Ink and Ice

by Erin McRae

  Brendan stood by the door that led to the lobby, talking to a man Aaron didn’t recognize but who was wearing a hilarious number of layers. Aaron was only in a t-shirt, but this guy was wearing a down coat with a fur-trimmed hood. Still, he was definitely cute. Dark hair, a short dark beard that didn’t hide how sharp his jawline was, and a general broadness of build that probably wasn’t all just the coat. And he was definitely at least six feet. Aaron approved.

  “Good morning,” Aaron told Katie cheerily, while he continued to check out the guy.

  She gave him an exasperated look. “When I said we were going to get an early start I did not expect this.”

  Aaron refocused on her. “You told me I could use the ice. Who’s the dude?” He tried not to grin. It was good to be back. Even—especially—when he was getting chewed out by Katie. She only bothered to be a hardass to people she liked.

  “Journalist,” Katie said. “He’s here to write a piece about the state of the field as it stands now for Athletics Monthly. He’ll be off to cover Sauer in Phoenix eventually. If I had to guess, he'll probably talk to a bunch of the juniors too. So in the meantime, make yourself a good story, preferably without being a giant flirt. You know narrative matters. The right sort of media coverage could mean a bit more respect from the federation and the judges.”

  AARON FOLLOWED KATIE through the warren of hallways at the heart of the Twin Cities Ice complex to the room they sometimes used for meetings, but more often for meals or impromptu naps. There were a few tables, no windows, an old microwave, and a refrigerator that rumbled ominously in the corner. Someone had made coffee in the communal coffee maker they all took turns bringing in beans for. Aaron helped himself to a cup—the bitter, slightly burnt smell felt like home—and sat down next to Charlotte.

  Aside from themselves, Brendan, Katie, and the journalist, only those skaters who lived year-round in the Twin Cities and also weren’t otherwise on tour or vacation were present. Which meant Sam and Morgan, who skated pairs together, and two junior men’s skaters, Angel and Nikolai, who Aaron knew were both hoping to qualify for competing in the senior division soon. No one looked fully awake.

  At the front of the room, Brendan waved haphazardly to get their attention. “Hi everybody. Thanks for being here. Normally we’d have a more organized welcome back, but this isn’t the official start to our training season for most of you... you’re just...here.”

  “There’s like six of them,” Katie said from the side of the room, sounding somewhere between exasperated and amused. Which was true—Katie and Brendan coached maybe thirty skaters all together, though most of them were younger skaters still competing at the novice and intermediate level.

  Brendan waved that detail away and went on talking. “Which, honestly, warms my heart. That we love what we do and stick together in tough times. And with that out of the way,” Brendan said, clapping his hands together. “We do have an actual announcement.”

  Katie sighed audibly. Brendan shot her a smile.

  “God, they are so married,” Charlotte murmured at Aaron.

  “Jealous?” he whispered.

  “Of the domestic bliss or that he gets to live with her hotness?” she replied.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Aaron said.

  “You should.”

  “The man back there,” Brendan said pointing, “Who looks like he wishes he’d packed a sweater.”

  Everyone in the room turned to look at the guy, who was leaning against a table, both hands wrapped around a paper coffee cup. He’d taken off his parka and definitely looked cold, but Aaron was more distracted by his elaborately tattooed arms. No one in skating had that much ink, not where anyone could see it. Aaron already thought the guy was hot, but the tattoos were definitely nice icing.

  “Anyway, that’s Zack,” Brendan said. “He’s a journalist—”

  Charlotte cursed in French under her breath.

  “—and he’s here to write about all of you.”

  “It’s a long-form, reported piece,” Zack said, like that meant anything to any of them. “So, while the impetus is Luke Koval’s injury and what that means for the men’s field, I’ll be here for a few weeks to soak up the atmosphere and community. You should all honestly ignore me as much as possible, except hopefully when I want to talk to you.”

  “Do you know how to skate?” Aaron asked. He didn’t want to get skipped over for Angel and Nikolai and some premature look at the future of the sport, not when he was right here and ready to—hopefully—do great things.

  “Ah. No,” Zack admitted.

  “I can fix that,” he said and regretted it almost immediately as the rest of the room burst out with laughter.

  “Do I want to know what the punchline is?” Zack asked.

  “You really don’t,” Katie said, before anyone could say anything worse.

  Brendan, meanwhile, looked from Aaron to Zack and back again. “Can I have you two sort this out when we’re not in the middle of a meeting?” he asked plaintively.

  Aaron watched as Zack, trying to hide his confused amusement, nodded at the same time as him. Then he caught his eye with a wicked smile.

  Aaron had a suspicion this was going to be all sorts of fun.

  Chapter 4

  VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING

  Twin Cities Ice Arena

  ZACK SAT ON THE BENCH a few feet from the door to the ice and stared at the giant, glowing red clock that hung over the far end of the sheet. 5:05am. He still didn’t know anything about skating beyond YouTube videos, but the early hour, the profusion of fluorescent lights, and the rink’s industrial warehouse vibe were all familiar enough. He certainly felt more at ease here than he had in his own living room for the last several months, which was either situation normal given the divorce or something he should probably talk over with his therapist.

  The heavy door from the locker room banged open, making Zack jump. Aaron, one of the main subjects of his article and now his skating instructor, appeared with a reusable shopping bag in one hand and a pair of skates in the other. Zack was freezing in several layers of long sleeves and a hoodie, but Aaron wore only a T-shirt and a light jacket that wasn’t even zipped. Zack had seen him up close yesterday, but only briefly, and was struck anew at how small Aaron was. None of the skaters were tall, but Aaron seemed particularly slight and the top of his head barely came past Zack’s shoulder.

  “You made it!” he said cheerily, setting the bag down on the floor in front of Zack and the pair of skates—his own, Zack assumed—gently on the bench.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?” Zack was curious.

  “Five in the morning is early for most people.” Aaron sat down next to him and started pulling on the skates, but with a sideways glance at Zack that instantly made him suspicious.

  “Wait,” Zack said. “Did you tell me to drag my ass out of bed and to this rink at five in the morning as a test?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “If I confess will you be mad?”

  “No,” Zack said, staring at Aaron in disbelief. “But I will be exceptionally curious.”

  Aaron shrugged as he tightened his laces with deft fingers. “If you’re going to write about me working my ass off when none of us know if I’m going to make it to the Olympics, I thought you should suffer a little bit, too.”

  Despite the hour and energy required, a laugh burst out of Zack. “You’re evil.”

  “I prefer ‘feral.’” Aaron said with a sharp smile.

  Zack felt completely off balance. While he hadn’t expected the subject of an article about elite competitive sports to be mellow, Aaron’s bright sharpness, not to mention the fact that he was apparently a little shit, was a shock. Zack was drawn to him in a way that he told himself, firmly, was about the piece he was here to write and not about the way Aaron held his lower lip between his teeth as he tied off his laces and tucked them in.

  “I raided the skate exchange for some skates for you
.” Aaron said, nodding at the bag at Zack’s feet. “I wasn’t sure what your size was so I took a guess. Fitting skates is more of an art than a science anyway.”

  Zack peered dubiously into the bag, glad for something to do other than stare at his subject, who would hopefully let Zack photograph him at some point as well. In the bag were several pairs of black figure skates, the leather variously scuffed, scarred, and patched with black tape. He looked back up at Aaron.

  “Doesn’t the rink have rentals? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

  Aaron frowned. “No,” he said seriously. “I don’t teach anyone on rentals. They fit badly, they don’t offer any ankle support, and the blades are shit. You’d get hurt.”

  “I might get hurt anyway,” Zack pointed out, pulling out a skate and looking for a size indicated anywhere on them."

  “If you do, it won’t be because of something we could have prevented.”

  The serious tone of his proclamation made Zack remember that both of them were here because of a freak accident no one could have foreseen, much less prevented. Sometimes, life wasn’t fair. Or kind.

  The pair of skates he finally decided on—or rather, that Aaron decided on for him—felt snug, far more so than any shoe he had ever worn. They didn’t hurt, but the sensation was a lot. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but there also wasn’t anything he could do about it. He had agreed to take a skating lesson, and this was apparently what was required to skate.

  “I’ll show you how to do the laces.” Without ceremony Aaron pulled Zack’s foot into his lap.

  Zack sputtered. Whatever unprofessional attraction he might or might not have been feeling, he was not used to being manhandled so very effectively by someone a fraction of his size.

  “Do you always have bad boundaries or am I special?” Zack asked, before his brain could wander into more dangerous territory, like noting how very good Aaron was with his hands or wondering what other things he might be able to tie.

  Aaron’s eyes stayed focused on his work. “I don’t have bad boundaries. You don’t know how to tie skates yet, and I can’t describe the sensation to you. Sorry if it’s weird.”

  He didn’t sound sorry at all. Which probably should have annoyed Zack, but all it did was make him more intrigued. Aaron’s mix of mischief, professionalism, and approval-seeking was not one he had encountered before.

  “Jeez, that’s tight,” he said as Aaron finished.

  “Does it hurt? Can you still feel your toes?”

  “No. And yes.”

  “Then it’s not too tight. It might even be too loose.” Aaron shoved Zack’s feet to the floor. “Stand up, let’s see how that works.”

  Zack levered himself up and took a few wobbling steps forward. “I hope this is less awkward on the ice.”

  Aaron gave him a crooked smile. “In the abstract? Yes. In reality, because you’ve never done this before? Not so much.”

  With that, he took off a skate guard, set it on the boards, and stepped onto the ice in one fluid motion. Zack stared as Aaron glided on one foot and bent over to remove the other guard.

  “Um....” Zack’s brain was frozen. He was obviously not supposed to do that. But he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Aaron on the ice was mesmerizing, even when he wasn’t doing any of the tricks Zack knew mattered from his attempt at in-flight research. On land Aaron moved with quick, energetic motions. On the ice, he seemed to flow with a grace that reminded Zack of someone gliding through water.

  Aaron did a lap around the whole rink and came to a neat stop across the boards from where Zack was still standing, transfixed.

  “Are you okay?” Aaron asked, his face concerned.

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  Aaron was clearly not convinced. “Okay. Next steps. Sit back down, take your guards off, stand up, walk over to that door, and step onto the ice. Keep your feet under you. Hold onto the wall, and try to remember that frozen water is slippery.”

  “Thanks,” Zack said dryly, but set about doing as he was told.

  “It’s not you,” Aaron said calmly as Zack slowly managed to get himself onto the ice, mostly by holding on to the boards for dear life. “A lot of the time people are shocked that ice is wet.”

  Once Zack had both feet on the ice and one hand firmly gripping the boards, Aaron skated backwards towards the center of the rink.

  “Come join me out here!”

  “Are you kidding me?” Zack said. Aaron was appealing—way more so than Zack had anticipated—but he still wasn’t motivating Zack to take his life into his hands in quite that way.

  “You’ve seen people skate. Or use rollerblades or whatever. You also know how to walk. You don’t have to be fast or graceful, you just have to get over here. Also, don’t lean forward too much. The little teeth things at the front of your blades are toe picks, and you don’t know what to do with them yet, so they’re going to make you trip.”

  “Uh... great.” It wasn’t that Zack would rather have been getting shot at, but if he had been, he would at least have had a better idea of how to proceed. Carefully, he let go of the wall. That was okay. He tried to pick up one foot and decided that wasn’t. “How do I tell where my foot is?”

  “What?” Aaron asked. “You said you could feel your toes.”

  “Yes, but now I’m two inches taller than usual and I can’t feel the ground.”

  “Ugh.” Aaron skated back over to Zack and stuck out his hands. “Still not bad boundaries, although hopefully I’m cute enough for you to want to hold my hands.”

  Aaron winked. Zack wondered if this were hell and if so, what he’d done to deserve it.

  “We’re going to teach you how to walk,” Aaron explained, “which is a thing you already know how to do.”

  It wasn’t. Zack felt more absurd than he had in at least a decade as Aaron skated backwards so he could hold Zack’s hands as he marched around the ice.

  Then Aaron let go.

  Zack took three steps before his feet slipped out from under him. He had a moment’s sensation of being airborne before his ass hit the ice. Hard.

  He gritted his teeth. “Damn, that hurts.”

  “Did you break anything?” Aaron didn’t look particularly worried.

  “I don’t think so,” Zack said as he tried to figure out how to get up. He felt like a crab skidding across the ice on its back.

  “Hands and knees,” Aaron said.

  Once more Zack had few options other than doing as he was told. And really, this whole nightmare exercise might have been a little less hard if he wasn’t fighting his brain’s reluctance to take orders. At least until Aaron corrected him again.

  “Ugh, not like that,” Aaron said as Zack pressed his palms to the ice.

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause someone can skate over your fingers and cut them off.”

  “Tell me you’re joking.” Zack peered up at him. Which wasn’t a bad angle from which to view Aaron.

  Focus, he scolded himself.

  “Nope. Everyone has a fingers story,” Aaron said mildly.

  “Is that like how everyone has a kidney thieves story involving a friend of their second cousin?”

  Aaron shook his head. “Finger. Zamboni ice. Baggie. Ambulance.”

  “Great. Why am I doing this again?” Because journalism, his brain unhelpfully supplied. And worse, because you’re now a fool who wants to impress a guy.

  Aaron had his own answer, though. “So when you write your article you understand how hard this is and don’t write a crappy opening about glitter, homosexuality, or tween girls.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with any of those things,” Zack said as he finally stumbled up to his feet, mostly by clutching onto Aaron, who might have been small but was also completely, freakishly immoveable.

  “No,” Aaron agreed sternly, “there’s not.” If he had more to say about the subject—and Zack was sure he did—he kept it to himself with pursed lips and a sharp gaze.

  “Are people assho
les to you because you’re a skater?” he ventured.

  “For that to be true, I’d have to know people who aren’t skaters.” Aaron took Zack’s hands and slowly pried his fingers loose from his jacket. Zack hadn’t realized he’d been gripping him quite so hard. “Now that we’re done with your bad boundaries... try to glide, like push with one foot and then go. And please don’t look at your feet, it throws your balance off.”

  Zack did his best to follow what felt like too many directions at once. Rather than look at the ice he locked eyes with Aaron, who smiled encouragingly at him.

  The look was so appealing, sweet and come-hither at the same time, a smile just for him, as if they were the only two people in the world and Zack was doing right, exactly right, just as he was.

  That was not a thing that usually turned Zack’s crank—usually he was the one giving both orders and approval—but oh this was working for him right now. Surely—surely—that look was calculated. Aaron was, after all, a trained performer. But it still made Zack’s knees go weak. Which was a problem, as his muscles were way too tense to be able to incorporate any shift in balance. He went down again, this time forward onto his hands. It didn’t hurt as much as that first fall. But it was still unpleasant. At least he sort of knew how to get up this time.

  Zack looked up at Aaron, annoyed both at the sudden attraction that could only cause problems and at this entire venture that was going to turn him into one giant bruise.

  “I hate this,” he said. “And also possibly you.”

  AN HOUR LATER ZACK was cold, sore, and, he assumed, wildly bruised everywhere he had fallen. When their lesson was finally finished, Aaron coaxed him off the ice and, before Zack managed to hobble over to a bench and sink down on it, was back in the center of the rink spinning at a rate that felt like it shouldn’t be humanly possible. His head was back, his eyes were closed, and one hand reached upwards, the other pressed to his heart.

  Definitely a different kind of creature, Zack thought. What Aaron had been teaching him had been a galaxy apart from what he was doing on the ice alone. Zack had known this, but seeing it in person was a different, almost sublime, experience.