Ink and Ice

by Erin McRae

“What?” he demanded. Everything else in the room was absolutely silent except for the pounding of blood in his ears.

  “You should look at the text,” Katie said.

  “Am...am I on the team?” Aaron couldn’t hope. He couldn’t. But he had to ask.

  “There will be no U.S. Olympic Team announcement at this time,” Brendan read out. “The U.S. will be represented at Four Continents by...” He hesitated, glancing up at Aaron. “Cayden Sauer and Aaron Sheftall.”

  “Four Continents?” Aaron squeaked. In a normal year it was the biggest competition before Worlds, but this was an Olympic year. Nobody really cared about Worlds or anything after the Grand Prix and Nationals. He hadn’t even given Four Continents a thought.

  “Jack Palumbo isn’t going to Four Continents,” Katie said.

  “And he doesn’t need to,” Brendan put in. “He’s a given for the Olympics.”

  Realization hit Aaron like the ice rushing up to meet him in a fall. His heart drummed wildly. “They’re letting Cayden and me battle it out. For the last team slot.”

  Katie nodded. “Looks like.”

  “That’s—Aaron, that’s fantastic!” Zack exclaimed. He reached for Aaron, as if to take his hands again, but stopped himself. “You still have a shot!”

  And maybe it was, or should have been, but all Aaron felt was panic and dismay. His mind was a whirl, adrenaline was coursing through him, and his heart was a wreck of so many emotions—fear, excitement, elation, dread—that he couldn’t begin to sort them out. He felt, suddenly, so very, very tired.

  “It’s not fantastic,” he snapped, stepping back from Zack. “It’s horrible! It means I have to do all this again with your article floating around and all that rest of it. If today had to go badly, at least it was going to be the end. And now it’s not!”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Auuuughhhhhhhhh!!!” Aaron yelled in frustration. He was intensely satisfied when Zack jumped back.

  “Does anyone need me for anything?” Aaron asked, looking from Katie to Brendan.

  “Not ’til the gala,” Brendan said.

  “Good. I’m going for a walk. You all can do... whatever.”

  And with that Aaron stormed out of his own room to wander around this city with his only true wish being not to run into any goddamn seals.

  Chapter 30

  ONE WEEK AFTER NATIONALS

  Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN

  A WEEK AFTER THE DISASTER—ON so many levels—of Nationals, Aaron was in Salt Lake City for Four Continents and Zack was in the middle of the kitchen in his new apartment in Saint Paul. The cardboard boxes and bubble wrap surrounding him reminded him of the day he’d been beginning to pack up in Miami when Sammy had called with a job offer that had shifted the course of his life. He’d been at the end of a relationship then, and he wasn’t sure if he was at the end of another relationship now.

  You probably are, the reasonable part of his mind told him. Scratch that. You almost certainly are.

  Aaron was still angry—justifiably, as it turned out. At least that was the firm opinion of Katie, Sammy, and Matt, which sure seemed like enough to make it true. Zack hadn’t communicated clearly about the shifts the initial article was taking when Cayden had proved to be so resistant to participating. And cutting the guy entirely so Zack could shove in the stuff about the island at the last minute had been straight up duplicitous and a not-insignificant breach of trust. The photo had been a reasonable choice, but he should have told Aaron first. And then he’d mentioned the seals. In passing, as an inland colony of freshwater seals. No myth, no whisper of magic.

  You were threading a needle, Katie had told him, after Aaron had stormed out of his own hotel room in Boston. And you did it well. But he’s not in a place to deal with that right now.

  It was, his triumvirate of personal counselors assured him, the sort of thing that could be apologized and made up for, but not while Aaron was trying to go to the Olympics. Still.

  So Zack was letting it lie. And spending a lot of time thinking about his need to process his life through words and the way that had an impact on the other people in his life. While he still had hockey and his work on his memoir to keep him busy both those things felt complicated now.

  Maybe Sammy will find some other sports emergency I can write about this year, he thought.

  As he pondered that possibility—surely something at the Olympics would want covering?—his phone, buried somewhere on the counter under various packing material, rang. Zack fished it out, expecting it to be Matt; they’d talked about grabbing food later.

  Instead, Katie Nowacki flashed up at him from the screen. Odd. And concerning. Katie was in Salt Lake too, with Aaron. Why was she calling him?

  When he picked up, there was a rush of static and background noise—a crowd, of some sort. A pocket dial, in all likelihood; he moved to hit end call but before his thumb could find the button Katie’s voice crackled out at him.

  “Zack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me. Katie.”

  “Yeah, I know. What’s going on? Is he okay?”

  “We’re at Four Continents and I need you to get out here.” Katie’s voice, raised over the sound of the bustle around her, was a command.

  One Zack did not comprehend, because it made no sense. “What? Get out where?”

  “Salt Lake City.”

  Did she think he’d travelled there on his own to watch the competition? Because he definitely hadn’t. “I’m in Saint Paul.”

  “I’m aware of that! Hence the verb get.”

  “Is it Aaron? What’s going on?” he demanded. He couldn’t help thinking of how he’d even come to be in the Twin Cities and of Luke Koval’s accident that had sent them all on this journey. Is he hurt? How badly?

  “The short program just ended. Aaron finished behind Cayden. He can still pull ahead, there’s room, but his head is a fucking mess and I need you to get out here and fix it.” Katie’s voice was terse, businesslike, but there was an edge of panic under it. One that Zack recognized all too well.

  As much as he sympathized, however... “I can’t do that,” Zack protested.

  “Yes, you can,” Katie said firmly.

  “You were in the room when he yelled at me a lot—fairly—for a bunch of different things.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “I helped cause the mess he’s in, in the first place. Because of how he is wired and attached to that island I cannot actually fix anything for him. And even if I could, he still needs to ask for it or at least consent to having you ask me for it. This is his life, not a fucking rom-com.”

  Katie laughed darkly. “Believe me, I am well aware.”

  “Katie,” Zack said. She couldn’t seriously expect him to do this, could she?

  “Zack,” she replied. “I know my athlete. Who is also a gossip. I know more details of the mess you two are in with each other than any of us want. So. To be very clear. The men’s long program starts in thirty hours, and I don’t care how you get your ass here, just do it.”

  With that, she hung up.

  Zack pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it. Well, that was all sorts of data points. About Aaron. About Katie. About, by extension, Brendan. He half-sighed and half-laughed. What a damn mess.

  “Well, respect to you, Katie,” he muttered at his phone.

  And then he called Matt. It was after six, his shift was over by now, and Zack desperately needed advice.

  Matt answered, sounding as cheery as ever. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I have a problem,” Zack said. He wandered out of his new kitchen into his new living room, which was empty except for a futon and a folding lawn chair. He dropped down onto the futon.

  Matt’s tone shifted instantly to one of concern. “What’s going on?”

  Zack did his best to explain. The things that had led up to this moment, at least, Matt already knew. “Katie wants me to go to Salt Lake to help get Aaron’s head screwed on
straight but I am the one who unscrewed it in the first place, and I am absolutely sure he has no idea Katie called me.”

  “Okay,” Matt said slowly. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Rewind time and not put in that damn paragraph about the island. Or the picture. But that wasn’t an option. “What I want doesn’t matter. What matters here is what Aaron wants, and making sure I don’t intrude where he doesn’t want me.” Saying that out loud helped. How on earth could he even be considering taking such a step? And yet, he was.

  “You think he doesn’t want you there, then?”

  “Given that the last time we spoke he was shouting at me, I do think that, yes. If there’s time or space to start making what I did right, it is not during the latest most important competition of his career.”

  “So don’t go,” Matt said simply.

  Zack felt his heart lurch in disappointment. He knew Matt was right, but that hadn’t been what he wanted his friend to say.

  “So you do want to go,” Matt said, too knowingly, when Zack didn’t say anything.

  “What I want doesn’t matter,” Zack said firmly.

  “Okay. Yes. In this instance, you’re right,” Matt said. “He’s a big boy who gets to make his own decisions. And based on what I know of her, I am also sure Katie didn’t tell Aaron she was calling you.”

  Zack dropped his forehead into his free hand. “If I show up there without warning he’s going to murder me. Why couldn’t Katie just tell me to call him?”

  “Because she’s his coach, and that’s not what she thinks he needs. Okay. Zack. I need you to listen to me.”

  “Okay?” Zack asked warily. His head and his heart were a mess. He honestly didn’t know what to do. But he could listen to his friend.

  “The stakes for Aaron here are like, massive, right?”

  Zack nodded, even though Matt couldn’t see him. “The most massive,” he said.

  “Do you trust Katie to have his best interests at heart?”

  “Absolutely.” There was no question of that.

  “Do you trust Katie to have the knowledge to accurately assess what Aaron’s best interests are?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” I know more details of the mess you two are in with each other than any of us want. But just because Aaron liked being tied up didn’t mean he had a subby bone in his body. Zack was entirely sure he didn’t. And even if he did, Zack still didn’t have the right to make decisions for him.

  Matt continued. “If you go, will you make things worse?”

  Zack thought about that one. “Probably not. Aaron might hate me forever but that’s kind of already what we’re dealing with.”

  “If you go, will it help?”

  “Katie thinks so.”

  “Then trust Katie. Because yeah this is fucked up, but so’s figure skating. If he didn’t need you there, she wouldn’t have asked.”

  It was a gamble. A wild, long-shot gamble both for Aaron’s Olympic dreams and their relationship. Which probably wasn’t going to come through this intact. But if Zack could save his dream, he had to at least try.

  “How far is it from here to Salt Lake City?” he asked, not expecting Matt to have an answer. But he did.

  “Nineteen hours by car. I just googled.”

  “How long by plane?” Zack asked.

  “You hate flying.”

  “I can’t drive nineteen hours alone and get there alive.”

  “Which is why I,” Matt said grandly. “Am coming with you.”

  “THIS,” MATT SAID AS they pulled out from a gas station where they’d stocked up on extremely unhealthy snacks that would probably appall real athletes, or at least their nutritionists. “Is a nearly heterosexual level of disaster you are engaged in.”

  “Uhhhh, thanks?” Zack said, having no real idea how to interpret that. It was his turn to drive, and his focus was marginally occupied by figuring out how to turn on the windshield wipers in Matt’s truck. Their stuff, including Zack’s camera bag, were stashed behind their seats.

  “It’s like a romantic comedy,” Matt said. “Filled with things you shouldn’t actually do in real life but work in the movies. Because I used to try to do things like the dudes in romcoms, and girls super told me to stop doing that.”

  “You know the gays have romantic comedies too, right?” Zack asked.

  “Yes. But are they this ridiculous? Really?”

  It was, Zack thought, a nearly fair philosophical question. And to the extent it wasn’t, it was perfect for a useless road trip debate.

  “OKAY,” MATT SAID AS they approached the Wyoming state line and the clock approached midnight. “We’re going to stop for the night, right? Because I am all for true love and shit but not for one of us falling asleep at the wheel.”

  Zack decided not to argue. Death was, after all, bad. “Will we still be able to get there in time?”

  “When’s his thing?”

  “Five-thirty p.m. tomorrow,” Zack said.

  “Which time zone?” Matt asked.

  “Which—fuck!” Zack fumbled for his phone. “Uh. Mountain Time. Which apparently we crossed into like an hour ago.”

  “Okay. So it’s midnight now, we have...” Matt tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his mouth moving as he counted. “Seventeen and a half hours. We’re going to be fine.”

  “Fine like, we’ll have a couple of hours so I can do whatever Katie thinks I can do or fine like we’ll roll in just as his skate starts?”

  “The first one. What are you going to do when you get there?”

  “Call Katie. Beyond that. I have no damn idea. She says she has a plan; I’m letting her have a plan.”

  “Do you think she knows how much boys like doing what she says?” Matt mused.

  “I’m going with yes.”

  ZACK ASSUMED THAT THEY would not have any problem finding a hotel room somewhere along I-80 in the middle of the night on a random weekend in January. He had, however, not counted on a business tech convention taking place in Cheyenne.

  “I’ve just got the one room,” the clerk told them at the first hotel they pulled into.

  “That’s fine,” Zack said. Anywhere with a mattress and a pillow—and a shower—sounded great at this point.

  “It’s, uh, the honeymoon suite,” the clerk said.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Zack strongly considered putting his head down on the check-in counter.

  “That’s fine,” Matt said, stepping up.

  “SHOULD I CARRY YOU over the threshold?” Matt asked as they reached the door.

  “I think that’s just for when you get to your own house? Also no. No marriedness.”

  Matt cackled and keyed them into the room. “Aww!” he exclaimed, dropping his suitcase in the middle of the floor. “The towels are all folded up like swans! And hearts!”

  “How is this happening?” Zack muttered, mostly to himself. This trip was just becoming too absurd.

  “Because we are two very lucky men in pursuit of true love, in your case, and a deeply excellent story I can tell forever, in mine.”

  “I suppose I should thank you for being cool about this,” Zack said, eyeing the one bed. Which at least was a king. Hopefully Matt didn’t hog blankets.

  “Fuck cool, this is hilarious! Now help me take pictures.” Matt dug out his phone. “I wanna make people on social media scared I got married!”

  Zack shook his head and laughed. Matt was ridiculous and also a good, kind, and fair friend.

  THEY WERE ON THE ROAD by seven the next morning, multiple cups of hotel breakfast coffee in the cupholder between them.

  “You know,” Zack said as he got up to speed on the highway. “This is everything I used to love about war reporting, without the getting shot at.” There was a thrill in this, on the road before dawn, a deadline to beat and the rush of adrenaline and uncertainty.

  Matt looked over at him from the passenge
r seat. “You’ve got a therapist, right?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Good, good. ‘Cause you’re a fucking mess. Got any more of a plan than yesterday?”

  “Nope. Not a clue.”

  THEY ROLLED INTO SALT Lake at three in the afternoon. For all the travel he’d done, both internationally and domestically, Zack had never been there before. It was beautiful. The sky was a dazzlingly blue dome above them, curving down to touch the mountains that ringed the city. He wondered if he’d have a chance to get out and take any photos.

  Probably not.

  As soon as they found a parking spot, Zack pulled out his phone and called Katie. Next to him, Matt drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was enjoying this entirely far too much.

  The call connected, and she answered immediately.

  “I swear to God, if you are still in Saint Paul...” Katie began.

  “I’m in a parking garage two miles away from the venue because this is the closest we could get,” Zack said.

  “We?”

  “You wanted me to get to Utah in thirty hours,” Zack said. “That was not a one-person drive. One of the guys from hockey volunteered.”

  “Sure, but planes are a thing?” Katie sounded baffled.

  “Yeah, I hate planes,” Zack said. Then he paused. “Aaron’s mentioned that, hasn’t he?”

  “Maybe,” Katie said. “At any rate, so glad you’re here. I got you tickets, and I guess we can get your friend tickets. Anyway. Whatever. Just get to the venue. Brendan will meet you with credentials and we’ll sneak you back before the comp starts.”

  “Does Aaron have any idea this is happening?” Zack asked, even though he already knew the answer.

  “No. But he’s a jittery, unfocused mess,” Katie said. “And his sister keeps texting him. Even if he wants to murder me for this and hates you, it’ll at least give him some focus.”

  “Uh. Great. At least you’re clear about how this is probably going to go.”

  “I am a mean, anxious, unpleasant person, Zack Kelly. But my instincts are fantastic. Get out of your damn car and start walking.”