by Erin McRae
“I already do.” He couldn’t wait to keep learning more ways to love each other for the rest of their lives.
AFTER THEY RETURNED to the world from their honeymoon, the next few months were exactly as challenging as Brendan had suspected. And feared. He was travelling back and forth between Denver more than he wanted, the slide into colder weather on the farm was grueling, and a Katie approaching surgery was a Katie in the very worst of her anxiety. But they were a united front and did what was necessary. That there was never any shortage of work to bury themselves in, was largely a blessing.
Katie was, predictably, a terrible, stubborn patient who wanted to do too much too soon from the moment she woke up from the anesthesia. Brendan was glad he’d talked her into deciding not to even think about looking for their own place until she was comfortably back on both feet. He loved her, but having her mother and her uncles at hand to help her — and keep her distracted from her pain and frustration — was better for everyone.
But as long as her recovery felt to Katie, and everyone around her, it was not actually eternal.
“You know what we were doing this time last year?” Katie asked as Brendan sat next to her on the bench, lacing up his skates. She looked down at her feet, her laces draped loosely across her knuckles.
“What’s that?” Brendan knew, but he also knew Katie needed to say it.
“We were getting ready for Harbin. And now I don’t even know if I can skate anymore.”
“Well,” said Brendan. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
Despite her nerves, Katie’s eye were bright with tears of what Brendan knew was happiness when she stepped out onto the ice for the first time in months, his hands wrapped tightly around hers.
An entire week of skating practice — with no elements, just re-learning how to skate so she didn’t hurt herself all over again — passed before Katie’s tears of joy turned to ones of frustration. More months of hard work on and off the ice went by before tears of any sort gave way to them yelling at each other about jumps and choreography. Which was how Brendan knew everything was going to be okay and that it was time to move on to the next phase of the plan.
Brendan set up a shared business email for the both of them. That way Katie didn’t have to look at anything she didn’t want to, but things could get done or at least politely declined. Going through the endless emails she had ignored in the period in which they hadn’t been talking was less fun. Eventually, they agreed that Brendan should delete all the ones from him and make a list of everyone else she owed apologies to. Katie tried to have a sense of humor about it, adding email therapy to physical therapy and mental health therapy, but Brendan knew the situation made her ashamed and unhappy.
Their real estate concerns were more complex. Selling an apartment was hard. Finding land and a house to buy to start a farm — but not right now — was possibly harder. And while Katie’s family was more than happy to provide advice and guidance, Brendan’s parents were far from thrilled he was trading his Denver apartment for some Wisconsin farmland. But he and Katie needed their own space and a framework around which to plan the rest of their lives.
The rest of their lives ... that phrase, truthfully, still made Brendan swoon. Unfortunately, there were still moments when it made Katie tense. But if they approached life the way they did a skating program, focusing only on what was right in front of them before going on to the next element, then she was okay, then she was happy.
The high-stress filter of competition had for so long allowed them both to ignore whatever they didn’t want to deal with, in themselves and each other. They both had to learn to appreciate Katie’s brain without that filter. Much like learning to appreciate the farm and the cows, that was a work in progress for Brendan, but it was work he was happy to do.
Eventually they bought a house with a somewhat run-down dairy from one of Katie’s family’s connections. They didn’t have any animals yet, but that was fine; the buildings needed some repairs and the equipment needed modernizing. The work would keep Katie as busy as she wanted to be as they got the rest of their lives in order.
By the time Katie was rebuilding her stamina and starting to do jumps again, it was time to go to New York. He would have been lying if he had said he wasn’t nervous about it. Katie hated New York, and after what had happened there, so did he.
Brendan got them a room at a B&B in Brooklyn. He hadn’t known such things existed and until they actually got there, he wasn’t convinced he hadn’t created some new disaster. Katie was wary, confused, and then delighted, all of which was more than he could have asked for. They went over their schedule for the three days of their trip, got some wildly indulgent double cheese pizza from a place down the street, and spent the rest of the day making out and watching bad reality TV, both of which were much, much better activities when they weren’t being done on a tour bus.
The meetings were exactly as awkward as Brendan had feared they might be, but they were also as successful as he had hoped. Katie brought her game face like Brendan hadn’t seen since they were competing. When she was asked to dye her hair again, because that was her brand, she smiled and said no. In the end they signed a book deal that would be announced while they were still in the city and a tour that would, Katie’s health willing, be announced when the book came out.
As they walked out of the midtown office building, Brendan let Katie take his arm and wrap it around her waist.
“Put your hands on me,” she said. “Hold me up.”
Her words echoed what she had said when her knee had finally give out at the end of the tour, here in this same city. But this time, thankfully, they were about something entirely different.
He squeezed her waist. “Always. Now. Are you happy?”
She grinned at him. “Incredibly.”
At their media appearances the next day, eighty percent of the questions were about their wedding or Katie’s hair, and somehow, they didn’t mind at all.
When they got home to Wisconsin, Brendan watched as Katie started two new countdown calendars on their whiteboard — one for the estimated start of their tour, labelled skating and one for the estimated end of their tour, labelled cows. He’d never accuse Katie of not having a plan again.
Chapter 21
ONE YEAR LATER
Denver, CO
KATIE PACED IN THE dark tunnel wringing her hands together. Out in the arena, a video montage of her and Brendan’s best moments on the ice was playing to a ridiculously sentimental song she was fairly sure had been used at his high school graduation. Why did I agree to this?
Brendan stood at the very edge where the flooring ended and the ice began, peering out at the arena. “They were right. It’s a sold out show.”
“You’re not helping!”
Brendan looked back over his shoulder at her. Despite the urgings of the tour management, they’d insisted on keeping their usual costume style: Simple. Understated. Brendan wore black pants and a grey collared shirt open at the throat. The part of Katie’s brain that wasn’t flirting with a panic attack wanted to devour him.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I am freaking out.” Katie tried to make her hands stop shaking, but her body wasn’t listening to her. This was their first tour stop. In Denver, one of the two places that would always mean the most to them. They’d spent over a year putting this venture together. Not just on the ice, but with management, public relations people, a relentless advertising campaign, and more social media than Katie ever wanted to do again. Sponsors had sunk ridiculous amounts money into the tour. Thousands of people across the country had bought tickets in the hope that Nowacki and Reid, one-time Olympic gold medalists, could bring some small part of their magic to their home cities. If her knee suddenly gave out again, if they made any one of a million small mistakes, if their programs weren’t what the audience wanted to see ....
There are so many people to let down.
“Hey.” Brendan’s face so
ftened, and he took the few steps necessary to come stand in front of her. He pulled her in for a hug, one arm strong around her waist, his other hand cradling the back of her neck. “Breathe with me.”
Katie closed her eyes and clung to Brendan. His body was warm in the chill of the arena, and as she matched her breathing to his, she felt some of her anxiety drain away. Not all of it, but enough.
Brendan pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “I think our cue is coming up.”
Katie nodded, but didn’t otherwise move. She’d waited so long for this moment. She wanted everything to be perfect. She needed to accept her fear that it wouldn’t be as just one more part of the experience.
“Okay.” She took one last deep breath. Brendan let his arms drop from around her, and she stepped back. “Let’s do this.”
THE CROWD ROARED AS they glided out onto the ice, hand in hand. Katie didn’t have to remind herself to smile; a grin broke out on her face as soon as the spotlight found them. She tipped her head up and waved at the audience, trying to project her gratitude and excitement to the most distant parts of the arena. She was still nervous; she would probably always be nervous in these moments, but she was learning to let it be fuel for the performance.
“With me?” Brendan whispered to her as he twirled her around to face the other side of the arena.
“Always,” she replied. The words of the question and her response were perhaps beyond unnecessary at this point, but Katie had no intention of giving up on the ritual that had kept them together even when they had been falling apart.
Katie took her starting position. Behind her, Brendan rested his hands on the sharp curve of her hip, his fingers pressing into the spot where her thigh met her waist. As soon as the music began they skated apart, but they had discovered in rehearsals that Katie couldn’t endure going into a performance without Brendan right there beside her.
This program, which Brendan had begun back in her family’s farmhouse, started with a deceptive quiet and focused on the lyrical beauty of their skating. Katie had no trouble portraying the yearning the story demanded as the space between them grew. She and Brendan mirrored each other from afar, and just as when they skated close, they never broke eye contact, unless an element absolutely required it.
As they reached out for the other as they did simultaneous flying camels, Katie imagined the internet analysis of the program — surely it was about all the years they were apart. But anyone who assumed that would have been taking the easy, incomplete path. It was, instead, about the thread between them, that when it finally stretched too far didn’t snap from strain so much as loudly demand that they come back together.
That moment of pulling back together was where the music changed into something full of force and drama and relentlessness, where Katie and Brendan were finally able to unleash what their skating had always been known for.
Brendan’s hand caught hers just as they seemed about to pass each other. The mirror of the choreography broke as they shifted to skating side-by-side and hand-in-hand. Katie could feel the whole arena lean forward on the edge of their chairs as Brendan pulled her into a death spiral so low and well executed that when she came up from it there were ice shavings in her hair.
As they exited the move, just before they had to drop each other’s hands, Brendan leaned towards her and brushed his mouth against hers. That wasn’t in the choreography, and the audience roared their approval. Voyeurs, Katie thought. Not that she minded in the least. She and Brendan were nothing if not exhibitionists.
Brendan grinned at her as they skated apart, leaving the smallest possible amount of space between them that would still allow them room to jump. With his smile bright and his eyes locked on hers, Katie went into their side-by-side toe loops without any fear at all.
They landed them perfectly, the crowd roared, and nothing hurt. Katie balled her hands into fists, feeling so fiercely victorious. There were no medals left to win, but right here, right now, she didn’t remotely care. This was what they were meant to do.
Chapter 22
THE FIRST SKATE OF the Rest of Their Lives
Denver, CO
BRENDAN WAS ABSURDLY proud of this program. It wasn’t the only one he’d crafted for this tour, though he’d had help and input from their own former choreographer and the choreographer from their past tours for some of the numbers. But it was the first one he’d dreamed of doing back when he’d first let himself imagine the possibility of skating with Katie again. It was his gift to her. More than the engagement ring she wasn’t wearing tonight because she hated wearing sparkly jewelry when she skated; more than all the time and energy he still gave the farm and the cows whenever they stayed with her family. They’d spent their competitive lives playing characters from other people’s stories. Now, the only roles they had to play was those of themselves. There was no drama, no filter, no bullshit, no narrative to hide in or behind. Just them. Together. Always.
Without the strict requirements of competitive pair skating, they could have more fun with the lifts. Yes, hoisting Katie above his head while he covered the entire length of the rink and she moved from a curve to a split to a full Biellmann position was impressive and a skill he was glad to show off. But Katie jumping into his arms while he spun lazily across the ice, her legs wrapped around his waist, her head tucked into his shoulder was a self-indulgent sweetness the audience loved.
But as lovely as quiet moments with Katie were, both on and off the ice, they weren’t here just to enjoy touching each other. They were here to push each other, to keep learning, to keep improving, to keep trusting each other. As they reached the corner of the rink, Katie slid back to the ice, her head ducked but her eyes fastened on Brendan’s face. They circled each other, the desire between them sparking and as palpable as ever. Brendan took her by the waist, spun her so that her back was pressed against his chest and counted the beats while they both skated backwards, picking up speed.
At precisely the right moment Brendan tightened his hands around Katie’s waist and felt her body tense as she prepared for the jump. He lifted her and threw her, every muscle in his body straining and satisfied at the work. Katie spun through the air and landed perfectly, arms raised above her head in victory, while the crowd went wild.
In seconds, Brendan had closed the distance to get to her so that they could fold into each other for the last pair spin, their bodies twining against each other. The speed and force of the spin and its position changes meant it was impossible for them to focus on each other in any way that made sense to anyone else. But, more than any other element, this was the one that required them each to be part of a greater whole. Which they were and which they had always been.
They pulled out of the spin and hit their final marks. The music ended, and Brendan looked over Katie. As the audience went to its feet, she was the only thing he cared about. He watched as she broke the pose and put her hands to her face in shock. This was, he hoped and suspected, the moment he’d been trying to give her his entire life.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said as he scooped her up in his arms and twirled her around the ice.
For a moment, he thought she was going to protest, but he felt her straighten in his arms. He watched as she looked out at the crowd, full of wonder and pride. Reluctantly, he set her down. They needed to do their bows, but more than that Brendan wanted to get her alone. There was a celebration to be had here, with the audience, but they also needed a moment alone while the other skaters who had joined them in this venture took the ice.
Brendan led Katie through their bows, sure he was waving and blowing kisses to the audience as much as she was by the end. Finally, when the lights dimmed and it was time to skate away, Katie stopped him with a squeeze to his hand.
“What?” he asked, puzzled in the dark and worried something was somehow wrong.
Katie smiled at him. “With me?” she whispered.
“Always,” he said. He’d always be happy to follow Katie wherever sh
e led.
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