Page 131 of Hate You Most

“About?”

Viktoriya tilted her head, considering whether she should be honest or evasive. There was no point in pretending with Dakota.

“About everything,” she said.

“And?”

“And,” Viktoriya said, skating a slow loop before coming back toward her. “I was thinking about how much this has taken from me.”

Dakota didn’t interrupt.

Viktoriya kept her gaze on the ice a moment longer. “My career, my home country, and the time and years I've spent dedicated to figure skating. There was a version of myself that thought she could survive by cutting away all the things she loved. And then I thought about what it has given me.”

Viktoriya looked into her wife's eyes then.

“The ice,” Viktoriya said, “Figure skating. It was the one place I knew how to exist without lying to myself. Even when everything else was a performance, skating was still the one thing I could do without pretending.”

Dakota’s eyes warmed visibly at that.

“And you, Dakota.”

Dakota laughed softly as if embarrassed by Viktoriya's words.

“Me?” she asked.

“Yes, you,” Viktoriya said, skating one careful arc toward her. “You somehow make it impossible to be mad at the world.”

Dakota’s eyebrows rose. “That is possibly the weirdest compliment you have ever given me.”

“It is not weird.”

“It is absolutely weird.”

Viktoriya’s mouth curved. “You are weird.”

Dakota scoffed, then drifted closer. “You love me.”

The words landed so naturally between them that Viktoriya almost missed how powerful they were when spoken aloud. Her face warmed despite the cold air around them.

Viktoriya's eyes darted to her lips. “I do love you. So much.”

They had gone to great lengths to hide their love from the world. At first, there had only been rivalry. She had hated Dakota for every medal she won because each time it had been a reminder that she wasn't the best. That she wasn't untouchable. Through the years and the competitions that hated had morphed into something far more dangerous, and by the time she'd realized it, there was no separating the two.

She didn't have to hide it anymore. She could stand in the middle of a crowded street and shout her love for Dakota to the world if she wanted to. The fear was still there, buried deep in the back of her mind. It would probably never disappear from her thoughts completely, but it didn't get to dictate her life anymore.

Dakota looked at her for a long moment.

“What?”

“Oh, it's nothing,” Dakota replied, glancing down at her with a faint smile that had no business making Viktoriya’s chest ache the way it did.

“No seriously, what?”

“You know...” Dakota smiled softly. “I think that's the first time you've ever told me you love me.”

“Seriously?” That couldn't be right, could it? There was no way that was the first time she'd said those words to her wife. “We are married, I must have told you before. You are remembering wrong.”

“No,” Dakota said. “I am definitely remembering correctly, and that was the first time.”