“They sound great,” Oliver said softly. His voice was more cautious than it normally was. I wanted to push, but I also felt like I was two questions away from him snapping out of whatever this was, cracking a joke, and skating away from me.

“Were your parents…not great?” I asked, tired of dancing around the question I was dying to know the answer to.

“Let’s just say while your parents nurtured your relationship with Mattie, my parents pitted Nathan and me against each other.” Oliver’s eyes looked glassy.

My heart twisted at his admittance. “That’s awful,” I said.

Oliver blew out a pained breath. “It was just the way that they were. My dad is kind of an ass. He always only cared about work, and he saw Nathan as his prodigy or something. Nathan was basically a genius. Like, I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that he’s the most logical person you’ll ever meet. My dad always pushed the hell out of him.”

“And you?” I choked out.

Oliver shook his head. “I never had much of a relationship with my dad.”

The sounds of our skates scraping up the ice filled the air as I waited for him to continue.

“He’s just… He never cared about me. Never cared what I did. My grades were never all that good, and that was all he seemed to care about. My mom was always the one cheering me on. I was grateful for it, but it made me feel…weird. She was more standoffish with Nathan and my dad. It was like it was her and me against them. I don’t know. I didn’t realize how not normal that was until I moved out.”

“At least she supported you,” I said quietly, although it seemed like they’d had some kind of unhealthy codependent thing going on when he was younger.

He rubbed his free hand along his jaw and sighed. Our pace had picked up a little. Skating was even easier when I wasn’t thinking about it and was instead completely invested in whatever bits Oliver was willing to share with me.

“I don’t know if she supported me or just wanted me on her side. The whole thing makes me feel weird, and now our relationship is a little tense.”

“But you’re close with Nathan now, right?” I asked.

“I am. I didn’t know how to connect with him for years, but after he moved out here, we were finally able to talk and get to know each other without our parents breathing down our necks. I haven’t really figured things out with my mom, but at least I feel like Nathan and I are in it together now. And I might just have to be okay with who she is. Maybe she isn’t a perfect parent, but at least she still calls us, ya know? And it’s clear she’s trying harder with Nathan.”

“Your dad doesn’t try?” I guessed.

“He calls Nathan sometimes, but I think all of Nathan’s success almost irritates him. Like he wanted him to do well, but not significantly better than him. He divorced my mom a while back—honestly, we were shocked it took them so long, but I don’t think either of them wanted to deal with custody arrangements when we were younger. Anyway, I haven’t talked to my dad in over a year and I couldn’t care less.”