My face pinked with excitement, and the bag landed in my lap with a thump as he dropped it there. “It’s not much, so I don’t want you to get overly excited.”

“Shush,” I demanded, unrolling the top of the bag and digging around until I came out with one of the items.

Bandaids. All purple.

Skepticism ripened my face and puffed the very tops of my cheeks as I dug around for the next item.

A keychain with miniature grips.

I smiled, thinking they were cute, but not knowing the reasoning behind them and good luck.

I shook the bag and still heard a rattle, and he nodded in confirmation that something was left, so I reached inside one last time and pulled it out.

A tiny bottle of New Skin Liquid Bandage.

My eyebrows pulled together in question.

He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just stuff for your battered hands.”

My eyes met his as he socked me with one of the most powerful gifts anyone had ever given me.

“So you can keep fighting and clawing and scratching. That stuff—and I—will be here to take care of you when you’re through.”

“Nik,” I breathed out in a heartfelt whisper.

“Oh, wait,” he called as if he’d just remembered. “There’s something else too.”

Confusion clouded my face. The bag had been empty after the New Skin. I knew it had.

Reaching over and grabbing that very item out of my hands, he twisted off the cap, and pulled out the handy little brush that was attached.

“Turn over your hand,” he instructed, waiting for me to place my palm up in front of him. I did as he asked, smiling at the feel of his hand as it cradled the back of mine, and the precision with which he painted the thin layer of clear coating onto my skin.

But when I looked down, it wasn’t clear—at least not entirely—a pretty purple glitter glinting out of the coating and off of my hands as the bandage dried.

“What…” I started unable to finish.

He shrugged both of his broad shoulders and pressed his palm to the still tacky surface of mine. When he pulled it away, the a shiny, glittery layer of new skin covered both of our palms.

“Just a little extra magic.”

And better yet, when I looked at it, I could imagine his hand on—

Mine.

She was mine, and I was hers. The way she’d looked at me thanks to a few stupid gag gifts had nearly blown my mind.

So much so, it had made the trip to Michael’s first thing that morning to buy purple glitter more than worth it.

But I had to be on my very best behavior now. She’d been through five or six press interviews before this and was finally finishing up her last one. They all asked her the same stupid questions about being too old and too greedy, and at the repetition of them all, it wasn’t hard to see why she’d formed such a skewed view of herself in the first place.

Finally, one of them asked a different question, but I wasn’t certain it was better.

“Word is that you were outstanding in practice yesterday. That you’ve always been talented but taken it to a whole new level. If that’s the case, what do you think has helped you reach such an unlikely peak at an age that’s largely considered too old for the sport?”

Arms crossed on my chest and feet shoulder width apart behind the guy asking the questions, I rolled my eyes.

Callie’s eyes came to me.

“My new coach. He’s really helped me look at things in a different way lately.”

My chest squeezed double the amount I considered comfortable, both affection and panic exerting their grip simultaneously.

Just as I suspected it would, the reporter’s interest skyrocketed. “And who is your new coach?”

Callie gestured over his shoulder to me, and I did my best not to cringe. I didn’t want her to feel like she’d done the wrong thing, but I wasn’t excited about the new attention either. The more they watched me, the more I’d have to watch myself, marking my actions in some hollow version of their normal intensity.

I’d have to watch the way I looked at her and spoke to her, and I’d have to do even more than I already had to.

“Nikolai Bagrov,” she touted proudly.

I smiled if only at the affection in her voice.

“He’s the third ranked power tumbler in the world and makes my tumbling look like child’s play.”

I closed my eyes briefly in resignation.

The interviewer turned to me and back again. “What’s he doing coaching you then?”

Callie went to answer, but I cut in and did it before her.

“I’m retired,” I explained simply.

Callie’s eyes opened wide in surprise, perhaps because I hadn’t officially told her, or maybe because I spent all of my nights tumbling with her. She knew I was still in competitive shape, but from the moment my parents died, I’d been done. My heart still loved the sport but I didn’t have the competitive edge.

I just wanted to have fun. And now, I wanted to coach Callie.

I’d deal with what came after that when I got to it.

I did my best to steel my face, schooling my expression in to one of dry disinterest. I didn’t want him to get the inkling that there was something more or less to the decision or that anything about me was worthy of his interest.

The media on scrutiny was well and intrusive enough.

The interviewer shrugged, turning back to Callie to ask more questions.

With a nod and a jerk of my head, I signaled her that it was time to be done.

She understood.

“I don’t want to cut you short, but I’ve really got to get going and get prepared for tomorrow,” she explained with a sweet smile I recognized as fake from a mile away.

No one else was any the wiser.

I knew part of it was a genuine disinterest in the interview, but the other fraction of its plasticity came from me and her inability to get a read on why my mood had taken a nose dive into the shitter.

“Right, no problem. Good luck tomorrow,” the guy agreed easily, knowing the long day she had ahead of her tomorrow and counting it as normal.

“Thanks,” she replied, shaking the man’s hand and coming to meet me where I stood.

“Let’s go,” I directed shortly, careful to walk beside her without touching her as I did.

She could feel the uncertainty wafting off of me, a nervous fidget making her normally smooth walk choppy. But this wasn’t the place to explain, so I ignored it, walking with my eyes pointed on the ground as we weaved through the crowd in the lobby of the hotel, waited on the elevator, climbed on, and rode it in silence to the sixth floor and our rooms.

“My room,” I directed, knowing that the possibility of her father coming to her room was much higher than him coming to mine.

“What?” she asked as soon as the door closed behind us. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Nik.”

Frustrated, I ran my hands down my face, and then pulled off my hat and pushed them through my hair. She shoved my arms out of the way and stepped into my body, wrapping her arms around me and looking up with big eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, concerned.

“Nothing, Cal,” I non-answered.

She glared at me.

I widened my eyes in apology and opened my mouth like a fish before the words formed. “Really. I’m sorry for worrying you. They’re just gonna be watching us now.”

“What do you mean? They were always going to be watching us.”

“No,” I corrected. “They were going to be watching you. I was going to be just another part of the white, fuzzy background noise.”

“Oh,” she mumbled as she tucked her face into my chest , distraught.

“It’s fine.” The cotton of her shirt rasped slightly with the soothing motion of my hands up and down the back of it.