Ink and Ice

by Erin McRae

  Don’t fail, Aaron told himself when he got the signal to begin. Just skate.

  His first run-through felt bumpy. He had no falls or major wobbles, but he didn’t feel like his blades were fully in the ice or his head was fully in the game. He didn’t love that, but he knew he wasn’t alone in that. Camp was all the hardest parts of competition with none of the fun bits.

  He was happy to watch the rest of his—Teammates? Competitors? Both, really—skate their programs before he had to go again. Technically, it felt better immediately. But after insisting to Zack and Brendan and Katie that he needed music with more space in it for stillness and expression, he now wasn’t filling up that space in the music. He was, simply, scared.

  “Sixty second pep talk?” Brendan asked as Aaron got off the ice.

  What Aaron wanted was to go take a nap until he had to skate again. “Yeah, sure.”

  Brendan drew him off to the side away from the boards. "You're here," he told him, concern clearly showing on his face, "to solve their problems. And you better figure out how only you can do that, because everyone here can do a triple axel, so that's not the issue."

  "Sometimes it's the issue," Aaron noted.

  "Okay, sometimes it's the problem, but let's pretend it's not. What makes you special?"

  Aaron was afraid he might have been gaping. He was probably gaping.

  "Don't tell me you don't know."

  "I don't know."

  "Okay," Brendan said, "If I had to take a guess, it has something to do with that place you're from."

  "All it does is make me sort of awkward."

  "You're from the hidden world, Aaron. Time to stop hiding it."

  CLOSE YOUR EYES, Zack had said. I don’t want you to think or feel or be anything else right now.

  Zack had meant one thing when he had said that, but Aaron had trusted him, in circumstances far outside his experience, and it had been wildly worth it. Nothing that had happened since had made him regret that choice or mistrust his instincts.

  Now, he needed to take that advice and make it about skating.

  As the music for his program started, Aaron closed his eyes. Hardly remarkable in itself; many skaters did, to find some sort of internal reset. But then he kept them closed. He'd trained a million elements that way since he was a kid; he knew where his body was on the ice; he knew how fast he was going; he knew what to do; he just had to trust. Himself or Zack or his whole messed up life.

  He came around one end of the rink into his triple axel. If he was going to die doing this, this would be it. But his entry was on a circle, not a line, and he was pretty sure he was cutting in away from the wall. Glide on the right back outside edge, step onto the left forward outside edge, and jump.

  He came down clean, smiled, and still didn't open his eyes until he was sure he was right in front of the people serving as judges today.

  He snapped his gaze up to look at them as he went by. He made eye contact with one of them, by accident, as he did it. And she gasped.

  What a good trick.

  What a good boy, Zack had said.

  Aaron knew Brendan might kill him later, especially if the powers that be weren't impressed by this little experiment, but right now he was having the time of his goddamn life.

  BRENDAN WAS WAITING for him when he finished as he got off the ice.

  "What was that?" he demanded as Aaron slipped on his guards. He wasn't yelling—Brendan never yelled—but there was definitely an edge to his voice. Which put a bit of a damper on Aaron’s elation.

  “I decided to try something.” Aaron said. He was breathing hard and had to scrub sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

  “Half your run-through with your eyes closed?”

  “It wasn’t half,” Aaron protested, shifting from foot to foot. He still felt jittery with the thrill of the performance.

  Brendan slung an arm around his shoulders and steered him away from the ice toward a quiet corner. And that was like Brendan too, not to scold where he might be overheard. Which was what made Aaron suddenly nervous. He’d taken a wild risk, and he had no idea yet if it would pay off. What if the officials hated it? What if Brendan was pissed at him? What would the other skaters who had seen it think—and say?

  “If you’d hit the boards and hadn’t seen it coming, come on,” Brendan said, once they were away from everyone else. “You could have injured yourself. Badly. When we have you do elements with your eyes closed it’s not at speed or under pressure for a reason. What were you thinking?”

  “You were the one saying I should trust myself more.”

  “Yourself! Not the physical constraints of the time-space continuum!”

  "But did it work? Was it good?" Aaron had to ask. Not to prove a point to Brendan, but because he wanted to know.

  Brendan gave him a disbelieving look. "It was frightening.”

  "Katie is frightening."

  Brendan looked stunned. "Do you say that to her?"

  "No. She says that to me. Like she says we're alike."

  “Oh God.” Brendan sank his head into his hands. He ran his hands back through his hair, then looked up at Aaron. “Where is Katie when I need her? This is not my forte.”

  “Um.”

  “Aaron?” Both Aaron and Brendan looked up with a start. One of the officials was hovering nearby, notebook in hand. She gave Brendan’s spiky hair an amused look. “If you’re ready, we have the feedback on your long program now.”

  THE OFFICIALS, AS IT turned out, loved Aaron’s new presentation of himself. They had reams of notes and things they wanted him to change and improve—hell would freeze over before the camp officials saw anything they didn’t want to improve, except maybe Jack Palumbo’s skating, but it was a resounding nod of approval.

  Aaron felt like he was walking on air as he left the rink for the day. Outside he found Cayden, evidently waiting for the shuttle bus back to the hotel—and for once, not surrounded by his clique of skater friends. Now was surely the perfect time to fulfil Zack’s request.

  “Hi!” he said brightly.

  Cayden barely glanced up from his phone. “Hi?” he said.

  How does he make even that sound mean? Aaron wondered. Like Cayden was some lofty skating god and Aaron was someone far beneath his notice. But he persevered.

  “I have a favor to ask. Well, not for me. For my—for someone else.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So you know there’s a journalist who’s doing a piece on the people competing for—”

  “For Koval’s space, yeah,” Cayden said. “I know. He called me and my coaches about fifty times. I hear he spent a lot of time at Twin Cities.” He gave Aaron a suspicious look that Aaron did not like at all.

  “Why didn’t you answer?” he asked.

  Cayden scowled. “Because I don’t do shit like that. If it’s not in my schedule, it’s a waste of my time.”

  “That sounds excessively rigid,” Aaron couldn’t help but point out.

  “What it is, is successful. Because that journalist dude is right about one thing: Only one of us gets that spot. And it’s going to be me. Because I spend my time working. Because I want to win. You, you just want attention.”

  Aaron considered himself a fairly laid-back human being. High-stress competitive athletic career aside, he liked people and liked being friendly with them. But with Cayden’s words, he saw red.

  “Sure I do. Why the fuck else am I an elite athlete?”

  “Elite doesn’t mean scrambling for a spot on someone else’s misfortune,” Cayden said.

  “My only competition is myself,” Aaron said. I work. I have worked so hard. And I will not let you drag me down.

  Cayden gave a vague shrug. “That’ll certainly be true when I’m in Almaty and you’re... not.”

  Wow, Aaron thought. I actually hate you. He tried to reign his temper in before he got in trouble for being unsportsmanlike. “You do you. It was just a question.”

  “Not a very bright one.” />
  “Whatever,” Aaron said, already walking away. He could catch the next shuttle.

  “See you at Nationals!” Cayden called after him.

  Aaron couldn’t fucking wait.

  Chapter 18

  IN THE MIDDLE OF CAMP

  Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN

  MIDWAY THROUGH THE week Aaron was away at camp, Zack sat in the booth at one of the several sports bars in downtown Saint Paul. He and his hockey team had just lost a game spectacularly, and were now out for a beer and commiseration. Matt and the girl with the pink-laced skates—Emily—were reminiscing about the Miracle on Ice, and Zack was trying to figure out if either of them had been alive in 1980, when a commotion broke out at the other end of the bar.

  Everyone at the table, including Zack, turned to look. Two men, big burly guys he didn't recognize, were shouting in each other's faces. What they were shouting about wasn't clear, but that hardly mattered. Especially when one of the dudes shoved the other one in the chest—hard.

  "You going over there?" Matt asked.

  Zack hadn't realized he had stood up until Matt spoke.

  "Yeah," he said.

  "You want help?"

  "Sure."

  Together they hurried over to the bar. Briefly, Zack thought of Aaron, and his days as a bouncer in his parents' restaurant. This didn't seem like the kind of place that would have a bouncer on staff, and the kid working the bar was shrinking back from the brewing brawl, looking terrified.

  Getting between the screaming men was not difficult. They were drunk enough that their aim was bad, and Zack and Matt were both bigger than either of them. Still, it was a crowded space, and more than one chair got knocked over in the process of wrestling the combatants apart.

  "Really," Zack heard Matt say to the guy he was corralling, who had stopped insulting his barfight counterpart and was now cursing out Matt. "If you want to hurt my feelings, you need to get more creative than that."

  Zack chuckled grimly to himself. Then backup arrived, in the form of what seemed like the entire staff of the bar at once, and Zack and Matt could fall back and let the professionals take over.

  The brawlers were escorted out, and Zack and Matt returned to the rest of the hockey guys—where they were met by cheers.

  "Our heroes!" somebody shouted, while someone else bounded over to the bar to order more drinks for everyone.

  Matt gave Zack a high five. "We are awesome!"

  "Yeah we are!" Zack dropped back into the seat he'd abandoned. He gratefully accepted a beer from the kid who had been behind the bar when the fight started.

  "Thank you, you guys," he said, his cheeks flushed. "You guys get beer on the house forever."

  "It's no problem." Zack couldn't help grinning. The entire thing had happened so quickly, and was so very absurd, and would surely make for a wonderful 'ridiculous things that have happened to me' story.

  "Yeah, anytime." Matt raised his own glass. "To independent bouncing!"

  "To independent bouncing." Zack picked up his own glass—or tried to. It slipped out of his hand and rolled off the edge of the table onto the floor where it shattered, spilling beer everywhere.

  "Oh shit, I'm so sorry," Zack jumped up, or tried to; exiting the booth was awkward, and he was mortified. The bartender, however, took it in stride; evidently this was the kind of crisis he knew how to deal with.

  "Hey, no worries, be right back with a mop and stuff!" He darted off, and Zack was left to shuffle out of the booth while avoiding the puddle of spilled drink and broken glass.

  "Are you okay?" Matt asked suddenly.

  "Yeah, why?"

  "You're not breathing quite right," Matt said.

  "Oh." Zack tried to assess his own state of being and came up blank. His focus had narrowed strangely, and his heart was pounding deafeningly in his ears.

  "Um," he said. "I think I should go sit down somewhere."

  He started to stagger off in the direction of the bathrooms with a vague idea of achieving privacy, but Matt caught him by the arm and helped steer him to a quiet back corner instead.

  "Sit here," he said, pushing Zack gently down into a chair. "I'll be right back."

  He returned in a moment with two glasses of ice water, both of which he pushed at Zack.

  "Drink," he said.

  Zack's hands were shaking badly, but he managed to down half of one of the glasses in one go. “I’m not drunk,” he said.

  "I know. Panic attack?" Matt asked, brisk and almost clinical. Without judgment.

  The wild pounding in his ears didn't stop, but something loosened in Zack's chest.

  "Yeah," he admitted. “Something like that.”

  "All right," Matt said, calm and with an air of unflappability Zack hadn't seen from him before. "You need anything?"

  "Um." It was hard to think in this state, but Zack tried. "I don't think so."

  "Cool. I've got nowhere to be and the staff here loves us now, so we can just chill out here a while, okay?"

  "Yeah. Okay."

  Matt sat with him, while Zack sipped water and tried to take mindful breaths the way his therapist had walked him through. He wasn't sure how long it had been by the time his breathing had finally returned to normal of its own accord and his heart was no longer doing a tap dance in his chest.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Matt looked up from his phone, where Zack had been watching him play some kind of off-brand scrabble game. Badly. "Don't worry about it. You okay?"

  Zack shrugged. “Better, at least. It's been a while since I've had that happen. That bad, at least."

  "Don't worry about it." Matt set down his phone. "My brother was in the service; I've seen what that can do to somebody.”

  “I wasn’t in the military,” Zack felt compelled to clarify for some reason. He realized he’d never told Matt what he did, beyond journalism generally. “I was a war correspondent.”

  “That’s intense,” Matt said. Again with that neutrality; he wasn’t judging or impressed, which was a relief. Zack could barely manage his own emotions right now, much less someone else’s.

  “Yeah.” Zack looked at his hands. Steady, now, thankfully. "Thanks. For sitting with me."

  "It's no problem. You want to go home and get some rest? You okay to drive?"

  "Yeah, I should be. I definitely wasn't before but now, yeah, I got it."

  "Any word from Aaron?" Matt asked as they walked out to the parking lot together.

  "Not much. He's been busy with camp."

  "You should give him a call, say hi. Hear a friendly voice."

  "You're a friendly voice."

  "Yeah, but I'm not your cute skater boyfriend."

  Zack sputtered. "You said you were straight!" was his knee-jerk and not particularly useful reply. He wasn't jealous, but he was confused.

  "I am, but I am also progressive and have good aesthetic sense. He's a great skater. And very attractive. Tell him I hope he leaves that Sauer kid in the dust."

  "Will do," Zack said. He was still amused, but the mention of Sauer only reminded him of all the ethical lapses he was flirting with in regards to Aaron.

  By now they had reached their cars. Matt unlocked his with his key fob, and it beeped in the still night air. "And if you need anything," his friend said solemnly. "I don't care what time it is. Call me, okay?"

  Zack nodded and unlocked his own car. The night had been a mess, but Matt's reaction had reinforced how much he had going on here in the Twin Cities even aside from Aaron.

  I should write Sammy a thank you note, he thought to himself as he drove home. Because this is all, somehow, his fault.

  AARON’S NAME APPEARED on Zack’s caller ID as he let himself into his apartment. Zack toed off his shoes and hit the answer button as he flopped down on the couch.

  “Hi, you,” he answered it. On his screen blurry chunks of pixels coalesced into Aaron’s face. Visible behind him was a headboard and some unmistakably bland North American hotel room art.


  “Zack! Hi! Angel went out so I wanted to call and say hi.”

  “Hello,” Zack said warmly. He managed to lever himself up from his seat at the table and wandered towards the bedroom. If he wasn’t going to cook or stretch, he might as well indulge his inclinations and lie down.

  “How are you?” Aaron asked.

  Zack thought about telling Aaron about the bar fight he and Matt had broken up—and the panic attack that had followed—but instantly dismissed it. Aaron didn’t need the distraction. And right now, Zack just wanted to forget it had happened.

  “Good,” he lied instead. “I had a hockey game tonight and went out for drinks with the guys.”

  “Cool! How’d you do?”

  “Wretchedly,” Zack said, then changed the subject. “How’s camp?” No matter how much Zack had immersed himself in figure skating culture and knew how sports worked, calling the training and evaluation thing Aaron was at ‘camp’ was still weird. He kept picturing him in the woods somewhere, trying to start a fire with sticks and a magnifying glass.

  “It’s, well, it sucks. I mean, I’m doing great! Skating, that is.”

  “Oh?” Zack said, inviting elaboration on either point.

  “Yeah. My free skate—I tried something new. I kept my eyes closed, the way you had me do when we had sex. The energy of the whole thing, my energy, changed. I—I finally found the stillness I’d been looking for. And the judges loved it. So, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” was all Zack could manage. The magnitude of what Aaron was giving him credit for was too great for him to be able to say more. He was relieved when Aaron kept talking, evidently not expecting more of a response from him.

  “Otherwise,” Aaron said, “camp is pretty terrible. I was gonna email you, but...I tried talking to Cayden. He was a huge dick to me, and now all his friends are being dicks to me, and I’m pissed at them all.”

  Zack’s conscience, pushed and nudged and sometimes outright shoved to the side since this thing with Aaron had started, came roaring back to him with a force that took the breath out of him. I asked him to get Sauer to talk to me. He did what I asked. And now he’s dealing with shitty consequences because of that. Because of me.