### CHAPTER 20 - PARTY
Roman asks on Friday morning while I'm sitting on the floor taping my ankle for practice, the way I do every morning without thinking.
"Party tomorrow," he says, pulling a hoodie over his head, his voice muffled by fabric. "Team house. End of midterms thing. You should come."
I don't look up from the tape, winding it tight around the bone. "I don't like parties."
"It's not a party party," he says, emerging from the hoodie, hair messed up. "It's just guys hanging out. Music. Food. My mom is sending her seven-layer dip, which means Miller will eat half of it in the kitchen and pretend he didn't."
Maya, who is somehow already in our room at 7 a.m. stealing Roman's Pop-Tarts straight out of the box, points at me with one like it's a weapon. "He's coming. I'm coming. We're a package deal, Callahan. You invite one traumatized figure skater, you get the loud best friend for free."
Roman grins at her, then at me. "Good. Seven o'clock. Wear something that isn't practice clothes, Orlov. Please."
I finish taping, ripping the end with my teeth. My hands are steady, they've done this a thousand times, but my stomach isn't. It's doing that tight flip it does before a hard jump.
Hockey parties. I know what hockey parties are, even in Russia I knew. Loud music you can't talk over, drunk boys shouting, red cups everywhere, people pressed too close. The locker room after practice when I was thirteen, the older hockey players from the school team cornering me by the benches because they'd heard a rumor, their shoulders blocking the door. I can still hear the way they laughed, the way my own breath sounded too loud in my ears.
I push the memory down hard, the way Dr. Amara taught me, breathe in for four. "Okay," I say.
Roman looks surprised I said yes that fast, his eyebrows go up. "Okay? Just like that?"
"Okay," I repeat, and I make myself look at him.
He smiles, that real one that starts in his eyes. "Cool."
At 6:45 on Saturday, Maya bangs on our door like the police. She's wearing dark jeans and a sparkly black top and her hair is curled in loose waves, and she looks like she's going somewhere much cooler than a hockey house.
"Viktor Orlov, you are absolutely not wearing that," she says, pointing at my gray sweatshirt, the soft one I sleep in.
"What's wrong with it?" I ask, looking down.
"It's depressing and it has a hole in the sleeve," she says, already digging through Roman's closet like she lives here. She throws a black sweater at my face. Roman's. It smells like his laundry detergent, clean and a little like cedar. "Wear this. You need to look hot and unavailable."
I put it on because it's easier than arguing with Maya. It's too big in the shoulders, too long in the arms, the hem hits me mid-thigh. I roll the sleeves up three times. The black tape on my left wrist shows for a second in the gap, pale skin and dark tape. I pull the sleeve down fast, tug it over my knuckles.
Roman comes out of the bathroom in a dark blue henley, his hair still damp. He looks at me in his sweater and stops for half a second in the doorway, his eyes doing a quick sweep from my head to my feet.
"You good?" he asks, quiet, just for me, not for Maya who is still talking.
I nod. Lie. My heart is already beating too fast and we haven't even left. "Yeah."
The team house is off campus, a big old white house with a sagging porch and music already thumping through the windows. There are people everywhere, spilling out onto the porch with red cups, hockey guys I recognize from the rink in backwards hats, girls from the volleyball team, people from other teams I don't know.
Maya grabs my hand, her fingers warm and sure. "Stick with me, baby skater. I know these idiots and which ones to avoid."
Roman is on my other side, not holding my hand, but his shoulder bumps mine every few steps as we walk up the path, like he's checking, like he's making sure I'm still there, a quiet little *I'm here* every time we move.
Inside it's hot and crowded and smells like pizza and beer and too many bodies. Someone hands Roman a red cup the second we walk in. He takes it to be polite but he doesn't drink, he just holds it. He disappears into the kitchen and comes back thirty seconds later and hands me a cold unopened water bottle, condensation on the plastic.
"Here," he says, pressing it into my hand. "Hydrate, princess. Can't have you passing out on me."
I roll my eyes but I take it, and my fingers are shaking a little so I hold it tight. "Shut up."
"Never," he says, and he stays close.
Maya disappears to dance with Priya in the living room where they've pushed the furniture back. Jamal is at the kitchen table playing beer pong and yelling every time he makes a shot. I stand by the wall near the kitchen where it's quieter, where I can see the door, with my water bottle held against my chest like a shield.
A group of Roman's teammates walk by on their way to the keg. One of them, a big defenseman named Tyler, the one who always chirps the loudest on the ice, stops and looks me up and down.
"Hey, it's the Russian," he says, loud enough that a few people turn. "You skate pretty for a guy, you know that? Pretty like a girl."
It's supposed to be a compliment, I think, in his head it's a compliment. It doesn't feel like one. It feels like thirteen again, it feels like being called names in the hallway while everyone laughs, it feels like my throat closing up. My grip tightens on the water bottle and the plastic crinkles.
Roman steps in front of me, just half a step, just enough that his shoulder blocks Tyler from my view. He doesn't raise his voice, he doesn't have to.
"He skates better than you, Ty," Roman says, calm and cold. "And better than me. So shut up."
Tyler laughs, holds his hands up in fake surrender, his cup sloshing. "Relax, Callahan. Jesus. Just talking. Just giving the kid a compliment."
He walks away, bumping into someone else. Roman turns to me immediately, his back to the party.
"You okay?" he asks, his eyes searching my face. "We can go right now. Say the word."
I nod, but my heart is beating too fast, hummingbird fast. I force myself to take a sip of water. "Yeah. I'm good."
"You don't have to stay," he says, quiet, just for me in the loud room. "We can go home, watch a movie. I don't care about this."
I look around over his shoulder. Maya is laughing so hard she's bent over, dancing with Priya. Jamal is winning and doing a victory dance. The music is loud but nobody is looking at me. Nobody is cornering me by the wall. Nobody is blocking the door. It's not the same as before, it's not even close, and my body is slowly starting to understand that.
"I want to stay," I say, and I'm surprised to find it's true, that the panic is already fading. "For a little. Just... stay by me?"
Roman nods like I just asked him to do something easy. "Always. Stay by me then."
We end up on the big sagging couch in the living room, squished together. Maya and Priya squeeze in next to us, Maya half on my lap, Priya half on Roman's. Someone puts on a song everyone knows from the radio, and Maya grabs my hands and drags me up to dance. I say no five times. She does it anyway. I'm terrible, I have no rhythm off the ice, I step on her feet twice. Roman laughs so hard from the couch he almost spills his untouched drink down his shirt, his head thrown back, and the sound makes something warm uncurl in my stomach.
At 10:30, I'm tired. Not panic tired, not the kind where I need to run. Just people tired, my social battery dead. I lean over and tap Roman's shoulder twice, the same two taps he does on the ice.
"I'm gonna walk back," I say close to his ear so he can hear me over the music.
He stands up immediately, like he's been waiting for me to say it. "I'll come with you."
"You don't have to," I say, because his team is here, his friends.
"I want to," he says, simple, and he grabs his coat from the pile by the door. "Let's go."
Maya yells from the dance floor, hands cupped around her mouth, "Bye, moms! Be safe! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
Outside, the air is cold and clean and hits my hot face like a slap in a good way. We walk slow back to campus, not talking much, our shoes crunching on the salted sidewalk. The sweater is warm, warmer than my own clothes, and it smells like him.
"Thanks for coming," Roman says after a while, his hands in his pockets, his breath making clouds.
"Thanks for the water," I say, holding up the half-empty bottle I'm still carrying. "And for... you know."
He glances over, his profile lit by the streetlight. "Anytime, Viktor. Seriously. Anytime."
We get to our room and it's quiet and warm. I take off his sweater, careful, and I fold it into a neat square and I put it on the end of his bed instead of mine.
He watches me do it, leaning against his desk. "You can keep it if you want," he says, casual, like he's offering me a pen. "Looks better on you anyway."
I look down at the black tape on my wrist, at the sleeve that covered it all night without me having to pull it down every five minutes. At the way I felt hidden and safe at the same time.
"Okay," I say, picking it back up. "Thank you."
He smiles, small and pleased. "Okay."
I go to my desk. I open the drawer. I take out the journal. I open it to the page with the five words I've been collecting like smooth stones. *Safe. Roman. Mom. Maya. Papa.*
Under *Papa*, I write a sixth word, my handwriting a little messy from being tired.
*Party.*
Then, smaller underneath it, like a secret just for me:
*Stayed.*
I close the book and I put it back in the drawer and I shut it soft.
Roman is already in his bed, propped up against his pillows, on his phone. He looks up when I stand. "Five minutes?" he asks.
"Five minutes," I say.
"Good," he says, and his voice is warm. "Proud of you, Orlov."
My face gets hot instantly. He pats the empty side of his bed with his free hand, the mattress dipping.
"I'm too wired to sleep after that place," he says, like it's nothing, like he does this every night. "Wanna watch something dumb on my laptop? Small movie night, just us. You can keep the sweater, princess."
I stand there in the middle of our room in his too-big black sweater, holding my journal, my heart beating that new fast way, not panic fast. I think about his bed, about sharing space, about how easy it would be to say no and go to my own bed across the room where it's safe and separate.
I nod before I can talk myself out of it. "Okay."
He grins and scoots over, making room, opening his laptop on his knees. "Come on. Bring your water."
I climb in careful, sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed first, then slowly leaning back against his pillows when he nudges my shoulder with his. The bed is warm from him, it smells like his detergent and his shampoo and the faint cedar from his closet. He puts on some stupid action movie we've both seen before, something with too many explosions so we don't have to actually pay attention, and he turns the volume low.
We don't really watch. We talk quiet about nothing, about Maya's terrible dancing, about Miller eating all the dip, about how Tyler is an idiot. His shoulder is pressed against mine under the blanket, solid and warm, and every few minutes his hand bumps mine when he reaches for his phone and he doesn't move it away far.
Halfway through the movie, I'm tired, that good people-tired from earlier, and my eyes keep closing. I'm still wearing his sweater, the sleeves pulled down over my hands, and I'm warm and safe and full of water.
I must fall asleep sometime during the second car chase, because the next thing I know the laptop screen has gone dark and the room is quiet except for Roman breathing next to me, slow and even. I'm curled on my side facing him, his blanket pulled up to my chin, and he's asleep too, his head tipped back against his pillow, his arm stretched out on the mattress between us, close enough that our fingers are almost touching.
I don't move. I don't get up and go back to my own bed across the room. I stay right there in his bed, in his sweater, in the small warm space between us, and I listen to him breathe.
For the first time since I was thirteen years old, a room full of hockey players doesn't feel like a place I have to survive. It feels like a place where someone will hand me water and stand in front of me and walk me home and then let me fall asleep in his bed while a dumb movie plays.
I close my eyes again, and the sweater sleeves are too long and cover my hands completely, and I don't feel scared at all.