look at the skating.”
She stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“You came here to deliver one sentence?”
“I also brought coffee.”
“Very efficient.”
“I’m retired.”
She smiled.
“Apparently we have time.”
Then she left.
Matteo did not go to the office immediately.
He went back onto the ice.
That was another habit people mistook for instinct: when his head became noisy, he gave his body something measurable.
He skated six laps at increasing speed, no music, hands loose behind his back. The first two were warm-up. The next two were edges. On the fifth he drove deeper through his knees and felt the old competitive engine wake with embarrassing enthusiasm.
His left shoulder complained only when he lifted the arm above his head at speed.
Not pain.
Information.
He lowered it, circled once, then repeated the movement more carefully.
A pull through the posterior cuff. Manageable.
He knew better than to turn manageable into permission.
Years earlier, he would have tested it again simply because it had not hurt enough the first time. Sofia had broken him of that habit by threatening to tell his mother every time he lied to a physiotherapist. Marriage had never been necessary; Italian maternal surveillance apparently covered the same territory.
He moved through footwork instead.
Three turns.
Bracket.
Counter.
Deep outside edge.
His blades felt good.
Too good.
He had expected, after Sofia retired, that the absence of a competitive program would feel like relief. Some days it did. He liked coaching. He liked inventing transitions without having to perform them while exhausted. He liked waking without checking a competition schedule before remembering what country he was in.
But there was another truth he had not advertised.
He missed the demand.
He missed walking into an arena where everything he had done for months had to become visible in four minutes.
He missed the strange intimacy of a program built so precisely that another person’s timing became part of his own nervous system.
He missed being responsible for more than himself.
That last admission annoyed him enough that he stopped near center ice.
He looked at the empty space to his right.
For sixteen years, Sofia would have been there.
He did not imagine Rory in the space.
He absolutely did not.
Instead he tried the opening edge from one of his old free programs and nearly laughed when his body supplied Sofia’s timing anyway.
Muscle memory was loyal long after contracts ended.
He coasted toward the gate.
One tryout, he thought.
Then immediately corrected himself.
No.
He had not agreed to anything.
Yet.
At 3:18, he went to the coaches’ office.
At 3:21, he opened his laptop.
At 3:23, he found video of Rory and Evan’s most recent international free skate.
He told himself this was professional curiosity.
At 3:24, he stopped insulting his own intelligence.
Rory appeared on screen in deep blue, compact and fast, every movement precise without looking small. Evan matched her through the opening sequence.
Matteo watched once.
Then again without commentary.
Then at half speed.
He took a notebook from his bag.
Black cover.
No labels.
Inside were dates, element diagrams, names, arrows, timing counts, notes from athletes he had coached, notes from show rehearsals, ideas for choreography.
He turned to a blank page.
QUINN / MERCER — CURRENT.
He began writing.
Entry speed high.
Throw rotation efficient.
Right-side landing protection still visible after ankle surgery.
Mercer compensates on rotational lift by shortening step.
Quinn adjusts early.
He paused.
Watched again.
Then wrote:
She sees partner errors before they happen.
Matteo stared at the sentence.
He drew a line through she and replaced it with QUINN.
Ridiculous.
He watched the final lift.
Rory rose above Evan.
Matteo leaned closer to the screen.
Her center of mass sat slightly forward compared with Sofia’s. Faster change of position. Smaller frame, but not lighter in the way people lazily assumed; dense power through hips and legs. She would need a different hand placement on the first rotation. His left shoulder could manage it if the entry stayed clean.
He hated that his mind had already put his hands there.
Professionally.
Technically.
Still.
He closed the video.
Opened it again.
At 3:47, he found one of Rory’s old singles clips from before she moved fully into pairs.
At 3:51, he found an interview and immediately closed it because listening to her talk was not research.
At 3:54, he reopened the free skate.
At 3:58, his phone alarm sounded.
FOUR O’CLOCK — SAY NO.
Matteo stared at the words.
He had set the alarm himself.
He turned it off.
The federation call came exactly two minutes later.
The High Performance director appeared first on screen. His agent joined from New York. Mara joined from another office at North Harbor.
Matteo sat back.
“Before we begin,” he said, “I want it noted that four adults scheduling a video call to discuss whether I should touch Róisín Quinn voluntarily feels like the start of a cautionary tale.”
Mara did not blink.
“Good afternoon, Matteo.”
“You look well, Mara.”
“You look underworked.”
“I’ve been coaching children.”
“Children do not count. They recover too fast.”
The director cleared his throat.
“Matteo, thank you for joining.”
“Of course.”
He heard his own public voice arrive.
Warm.
Easy.
Useful.
He could have run the entire call from there.
Asked charming questions. Made them laugh. Declined elegantly. Left nobody enough friction to challenge him.
Then Mara said, “Do you want to skate?”
Simple.
No preamble.
Matteo looked at her.
“Today?”
“Competitively.”
His first instinct was a joke.
He felt it form.
Held it.
The silence stretched.
His agent looked surprised.
Matteo looked down at the notebook.
QUINN / MERCER — CURRENT.
Under it, technical notes had already become possibilities.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The truth felt strange in his mouth.
Mara nodded.
“Better.”
The director began outlining the proposal.
One private session.
Thursday.
Six fifteen.
Relevant medical restrictions shared in advance.
Closed rink.
No press.
No commitment.
Matteo listened.
Then asked, “Did she agree?”
The director hesitated.
Mara answered.
“She agreed to information.”
“That sounds like her.”
Mara’s gaze sharpened.
Matteo regretted the familiarity immediately.
He tapped his pen.
“If either of us ends it, it ends.”
“Yes.”
“No federation interpretation about attitude.”
“Yes.”
“No cameras beyond technical review.”
“Yes.”
“Footage stays with the training team.”
“Yes.”
“My shoulder clearance goes to Anika Shah and Mara. Her relevant restrictions come to the same people. I don’t need her records.”
“Agreed.”
Matteo looked at the time.
He could still say no.
Nothing prevented it.
His show contracts would continue. His shoulder would remain manageable. He would choreograph. Coach. Travel less. Sleep more. Build the next life he had already begun telling people he wanted.
All of that remained true.
So did the fact that he had spent forty minutes studying Rory Quinn’s skating after declaring he had no interest in skating with her.
He looked at Mara.
“One tryout.”
The director exhaled.
Matteo raised a finger.
“Do not sound relieved. It makes me suspicious.”
The director actually laughed.
“One.”
“Ninety minutes.”
Mara said, “Two hours.”
“Ninety.”
“You waste twenty minutes talking.”
“That is part of my process.”
“One hundred five.”
Matteo considered.
“Fine.”
“Six fifteen.”
“That time is immoral.”
“Cheaper ice.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Mara closed her folder.
The director began discussing documents.
Matteo barely heard him.
Thursday.
Rory Quinn.
On ice.
For the first time in eight years, there would be nowhere convenient to look somewhere else.
The call ended.
Matteo remained in the empty office.
He opened his notebook.
For a long moment he looked at the page.
Then beneath the crossed-out heading, he wrote a new one in small block letters.
QUINN / DELUCA — TRYOUT.
He dated it.
Underneath, he added one line.
One session. Facts only.
Matteo read it back.
Then, because he had known himself for thirty years and saw no reason to begin lying badly now, he added:
This is probably a terrible idea.
He closed the notebook.
For the first time since Sofia retired, he was looking forward to getting on competitive ice.