Chasing You (Viktor Krum X Reader)

Chapter 29: Here, Now

"Maybe I can come and see you tomorrow," I say and try to work through my schedule in my head as I pull my shirt over my head.

Viktor groans and pulls his hand away, and a blush rises on my cheeks as I look over my shoulder at him. His arm is thrown over his face, covering his eyes. He says, "Tomorrow, I have practice."

"Oh... Well, I can't do the day after tomorrow. I have my fitting for my uniform and equipment."

"And I have practice until Saturday. Then, I'm free," he says.

"That's my first practice."

Viktor sighs and drops his arm to his side, meeting my eyes. "This is going to be difficult," he says.

I sit down on the edge of his bed, looking down at his handsome face. His hand drops to my knee, tracing small circles with his fingertips.

"I have awful timing, don't I?" I ask softly, leaning forward to press my thumb against his bottom lip, slowly tracing a line across it. He raises his dark eyebrows in response, grazing his teeth against the tip of my thumb. I sigh and lean to kiss him again, trying not to think about what the next few months are going to be like.

"Everything is going to work out," he says and grabs my hand to press a kiss to my palm.

"Knock on wood," I whisper.

"Hm?"

"You have to say, 'Knock on wood' after you say something like that," I tell him and graze my hand over his chest absently.

"Knock on wood," he says, setting his hand atop mine.

***

"Where have you been, little lady?" my dad demands as I step out of the fireplace in the apartment. The lights are off already, so I assume my dad and Nat have already started getting ready for bed.

"I told you I was going to talk to Viktor," I tell him slowly, wiping stray ash from my pants as the fire flickers out behind me and bathes us in darkness.

"Nat and I were worried about you," he says.

"Sorry," I apologize and start inching toward my room, hoping to cut the conversation off early. I don't want to lie to him, but I also don't want to tell him that I was with Viktor in a much more intimate way than I intended.

He says, "It's fine. You're an adult. It's just..."

"He and I talked about what all this means for me," I say and hesitantly sit on the couch. I can barely see my dad's face in the dark, but I can see what's most important. I can see the dull light from the streetlights outside reflecting in his eyes and illuminating the highest points of his face, leaving his wrinkles swathed in darkness, nearly overflowing.

I continue, "He's done all this before, you know. The tryouts and the recruitment, and he's helping me. He knows more than I do, and I want to make sure I do this right. Things are different now. Now that I'm not in school anymore, there are no second chances. I have to do this right."

My dad is quiet for a moment, and then he reaches out and he takes my hand. He says, "There are such things as second chances, my girl."

I lean into him and close my eyes as he wraps his arm around me. I nuzzle my face into his neck. It's always been me and him against the world for as long as I could remember. When he kicked mom out but she got the house in the end, it was us who stayed together, even when I got the choice to choose between hopping between houses with my dad or staying in my childhood home with my mom. When he brought home a red-haired woman with eyes so big and blue and asked me if she had my approval. When we toted our things from that inn out in the city to Nat's little apartment, where she emptied her office to fit a bed for me.

And I know right then that I will never lie to him. Even if I know he's overprotective and he can be irritating, I will never withhold truths from him, and I will never, ever lie to him. Not after Mom lied to him for all those years as she brought me on playdates with Cedric, not because he and I hit it off, but because she wanted to worm her way into Amos' life.

"I was with Viktor," I whisper, "because he and I are going to try again."

Dad nods his head, remaining silent although I feel his fingers tighten around my shoulder.

"I know that it's just been us against the world for a long time and you want to protect me," I continue, "but you can't protect me from everything. That's okay. I don't need to be protected from Viktor. He makes me happy."

"If he makes you happy, then there's nothing else I would rather you pursue," he says into my hair.

"Thank you. And... We should talk about what happened in the maze," I say. "What really happened."

And we do. I tell my dad everything, even when I'm crying, even when he's crying. I tell him the good and the bad; the simple and the complicated; what's easy and what's hard.

Everything. I tell him everything.

He cries into my hair, "I should have been there."

I tell him, "I just need you here now."