by Erin McRae
Not once was she afraid Brendan would let her fall. And he didn’t.
He finally set her back down, her feet landing gently on the ice. Katie collapsed with relief and happiness into Brendan’s arms and let him lead them in a gentle turn around the rink. The moment felt, in so many ways, like the one last night after they’d both come and had stood shivering together in the Wisconsin night.
That skate had been lovely. Exquisite, even. There were so many things she couldn’t attempt right now. But for the first time, she didn’t care. She was with Brendan, and they could still skate. She’d never win another gold medal, and maybe that was okay.
With a nudge and a word, Brendan guided them into another spin. They came out of it laughing, grinning at each other like fools.
“Okay,” Brendan murmured in her ear as they slowed their momentum. “So, we’re good. Do you want to get married?”
Katie didn’t come to a screeching halt only because Brendan’s hand was there on her back, guiding her gently into another lap around the rink. “You can’t ask me that like this!”
“No one heard me; it’s cool,” Brendan said as they kept skating. “No pressure, either. I like you plenty either way. Just thought I should ask. We’ve been doing this a long time.”
Twenty years. One night. There was a huge difference between the two. Or none at all.
“I can’t believe you’re saying this.” Katie ducked out of Brendan’s grasp. She needed space to think.
“Wait,” Brendan trailed behind her, then circled in front. “Which part?”
Katie gestured at the rink around them. “We’re in public. Don’t whisper at me like we’re not.”
She took off around the oval. Her heart was racing. She hoped Brendan figured out what she needed him to do before she had to really and truly yell.
As she completed the loop Brendan cut in front of her casually, gliding smoothly backwards as he kept pace with her. “Tell me if I’m getting this wrong, but do you want people to hear me ask you?”
Finally, he understands. Katie felt a rush of triumph. “If you want the farmgirl who won an Olympic medal that one time to be absolutely, positively sure you really want her for the rest of your life then yes, people need to hear you.”
“Okay, I can do that,” he said far too loudly, his face bright with delight.
He was, however, still blade to ice and Katie wasn’t here for that at all.
“This is the only time,” Katie said, “that I have ever want to see your knees on the ice.”
Brendan stared at her, his brow creased. Katie knew what that expression meant, though they’d never been in a situation like this before. He was trying to figure out if she was about to say yes or about to set him up for a massive humiliation. I know I’m difficult, she thought, but I would never make you do that and then say no. Trust me, she willed, trust me like I’m trusting you.
She would always be sharp, she would always come from a farm, and, with any luck, she’d always live on one. Brendan had to know that any yes from her was fierce and any partnership between them would always take the form of beauty born out of contentiousness.
Brendan shrugged, as easy as ever. “Okay,” he said and grabbed her hands.
He skated backwards and pulled her into the center of the rink where it was reasonably clear of other skaters. The few people who hadn’t already been watching them certainly were now.
Brendan dropped to his knees with as much grace as skates allowed. A young boy skating past gasped loudly. He would crash into someone if he didn’t keep his eyes on his own skate, Katie thought. She knew, because she’d made the same mistake often enough as a girl. Proposals on the ice were kind of a thing. She tried to ignore the giggles behind her, and, perhaps most bizarrely, the sight of people retrieving phones from their pockets to record the inconceivable thing that was about to happen.
“Kaitlyn. Katie. Kate.”
Oh God. Brendan had started talking and, Katie quickly realized, wasn’t going to be able to stop. How many iterations of her name was he going to use? This might be mortifying. But it might be perfect.
“Light of my life and bane of my existence. I love you. I love your cows. I love skating with you. I love getting up at three in the damn morning with you, whether that’s for the cows or the skating or wherever our ambition takes us next.” Brendan gripped her hands more tightly, his voice clear and earnest and so, so sure. “I want to keep doing whatever it is we do, with you, for the rest of our lives ... although with slightly less murkiness than in the past, to be clear. So. Will you marry me?”
Katie relished the moment — Brendan’s babbling, the people watching them, the vague soreness in her body lingering from the night before. So much of her life had been a success because people had liked watching her and Brendan together. To be able to bask in that attention now, when it was about all what they were, not just the skating .... Katie felt whole for the first time in her life.
She pulled one of her hands out of his grip and covered her mouth in one last self-indulgent moment of disbelief. This is real. Trust him. Like you always have, she told herself.
She held her hand out to him again. He caught it and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. They were so in public, so exposed, but his gaze was utterly fixed on her.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Now stand up because I am not getting down on that ice with you.”
Brendan laughed as he climbed to his feet and wrapped his arms around her. The rink applauded, but once again, Katie was safe from the lights and the world, her face hidden in Brendan’s chest.
THEY WERE GIDDY, IF practical, on the drive back to the farm.
No, Brendan could not take her to go get a ring right now, because she wasn’t sure how she felt about the expense or the symbol. Yes, they should really stop somewhere and get some food. And, most importantly of all, they should get back quickly, if they wanted to be the ones to deliver their own news. Otherwise, someone at the rink would tell a friend who would tell a friend who would tell the internet and then who knew who would get to her and Brendan’s families with the news.
“Do you want to call your parents?” she eventually asked. They hadn’t spoken much about them since that awkward dinner conversation on Brendan’s first day here. She wondered if he had ever told them he was in the area.
“Let’s deal with your family and have all our ducks in a row first, if that’s okay.” Brendan’s voice was hesitant.
Katie didn’t necessarily want the answer to her question, but she brought herself to ask anyway. “They’re not going to be happy, are they?” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
“They’re not going to know what to make of it, that’s for sure. And that’s fine,” he hurried to add. “That’s not our problem. But if we know the answer to anything they’re going to ask first —”
“You mean other than ‘are you sure?’” Katie said darkly.
“Well, I am sure, but yes. It’ll just be easier.”
“You know, I want to be furious. Or worried. But —”
“But?” Brendan teased.
“I won you a gold medal. If I’m not good enough for them, even I can tell I’m not the problem here.”
To her infinite relief, Brendan laughed.
“All right, then. What do we have to figure out?” Katie asked.
The short answer was everything. Timing. Logistics. Where to live. Skating. Her health. If she hadn’t been driving and if Brendan hadn’t had halfway sensible — and generous — answers to most of it, she might have panicked. Instead, she was relieved that someone seemed to know how to make the chaos of her life over the last three months into some sort of pattern. But that was what Brendan did now. Choreography was a way of making people’s talents and skills come together into a coherent story.
They practiced talking through their plan as they drove. They’d done that a hundred times before for wildly different things: Travel and training plans, a new program, a high profile
interview or public appearance. Katie didn’t want to get flustered under pressure, especially if family decided to balk in the face of big plans or big asks.
Not only did they want to have the wedding on the farm — and soon — they wanted to live there together for at least a few months afterwards. Long enough, anyway, for Brendan to sell his apartment in Denver and Katie to have and recover from surgery. After that, they could get a place and some land. Eventually they could do a comeback tour and whatever else was viable considering Katie’s flight from New York. Then they could do whatever they wanted to. Brendan could help Katie set up a farm. Katie could help Brendan coach. The plan made more and more sense each time they went through it.
“There has to be a flaw in this. It seems too easy,” Katie finally said when they were ten minutes out from the farm.
Brendan shrugged in that easy way she found infuriating. “I’ll remind you that you said that when you wake up from surgery, and I’m freaking out about real estate, and you still haven’t answered any of your business emails.”
“Great. Can’t wait. Marriage is going to be awesome.” Despite her dry tone, she did mean it. But Brendan also wasn’t wrong. The rest of this year was going to be hard.
THE FARM, WHEN THEY got there, was still a working farm. Which meant everyone was busy, difficult to find, and not interested in being in the same place at the same time. Katie dragged Brendan from house to barn and across the grazing area twice before she was able to extract promises from everyone to meet them in the kitchen. In the process, her mom handed them a crate of vegetables from the garden to bring back to the house and Jesse gave them instructions to work on packing the online orders for jams. After that, the only thing left to do was wait. At least they had work to do.
“You should let me get you a ring,” Brendan said as they sat at the kitchen table assembling the jam orders.
Katie was scooping eco-friendly packing peanuts into cardboard boxes and pushing them across to Brendan, to nestle in the jars. She looked at him in exasperation and vague disbelief. “Are we really going to start fighting about that now?”
“Is it something worth fighting about, to you?”
“Clearly, yes, because I just said that.”
“Okay.” Brendan set down the printed list of orders they were working from and turned to face her fully. “Tell me what’s going on in your head so I can go from there.”
Katie took a breath. She had explained some of this in the truck, but apparently more depth was needed. “Money is a finite and valuable resource and can be used for more practical things. Engagement rings are kind of an archaic symbol of ownership. And I couldn’t wear anything fancy on the farm anyway.”
“Wouldn’t have to be fancy. Or expensive. Or mean anything terrible.” Brendan shrugged.
“I don’t know,” Katie said. She was intrigued enough by Brendan’s interest in the subject to continue the conversation despite her discomfort. “I know girls get taught to grow up dreaming of the diamond ring and the white dress and all that. My dreams were all about skating dresses and gold medals.”
“And you have those now.”
“Yes. Your point?”
“Maybe I’ve spent my life dreaming about giving a girl a ring,” Brendan said.
Katie looked sideways at him. “A girl, or me?”
“You. You fool.”
“You never said before.”
“I can’t imagine why not.”
“A wedding ring wouldn’t count?” she asked.
“Katie,” Brendan sounded exasperated now too. “I’m agreeing to live with you, in your world, with your cows, who I did say I loved earlier — and I do! — but are, to be fair, still gross and weird. Let me get you a damn engagement ring.”
Katie stared at him in something like awe. He didn’t often push back so hard against her — at least, without it turning into a shouting match. This was interesting. And felt unexpectedly very, very good.
Before she could say anything else, though, Rob knocked on the frame of the open door. “Hey kiddo. You wanted to talk?”
“Yeah, come in.”
Rob crossed the room to the table and stood across from them, his hands wrapped around the back of a chair. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing bad. I promise,” Katie said.
“Okay ...”
Brendan opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Katie nudged his foot with hers under the table. “I only want to do this once,” she reminded him.
“Uh, I think Katie wants to wait for everyone else to show up?” Brendan said to Rob. “So you can just hang out? If that’s cool?”
Katie tried not to laugh at the possibility Brendan’s voice had turned into a permanent nervous question.
“Okay,” Rob said again, looking between her and Brendan. He sounded suspicious. In his place, Katie would probably have been suspicious too. Impromptu all-hands family meetings were a rarity. And, despite her recent assurances, usually involved bad news.
They were saved by having to stall further by her mom walking in. Jesse trailed behind her distractedly, typing something into his phone.
“What’s going on?” Jesse asked “I only have a few minutes, I have to call the vet before they close for the day.”
Katie looked at Brendan. He looked terrified, but she didn’t know if that was of her family or of her if he handled this wrong. In any case, he nodded encouragingly, as if she were scared too.
Maybe she was. Now that they came to it, she had never expected to be making an announcement like this. Her family didn’t do this sort of thing. Her mother was single. Rob and Jesse had gone to the courthouse in nice suits when marriage equality came in. But there had been no engagement, only the happy formalization of a relationship that had been strong and committed for years.
Brendan, as if reading her thoughts again, smiled at her and reached across the table to cover her hand with his. Maybe she hadn’t ever planned on marrying, but in the rare moments she’d let herself think about the future, she had seen Brendan right by her side, always.
She flipped her hand under Brendan’s and laced their fingers together. Brendan still looked nervous, but his eyes were alight with excitement. Katie turned to her family.
“We’re getting married,” she said.
“Yup, we know,” her mom said.
Jesse and Rob exchanged smiles.
Katie felt herself deflate a little. After all the planning they’d done for this conversation .... “You know like you assumed we’d always get it together eventually or you know like —”
Her mom grinned. “Like someone filmed you at the rink and put the video on the internet, where one of your skating buddies saw it and shared it on Facebook.”
“You never go on Facebook.” Katie was definitely confused.
“I do when three of the neighbors saw the video and called me to offer their best wishes,” Samantha said.
Katie was torn between horror and a wild desire to laugh. This was too awful. And too perfect. “You could have told me you knew!”
Jesse and Rob were laughing outright now.
“And ruin your announcement? When you two snuck back here and tried so hard to round us all up? Not a chance,” her mom said.
“We didn’t sneak.” Katie protested.
“By the way, Brendan,” Rob said.
“Mm?” Brendan finally turned from Katie to look at him.
“That was a good speech you gave.”
“Oh my God.” Brendan didn’t let go of Katie’s hand, but he did bury his face in his arm on the table. The tips of his ears were red. Katie ruffled his hair with her free hand.
“Don’t be embarrassed now!” Jesse said, circling around Brendan’s chair to clap him on the shoulder. “Your fans are incredibly excited. Also very sad you’ll never propose to any of them that way.”
“I told you people came to see you skate,” Katie said to the top of Brendan’s head. His face was still hidden in the crook of his elbow. �
��And now we can do our whole comeback tour without the audience wanting you to propose to me right there on the ice.”
For her own part, Katie wasn’t embarrassed in the least. Maybe having her family be second-hand witnesses to one of the most romantic moments of her life hadn’t been the plan, but now the whole world knew how Brendan felt about her. And Brendan — blushing aside — wasn’t running away from that fact.
“Okay, well ... do any of you have any feelings about this other than an utter lack of surprise?” Katie said. “Because we’re about to ask you a ton of favors and —”
Brendan lifted his head from his arm. “Would anyone mind if I moved into Katie’s room?”
Katie looked at him sharply. Timing, Reid. What are you doing?
“Are you including me among the people who might mind?” she asked. His question was hardly the most pressing one on the table. Although possibly the most immediately practical one.
“I thought we talked about this,” Brendan said, half chastened, half made of stubborn determination.
“We did, but couldn’t you have worked up to that?” Katie hissed.
“Maybe, but the look on your face.”
“I hate you.”
Brendan squeezed her fingers tightly, his eyes starry as he looked at her. “I know you don’t.”
Rob cleared his throat. Katie tore her eyes away from her fiancé to look at the rest of her family.
“Yes?” she squeaked.
“We’re very happy for you,” her mother said. “Now what do you need us to do?”
Chapter 20
THE REST OF THE SUMMER
Denver, CO and Star Prairie, WI
BRENDAN SPENT THE REST of the summer in constant transit between Denver and Wisconsin. He had to finish his training obligations to his skaters and help find someone who could take over his role on their coaching team. He also had to deal with a tearful Miguel and a devastated Shelby who were crushed that he was leaving, this time for good.