by Erin McRae
“All right. I sent in a draft last night. This morning, technically.”
“Really?” Aaron was surprised. “I didn’t know you were so close to done.”
“I wasn’t, but this is what I wanted to talk to you about.” Zack hesitated. “If you don’t mind doing it before we arrive at coffee.”
Aaron stopped walking and turned to face Zack. “Sooner would be better than later. ‘We need to talk’ once is forgivable. Twice is bordering on sadism.”
Zack laughed quietly to himself. “I’m sorry. That’s fair.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair; Aaron caught himself staring at the tattoos on his arm.
“So after last night,” Zack went on. “I went back to Marie’s and babbled to her for a while.”
Aaron smiled, forcing himself to look at Zack’s face instead of his arms. He had a good face. “That is a rite of passage.”
“Yeah, I got that impression. And we talked about you and this place and my mess of a life, and I realized I had two choices.”
“Which are?” None of this was making Aaron’s nerves diminish in the least.
“Be a responsible journalist, confess my ethical lapses—”
“The kissing?”
“Definitely the kissing. Confess that to my editor, and go back to Florida or on to Phoenix and do my damn work and forget any of this happened.”
“Or?” Aaron prodded, when Zack paused again.
Zack dropped his hand from his hair, his gaze intent on Aaron. “Accept that I am happy here and that I am not done with this place or you, but that that means I am compromised in every way with no way to undo that.”
“Which did you choose? “Aaron’s voice was barely a whisper.
“The one where I’m happy,” Zack said softly. “But the only way I could entertain that was to get the article off my desk as quickly as possible. That doesn’t mitigate my lapses, but it theoretically stops them from getting worse. The piece is full of holes about the Sauer kid and my editor will be pissed, but I will deal with that later.”
“Did he ever call you back?” Aaron asked, because it was better than seizing on all his giddy hope. He didn’t trust it yet; he couldn’t.
“Nope. Which means that right now most of the meat of the article is about you.”
Aaron considered that. “That feels a little overwhelming,” he admitted.
“Blame the big stage,” Zack said with a shrug.
“I’ll try,” Aaron said, but then another, much less pleasant, realization hit him. “Wait, if the article has been submitted, that means you’re headed back home, doesn’t?”
Zack shook his head. “Nope. I said I wasn’t done with this place. Or you. So if you’re not horrified by my impulsive life choices, poor journalistic ethics, or fooling around with a divorcé who is possibly mildly afraid of cows, Marie said she’d let me reup on her basement apartment for a bit.”
Aaron grinned from ear to ear, flickering hope blooming to full-on elation in a moment. “Does this mean I have a disaster boyfriend?” he asked, before he could tell himself to reign it in.
Zack stared at him, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Emphasis on disaster. Because look, this is the other thing, I don’t want to cause you problems, and I can think of a lot of ways I might.”
“How?” Aaron demanded.
“When that article comes out.... It’s pretty glowing—because you earned it, not because I want to get in your pants—and if we’re together people are going to have opinions about that, with consequences for both of us.”
“Who’s going to notice?” Aaron crossed his arms over his chest, impatient.
“Someone always notices,” Zack said. “That’s how the world works. But Katie, for one, who never even wanted you to have coffee with me that wasn’t on strictly professional terms.”
Aaron shrugged. “It’s a little late for that now. I’m an adult; she knows that. I do my work; she knows that too.”
Zack scratched his hand across his cheek. “Okay. Maybe. But... like you said... skating is the most important thing.”
“Sure. But it’s not the only thing.” Aaron tapped his foot to emphasize his point. “Ask me out, or I’m going to get in trouble for nothing and this conversation makes no sense.”
Zack seemed ready to leap at the command. He grabbed Aaron’s hands, gently uncrossing his arms. “Have dinner with me tonight?”
Aaron bit his lip, and considered if Zack would be annoyed if he pushed things now. If Aaron hadn’t frightened him off yet...
“No,” he said, making up his mind and secretly enjoying the momentary crestfallen look on Zack’s face. “A boy is never available at the last minute. How about...” he drew the words out, thinking about them. “We get coffee, you walk me back to the rink, we make out somewhere we won’t get busted, and then you invite me over for dinner sometime this weekend?”
“There are some bold and intriguing ideas there,” Zack said. He rubbed his thumbs over the back of Aaron’s hands.
Aaron squeezed their fingers together. “I should hope. No one calls me boy-crazy just to be mean, you know.”
Chapter 10
A FEW DAYS LATER
Zack’s Apartment in Marie the Ex-Nun’s Basement
ZACK SPENT FRIDAY GROCERY shopping and cleaning the little basement apartment. He’d barely picked up pantry staples in the time he’d been in the Twin Cities, relying far too much on takeout and convenience food. And, while he could tidy the basement apartment he rented from Marie, it was not a space that could impress anyone. In a way, Zack was relieved. Whatever was happening with him and Aaron, it was progressing entirely on their own merits as people rather than any metric of American material success.
Aaron arrived punctually at six, ringing the bell as Zack finished chopping the vegetables for a stir fry.
“Hi!” he said brightly when Zack opened the door. He was holding a small bouquet of flowers and a bottle of sparkling water, both of which he pressed into Zack’s hands. “These are for you! And also, us. Since I don’t really drink, and I don’t know if you do.”
“Thank you.” Zack said, touched. He stepped back to let Aaron in. When was the last time anyone had brought him flowers? It was such an unnecessary gesture, and yet one that was so very Aaron in its concern for detail. What an absurd and lovely creature he was.
“You know, I’ve never been in here before.” Aaron toed off his shoes, looking around. “It’s nice. In that skater kitsch way.”
“I’d say thank you, but I’m not sure you’re being nice,” Zack said, amused. He moved into the kitchen to find something to use as a vase.
“I am being nice! I’m a skater; I’m kitschy.” Aaron said.
From the back of one of the shelves Zack pulled out on a giant ceramic mug emblazoned with a cartoon dog wearing figure skates.
“Like this?” He held up the mug so Aaron could see.
Aaron’s face lit up. “Oh my God, yes. That’s great!”
“Marie deserves the credit.” Zack filled the mug at the sink and put in the flowers.
“Tell her I said so, then.”
“Are you hungry?” Zack asked, returning to the piles of vegetables and meat on his cutting boards.
“Starving.”
There was something effortless about having Aaron in his space. As he cooked, Zack watched him walk around the living room taking in the art on the walls and the few of Zack’s own possessions scattered around. He touched things and picked them up to see them closer without any kind of self-consciousness or embarrassment.
“You didn’t tell me you were a photographer too,” Aaron said, running his fingertips over Zack’s Nikon where it was sitting on the TV stand.
“It’s a hobby more than work. It lines up sometimes though. Sometimes, I can get pictures no one else can get.”
“Show me?” Aaron asked.
“Maybe.” That was going to be another potentially fraught conversation, and Zack thought he deserved at least a we
ek of enjoying Aaron before that needed to happen. He wanted to pick him up, set him on the kitchen counter, and make out with him.
Aaron caught Zack staring as he ran his fingers across the spine of a spiral notebook next to the camera. He flushed, but didn’t retract his hand.
“Is this weird?” he asked. “Am I being weird?”
“You don’t normally date people who aren’t skaters, do you?”
Aaron paused a moment, his gaze a little distant, like he was calculating. “Uh. No. Not dated, anyway. But mostly skaters either way, yeah.” He drifted over to the kitchen. “What can I do to help?”
“Sit there and look pretty?”
Aaron gave him an exaggerated show smile and laughed. “No, really. You know I work at my parents’ restaurant, I’m good at this kind of stuff.”
“I thought you did accounts for them? Not the chopping and cooking.”
Aaron shrugged. “I’m doing accounting now because it’s one of the things I can do remotely, and I need to help out somehow. But no, it’s usually messier. Lots of fish. Peeling, slicing, dicing, cleaning, bouncing....” he trailed off to steal a bite of pepper out of Zack’s skillet. “Hey, that’s good.”
“Thank you. Wait. Bouncing?” Zack asked. He was sure he’d heard wrong.
“Yeah. Lots of drunk and rowdy patrons on a summer island.”
“But, you’re....” Zack didn’t know if it was all right to say, but Aaron tiny, at least compared with the size and stature of the bouncers he typically associated with venues and bars.
“Not all bouncers are huge. And I’ve been keeping you on your feet for weeks.” Aaron stole another piece of vegetable out of the skillet. “When I skate I have to fill the entire rink with my ‘presence.’” He licked a bit of sauce off his thumb and then made the air quotes. “Up close and personal, it tends to grab people’s attention. After that I just have to talk them into chilling out and doing what I want.”
“Which you’re good at, I’ve noticed,” Zack said. Aaron did, indeed, seem to have a distinct talent for getting what he wanted.
Without invitation, Aaron started opening cupboards and taking out dishes. “Mmm. Ari’s better at it, though.”
“Who’s Ari?” Zack asked.
“My sister.”
Zack rapidly searched his memory for any conversation they’d had about Aaron’s home or family where he’d mentioned any siblings. He came up blank. “You have a sister?”
“Yeah?” Aaron sounded surprised the question had ever been in doubt.
“Older or younger?” Zack asked, in lieu of saying why have you never mentioned her? It wasn’t that Aaron owed him any information, but Aaron always seemed so open about everything the omission seemed odd.
Aaron was now laying plates on the table. “Older. Technically. By a few minutes.”
Zack stared at him.
Aaron stared back. “We’re twins?” he said, as if Zack were missing something quite obvious. Which apparently he was.
“You have a twin and you never mentioned her to me? I wrote a whole article about you!”
“About my skating. Ari doesn’t skate competitively. And she doesn’t like it when I talk about her to outsiders.”
“Outsiders?” Zack was confused again.
“People not from the islands,” Aaron explained. He returned to the little kitchen corner and started opening drawers.
“Silverware’s to the left of the sink. And why?” Zack asked.
“Because people who aren’t from there don’t know what life there is like.”
“I thought it was a massive vacation destination.”
Aaron found the drawer and started pulling out forks and knives. “It is. But only for a few months of the year. And that’s the main island, they have about fifty families there. Our island just has four families.”
Zack was frozen, mouth open, with a wooden spoon in his hand. It was probably not a good look. But all the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. Six weeks he’d been here, talking to Aaron and learning about his life. Six weeks and he hadn’t known Aaron’s family was all but alone on their own island or that he had a twin. Zack’s journalistic instincts were good, but Aaron had somehow managed to do a complete end run around them.
“Did you wait to tell me this until I’d finished your part of the article?” he asked.
Aaron shook his head. “It never came up.”
But it was an evasion, Zack knew, and he was pretty sure that Aaron knew he knew it.
“Okay.” Zack put the spoon down, wiped his hands on a towel, and turned around to lean back against the counter. “What do I have to do to see the island?” he asked.
Aaron shrugged. “Fly to Ohio and book a ferry ticket like everyone else.”
“No. Not that one. Yours.”
Aaron laughed and tipped his head to the side as if Zack was the biggest fool in the world. And, truth be told, he probably was. “Why, be very, very good, of course.”
WHILE THEY ATE, AARON chatted happily about his day and updated Zack on little happenings at the rink. It was a disgusting portrait of domesticity, and Zack wasn’t quite convinced that he wasn’t dreaming. Life with his ex had never exactly been about domestic bliss. Zack hadn’t known he wanted someone to do the pleasant little niceties of home life with and yet, here he was, listening to Aaron with rapt attention.
Aaron nudged his socked toes against Zack’s ankle in the middle of a story about a lesson he’d taught the other day when his student had landed their first single jump. It was a little thing in itself, next door to innocent, but the touch sent a bolt of heat through him.
“You’re used to getting what you want when you want it, aren’t you?” Zack asked, in lieu of focusing on the story.
Aaron scoffed. “If I was used to getting what I wanted when I wanted it, I wouldn’t be trying to get on my first Olympic team; I’d be expecting to get on my second.”
“I wasn’t talking about your career.” Zack wasn’t offended that that was where Aaron’s mind had gone first. He adored Aaron’s drive. Also, Aaron’s foot was still pressed against his, and there was a knowing gleam in his eyes.
Aaron tilted his head from side to side as he thought about it. “Maybe. I don’t feel like I’m particularly demanding or persuasive. It’s all performance. So what that gets me is what other people want to give me. Or what I earn.”
Zack had a lot of questions, but as much as he was fairly sure he’d have Aaron in his bed by the end of the evening, he knew it was too forward to ask any of them directly.
“You mean on the ice?” he asked instead.
Aaron shrugged. “Sure. Or with my family. Or Katie and Brendan. I had to earn my place here as surely as I’ve had to earn my life off the island.”
“Does that feel fucked up?” Zack didn’t want to lean in to Aaron’s self-confessed desire for winning other people’s approval if he had issues about it.
“Nope. I know where I stand with people and I know what is and isn’t under my control. It makes things clear. And...” he added, with a look from under his eyelashes at Zack, “most importantly, I enjoy it.”
SOMEHOW THEY MANAGED to finish eating. As soon as they had, Aaron stood and started collecting plates. Zack took the plates out of his hands, set them on the counter, and looped his fingers loosely around Aaron’s wrists.
“Dishes later,” he said against Aaron’s ear. “This, now.”
“Oh, good.” Aaron all but melted against him. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Zack chuckled. “Does that mean you want to skip the awkward makeouts on Marie’s couch and just get right to the main show?”
“If I say yes, does that mean you’ll throw me over your shoulder and drag me off to bed?”
“Yes.” Zack tightened his grip on Aaron’s wrists and watched as his eyes fluttered closed. He took a deep breath, tried to school his features into some sort of calm, then snapped them open.
“Then yes, please,” Aaron said.
Zack obliged. He’d never be strong in the ways Aaron was, but he had height and breadth on Aaron and enough athleticism that it was an easy enough thing to hoist him up in a fireman’s carry.
Aaron yelped briefly.
“You all good?” Zack asked.
“Fantastic,” Aaron said.
Zack grabbed Aaron’s ass—which skating had made perfect —with one palm, and walked him into the bedroom to dump him across his bed. Zack looked at him, sprawled there, breathless and flushed.
“Take your shirt off,” he said quietly.
As Aaron did as he was told, Zack swooped in to grab the shirt once it was over Aaron’s head but before his arms could get free of it.
“I’m tangled,” Aaron said, laughing awkwardly.
“Do you mind?” Zack asked. He didn’t like to think there were tests in sex, but this trick served as one. It had always reliably told him where he could or could not go, although he was pretty sure he’d already clocked Aaron on this.
Aaron, as he expected, shook his head.
Zack let himself take Aaron in for a moment. His body was almost that of a dancer’s, but not quite as lithe or corded. But even just sitting there on Zack’s bed, he had definition and grace and a defiant sort of fearlessness. Zack leaned in to kiss him. Aaron’s lips parted instantly and it was desperately clear how eager he was to go where he was led. Zack twisted the shirt in his hands and hooked it over one of the bedposts so that Aaron was pinned and slouched against it.
“Okay?” he asked Aaron.
“Okay.”
“Say red if you want—”
“I know. And I won’t.”
Zack wasn’t into the type of play that took that type of statement as a challenge, but it was still hot as hell. He ran his nails up and down Aarons sides, to watch how he squirmed with the sensation and to see also how the blood rose to the surface of his pinking skin.
That wasn’t the only thing rising. Aaron’s dick was obviously hard and miserably trapped in his jeans. Zack grabbed his thighs through the thick material and kneaded, his hands slowly drifting towards, but never reaching, where Aaron clearly wanted them.
