by Erin McRae
He got back to TCI a little earlier than he needed to, and was standing at the front desk chatting with Cal, one of the zamboni drivers who Aaron had dated very briefly two years ago, when Katie brushed past him.
"Don't think you got away with that," she murmured as she passed.
"What?" Aaron asked, breaking off mid-sentence.
Katie kept walking.
“Uh, catch you later!” he called to Cal who, long accustomed to the oddities of figure skaters, waved him off with a chuckle.
“What?” he asked again, hustling after Katie.
She glanced at him over her shoulder as she walked down the hall. “You and Zack and your coffee date."
"It wasn't a date," he protested.
“You wanted it to be.”
“Well, sure.”
"I told you no. Him, too."
"Right then, because we had ice time. I wasn’t going to skip out on work.” Aaron was somewhat offended. He hadn’t come back from the islands to fuck off from work with a boy.
"Aaron," Katie said slowly, like he was one of the little kids learning how to skate who needed reminding to bend his knees. "I didn't tell you no because we had ice time."
“Then why? You’re the one who told me to show off and be nice.”
Katie stopped at the door to the little office she and Brendan shared with the other TCI coaches. “Yes, but there’s being nice to the journalist and there’s being boy crazy at the journalist.”
Aaron couldn’t exactly defend himself against that one.
“I’m not saying you can’t be friends with him or get coffee with him,” Katie went on. “Just...be aware, okay? Because every moment I have known you, you've had a crush on someone. Usually ill-advised."
"You didn't mind when Huy and I were dating.”
"Because Huy is sensible. He has good boundaries and knows how to balance his personal life and his skating.” She shot him a sideways look. “I’d hoped he’d be a good role model even if you two want different things out of the people in your lives.”
“Are you saying I have a bad work-life balance?”
Katie sighed. “It’s hardly your fault. Your home and your family are out there in the middle of the lake and your work is exhausting. That’s a big gulf.”
“So maybe I want to close that gulf.”
“Do you?” Katie gave him a keen look. “Or do you want a fun distraction because the work is hard and you’re lonely? Look,” she said, slinging her arm around his shoulders and steering him farther down the hall in the direction of the locker rooms. “You’re a competitive figure skater. The work is brutal and involves too little reward most days. I get it; I’ve been there. But be smart about what you’re doing. And seriously, don’t fuck the reporter. Okay?”
“Do you want me to say ‘okay, I hear you’ or ‘okay, I won’t fuck the reporter’?”
She levelled her gaze at him. “Honestly? I’ll take what I can get.”
“Well,” Aaron said as he laughed and ducked out from under her arm, “that makes two of us!”
Chapter 6
JUNE AND JULY
Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN
ZACK SPENT THE NEXT several weeks falling head over heels in love with Twin Cities Ice.
Aaron never let him miss his twice-weekly skating lessons—not that Zack was inclined to skip them. The hour was early and the rink was freezing, yes, but he’d have gone through more discomfort and lost more sleep if it meant spending more time with Aaron.
Aaron was funny, charming, handsome, and absolutely, unbelievably, strong. Not just because he could and did keep catching Zack and picking him back up when he fell. But because the more Zack skated, the more he appreciated the ocean that separated his own physical abilities from Aaron’s talent that had been honed by years of hard work.
Zack had always spent time in a gym when he could; living in conflict zones had made a certain level of physical strength and endurance a distinct asset. But now he was spending most of his time at the rink watching the TCI skaters do hours of on-ice drills and even more hours in the gym and dance studio. They didn’t have the sort of bodies Zack had historically associated with strength, but they were, to a one, all stronger than him.
No one kept him at a distance; everyone from the front desk staff to the maintenance people at the rink greeted him by name and stopped to chat. The skaters bantered and gossiped around him while he sat in the break room transcribing notes or trying to thaw out. Brendan persisted in asking Zack how he was and whether he needed anything with a warmth and sincerity that made Zack relieved his inappropriate crush wasn’t on him. Back at his apartment, Marie took to inviting him upstairs frequently for coffee, pastries, surprisingly good bourbon, and gossip.
There was a camaraderie here that came from doing something hard and dangerous that other people didn’t understand. It made Zack miss the good things about the work he used to do: the friends, the teamwork, what it felt like when you’d done something almost impossible—whether it was getting the story or surviving the night.
And Aaron stood out from all of them, like a star serving as a beacon across a twilight horizon.
Zack didn’t think that was only because he found Aaron devastatingly attractive, but it didn’t hurt. Zack began to feel a thrill of anticipation every time he saw Aaron setting up a jump, and an even bigger thrill of satisfaction when he landed them. When he finally did sit down to formally interview Aaron, Aaron was funny and odd and charming in all the ways that, Zack was sure, would make readers fall for him.
He came to know which jumps Aaron was stronger at—theoretically, at least; he still couldn’t distinguish the jumps as they were happening in front of him. He watched Aaron spend days drilling a quadruple loop that would not happen as much as he and Katie seemed to think it should. And he watched as Aaron began working with Brendan on the choreography for what would become his programs for the competition season.
He wanted to write about it all. Not just Aaron and his hustle and the race to make the U.S. Olympic figure skating team. He only had three thousand words, not thirty thousand, and he needed to contain himself for this article, but Zack would be lying if he said he wasn’t tinkering in his head with extended metaphors and an essay on how he’d gotten from there to here.
There was one, rather glaring, downside, which had nothing to do with the Twin Cities at all: He couldn’t get Cayden Sauer to talk to him. Phone calls to him and his coaches were ignored; emails got one-line responses about getting in touch soon and then nothing. As much as Zack wanted to go out to Sauer’s rink in Phoenix to conduct interviews in person so the two halves of his story would be equally weighted, there was no point in doing it if no one wanted to talk to him, and he was close to giving up on it. Generally, people who were good at things wanted media coverage about how intensely good at things they were. Why this dude had to be an exception, he didn’t know.
After his latest attempt to call Sauer, which went to voicemail, Zack tossed his phone on the couch in his apartment and dropped down to sit next to it.
So far he hadn’t been giving Sammy blow-by-blow updates on the problem. But if he kept that up, Zack knew how easily his attempts to get it solved or make do could easily turn into avoidance and a nasty surprise for his editor. But if he told Sammy about it, he’d inevitably tell Sammy everything, and his editor—and friend—was going to roll his eyes so hard at the whole mess they'd knock back and forth along the length of his office. Then he’d ask Zack if he was—inappropriately because journalistic ethics existed—into Aaron. Which Zack would be helpless to deny convincingly.
“So that’s spectacular,” Zack muttered to himself. Afternoon sunshine gleamed on the trees outside, and he considered going for a run, or at least a walk, to get moving. Maybe he’d go skating. But he probably really needed to let Sammy know what was happening before he got distracted by the ice again. Maybe he could even get some damn help on solving both the Sauer problem and the wishing he had more
words problem.
With a sigh of aggrievement at the universe, Zack picked up his phone again.
Sammy, for his part, seemed completely unsurprised by any of it and laughed about the mess with Sauer.
“Why do you think I sent you up to Minnesota and told you to figure out the rest yourself? I also got exactly nowhere, but since you’re a journalist and I’m just some sort of word manager, I thought you’d work some magic that would leave me feeling inadequate yet thrilled.”
“I wish you had told me that upfront,” Zack said, feeling both too fond of Sammy and like he didn’t want to express those particular feelings right now.
“Sorry. How is it up there anyway? Have you fallen through the ice yet?
"Um... it's not ice fishing?" Zack said
"Great, whatever. Tell me you’ve at least got good stuff there.”
“I think so. Honestly, if anything, I’m struggling because everything is weird.” Zack heard Sammy slap his hands together in delight.
“I told you! Figure skating is wild! Whatever you find, I trust you, write whatever you want, we’ll figure it out.”
“I have the suspicion.” Zack said delicately, “that whatever you’re imagining is probably not the sort of stuff that’s fascinating me right now.”
"What? Glitter and drama is glitter and drama, yeah?"
"No, not glitter and drama,” Zack corrected. “I'm staying in an ex nun's basement, sometimes we drink hard liquor together and gossip. The coaches also have a dairy farm. Everyone is wildly superstitious, and the rink has these wacked out acoustics where I’m constantly hearing shit I shouldn’t. Also the guy whose last name you keep messing up is super cute and totally trying to get into my pants.”
Sammy sighed in a way that Zack knew meant long-suffering frustration and a desperate desire for nicotine. "Zack. Zack Zack Zack. Zack."
"Yeah. Still here. What?"
"The story is not the nun. The story is not the cows. The story is not whichever random guy you want to fuck."
"Except that he is," Zack said. “I mean, not for that reason of course. But here we are!”
"I’m going to assume all your various adventures haven’t knocked all the journalistic sense out of your head and you’re just venting at me.”
“Pretty much,” Zack said, and while he believed it in the moment, he wasn’t sure how long that would last.
“Great. I’m going to pretend we didn’t have half this conversation. Keep me posted on Sauer and tell me nothing about whatever I sincerely hope you’re not going to do with Sheftall.”
SAMMY HADN’T GIVEN Zack his blessing for either more words or his desire to follow his very worst impulses. But what he had given him, no matter how inadvertently, was time and space to explore, which for now was enough.
Zack gave himself a mental pat on the back for achieving that much, and, feeling on a roll, turned to his non-journalistic to-do list. It was filled with things like calls to his ex, his lawyer, and his realtor, to deal with lingering issues of the divorce. He should also probably call his parents, so he could also reassure them that he hadn’t fallen through the ice, it remained, in fact, impossible to fall through.
Before he could do any of that, though, his phone lit up with a text.
Aaron: Wanna do a thing?
Oh, so many things, Zack thought.
Zack: What sort of thing?
Aaron: Farm dinner, Friday night? I’ll get u details
Zack was immensely curious and very game. The one place he hadn’t been yet, that seemed central to the life of so many skaters here, was Katie and Brendan’s farm. He very much wanted to go, and he was grateful for the gift of the invitation, regardless of what the motives behind it might be.
Zack: Sure, that sounds great.
Chapter 7
A FRIDAY NIGHT IN JULY
Katie and Brendan’s Farm
THAT FRIDAY NIGHT AARON and Charlotte drove out to Katie and Brendan’s farm, Charlotte at the wheel and Aaron in the passenger seat with their contribution to dinner—a giant fruit salad—on his lap. Signs of the city faded away, and soon they were in the midst of cow country. Green fields stretched as far as the eye could see, broken occasionally by a farmhouse, barn, or line of trees. This warm world of green and heat seemed worlds away from the eternal winter of the rink. Aaron rolled the windows down and inhaled deep lungfuls of summer air.
Eventually they turned onto a gravel road, which they followed for nearly half a mile before they reached Katie and Brendan’s house. There were no other buildings around, except for the barns beyond it. The house itself was small and in need of a coat of paint, but tiger lilies bloomed thickly around the front porch and a hammock swung between two trees in the yard. It looked like a daydream of a bucolic childhood. Aaron loved it all; it was the most home-like place he’d ever been off the islands. Not just because of the place itself, but because of all the hard work that was always happening here.
“Huy’s back,” Charlotte said, pointing to a gray car with a ‘keep calm and figure skate’ bumper sticker in the rear window.
“Ooh, yay!” But while Aaron was genuinely excited to see Huy, his car wasn’t the one he had an eye out for. Zack’s rental wasn’t there yet, which was disappointing but also probably for the best; it wouldn’t have been fair to make him face the others on his own.
Nobody answered Aaron’s first knock at the door, but at the second came a distant shout from Katie.
“It’s open! Come in!”
Inside, the house was in a pleasant state of not-quite-perfectly clean. Shoes were jumbled on a mat by the door. A sweater was tossed over the back of the couch, and blankets and throw pillows were piled on an armchair like someone had started to put them to rights but been interrupted.
The afternoon sun outside was muted by drawn shades, which gave the whole place an air of sleepy warmth until they got to the kitchen, where the windows were open, music was playing, and Brendan and Katie were moving around each other with practiced ease as they made food.
"Put me to work?" Aaron offered as soon as he and Charlotte entered the kitchen. He set their fruit salad down on the counter.
"You don't get enough of that during the week?" Katie looked amused. Her hands moved quickly as she chopped vegetables, but there was an air of relaxation about her here at the farm that there never was at the rink.
"He does not know what a day off means," Charlotte said, opening the refrigerator and helping herself to a seltzer. At Katie and Brendan's, no one stood on ceremony.
"Neither do you," Katie observed.
“And neither do you,” Brendan said fondly, bumping Katie’s hip as he passed behind her with a bucket full of corn soaking for the grill.
"I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Charlotte observed placidly.
Katie narrowed her eyes at both of them. “You’re supposed to be good influences on each other. Not egging each other on in bad decisions. Do I have to give you the Perils of Overtraining speech again?”
Aaron raised both hands. “No, I swear!”
Personally, he didn’t think he could fit in more work even if he wanted to. Since he’d gotten back to TCI he’d spent his waking hours either at the rink, at the gym with his trainer, or at the yoga studio. At home, he had hours of accounting work to do remotely for the restaurant, plus cooking and cleaning and doing laundry; Charlotte had a devoted social media fanbase and insisted that their apartment always be clean enough to photograph. Things were only going to get busier as the season truly got under way.
“Where’s Huy?” Charlotte asked, perching herself on one of the stools in the little breakfast nook. “We saw his car.”
“Out getting the grill started.”
“And your houseguests?”
“Still here. But doing things so they don’t have to deal with all of you.”
“But we’re charming!” Aaron protested. He’d seen the guests in question—Fitz and Gabe—around the rink a few times recently, and had hoped th
ey’d be here tonight. He was always vaguely fascinated that Katie and Brendan had lives and friends outside of figure skating; he couldn’t figure out how they had acquired them.
“Actually,” Brendan said. “Gabe’s out working on the cow cam.”
Katie gave an exasperated sigh. “I thought he’d finished that yesterday.”
“He likes to tinker,” Brendan said.
A knock sounded from the front door.
Katie frowned at Brendan. “Who else is coming? The juniors have that thing for the federation and Morgan and Sam are away for the weekend...”
Brendan looked equally as baffled, but headed for the door. “Maybe Fitz left his keys?”
Katie shook her head. “Unlikely.”
Aaron shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Which Katie immediately noticed. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s up?”
“Wellllll,” he began. “How do you feel about extra dinner guests?”
From the front door there was the sound of footsteps and Brendan's voice—polite, yet surprised—inviting whoever was there to come in.
Another familiar voice answered him, and Aaron smiled.
"Aaron Sheftall." Katie chided him.
"Yes?" He tried to look innocent, but was certain he merely looked giddy and guilty instead.
"Did you invite the journalist to dinner at my house?"
“It’s a dinner at the farm; this is the kind of life stuff he’s here to write about!” He wasn’t worried that Katie was going to kick Zack out. But he did want her to stop giving him the murder eyes.
“Now you choose to be strategic.” Katie still looked more dismayed than Aaron thought the situation warranted.
"We’re right here, under your watchful eye. Unlike with the coffee. Plus, Brendan said it was okay.".