Page 119 of Going for Gold (Sweet Cravings 3)

Oh God.

My mom answered the door. "Alina." She pulled me into a hug. "Sweetie, we've been so worried about you. Where on earth have you been?" She released me from her hug but kept both hands on my shoulders.

"I just needed some time to myself," I said.

She nodded. "Right. I know how upset you were about the final. But silver is nothing to be ashamed of. That's a huge accomplishment."

Does she really not know about what happened? Or is she just pretending like she doesn't? I glanced at Kristen and she gave me a subtle thumbs up.

"So what's for dinner?" asked Kristen.

"I cooked up a big turkey dinner. I hope that's okay. In fact, I need to go take it out of the oven. Why don't you go put your things upstairs and then join us in the dining room."

My mom disappeared down the hall and left Kristen and me at the door.

"I think she's oblivious," said Kristen.

"I don't know. She was acting kinda weird. And why didn't my dad or grandma come to greet us?"

"They're probably just already at the table. Come on, go put your stuff upstairs and come eat. I'm hungry."

I walked upstairs and dropped my duffel bag on the floor of my room. There was a picture of Chris and me on my nightstand. I walked over and picked it up. Chris had his arm around me, his hand resting on my ass. I always thought his physical affection was a good thing. I had been too blind to realize that it was the only thing that was important to him. I opened up the drawer in my nightstand and tossed the picture inside. Screw Chris. Bryce was who I really cared about. But just like Chris had fucked things up with me, I had fucked things up with Bryce. Even though Kristen had cheered me up a little, the thought of Bryce still brought tears to my eyes. I tried to cheer myself up by looking at the other picture on my nightstand, a picture of Grandma and me in front of Nona's Bakery when I was young. But that picture didn't cheer me up either. It just made me think about how I still had to convince my dad to give me more time to come up with the money to fix up the bakery. And convincing him that the money was coming involved admitting that I had participated in the tiebreaker and won gold and that the US ITA Committee was withholding my winnings until a review of my behavior was completed.

Shit.

I turned away from the picture and went downstairs.

Kirsten, Mom, Dad, and Grandma were all seated at the table already.

"Alina!" my grandmother said. "My beautiful, Alina." She was smiling brightly. It was questionable if my mom knew or not, but it definitely seemed like my grandma was in the dark. Thank God.

"Hi, Grandma," I said and gave her a hug before sitting down.

"Welcome home, honey," said my dad. He glanced up at me and then turned his attention to carving the turkey.

I looked over at Kristen to see if she had figured out if they knew, but she just shrugged.

We all served ourselves and began eating. With each second that passed in silence, I began to think that my family had seen the video. Usually we had such free-flowing conversation during our family dinners, especially after not seeing each other for three weeks.

"So, girls," said my mom finally. "We want to hear all about the games."

"They were a lot of fun," I said. I wanted to avoid giving any details at all costs.

"What was Brazil like?"

"Hot. Really hot," I said. "You know, in a temperature way." I ate a big spoonful of mashed potatoes and hoped no one picked up on the innuendo.

"Yeah, I saw on the news how hot it was there," replied my mom.

Please be talking about the temperature. "Yup. High 90s and very humid

."

"What I want to know is what it was like to be surrounded by all those athletes," said my grandma.

"Intimidating," said Kristen. "And a little overwhelming. But I thought Alina handled it really well."

I kicked Kristen under the table. What the hell is she doing!?

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