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ONE WEEK AFTER NATIONALS
Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN
***
A WEEK AFTER THE DISASTER—ON so many levels—of Nationals, Aaron was in Salt Lake City for Four Continents and Zack was in the middle of the kitchen in his new apartment in Saint Paul. The cardboard boxes and bubble wrap surrounding him reminded him of the day he’d been beginning to pack up in Miami when Sammy had called with a job offer that had shifted the course of his life. He’d been at the end of a relationship then, and he wasn’t sure if he was at the end of another relationship now.
You probably are, the reasonable part of his mind told him. Scratch that. You almost certainly are.
Aaron was still angry—justifiably, as it turned out. At least that was the firm opinion of Katie, Sammy, and Matt, which sure seemed like enough to make it true. Zack hadn’t communicated clearly about the shifts the initial article was taking when Cayden had proved to be so resistant to participating. And cutting the guy entirely so Zack could shove in the stuff about the island at the last minute had been straight up duplicitous and a not-insignificant breach of trust. The photo had been a reasonable choice, but he should have told Aaron first. And then he’d mentioned the seals. In passing, as an inland colony of freshwater seals. No myth, no whisper of magic.
You were threading a needle, Katie had told him, after Aaron had stormed out of his own hotel room in Boston. And you did it well. But he’s not in a place to deal with that right now.
It was, his triumvirate of personal counselors assured him, the sort of thing that could be apologized and made up for, but not while Aaron was trying to go to the Olympics. Still.
So Zack was letting it lie. And spending a lot of time thinking about his need to process his life through words and the way that had an impact on the other people in his life. While he still had hockey and his work on his memoir to keep him busy both those things felt complicated now.
Maybe Sammy will find some other sports emergency I can write about this year, he thought.
As he pondered that possibility—surely something at the Olympics would want covering?—his phone, buried somewhere on the counter under various packing material, rang. Zack fished it out, expecting it to be Matt; they’d talked about grabbing food later.
Instead, Katie Nowacki flashed up at him from the screen. Odd. And concerning. Katie was in Salt Lake too, with Aaron. Why was she calling him?
When he picked up, there was a rush of static and background noise—a crowd, of some sort. A pocket dial, in all likelihood; he moved to hit end call but before his thumb could find the button Katie’s voice crackled out at him.
“Zack?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s me. Katie.”
“Yeah, I know. What’s going on? Is he okay?”
“We’re at Four Continents and I need you to get out here.” Katie’s voice, raised over the sound of the bustle around her, was a command.
One Zack did not comprehend, because it made no sense. “What? Get out where?”
“Salt Lake City.”
Did she think he’d travelled there on his own to watch the competition? Because he definitely hadn’t. “I’m in Saint Paul.”
“I’m aware of that! Hence the verb get.”
“Is it Aaron? What’s going on?” he demanded. He couldn’t help thinking of how he’d even come to be in the Twin Cities and of Luke Koval’s accident that had sent them all on this journey. Is he hurt? How badly?
“The short program just ended. Aaron finished behind Cayden. He can still pull ahead, there’s room, but his head is a fucking mess and I need you to get out here and fix it.” Katie’s voice was terse, businesslike, but there was an edge of panic under it. One that Zack recognized all too well.
As much as he sympathized, however... “I can’t do that,” Zack protested.
“Yes, you can,” Katie said firmly.
“You were in the room when he yelled at me a lot—fairly—for a bunch of different things.”
“Yes. And?”
“I helped cause the mess he’s in, in the first place. Because of how he is wired and attached to that island I cannot actually fix anything for him. And even if I could, he still needs to ask for it or at least consent to having you ask me for it. This is his life, not a fucking rom-com.”
Katie laughed darkly. “Believe me, I am well aware.”
“Katie,” Zack said. She couldn’t seriously expect him to do this, could she?
“Zack,” she replied. “I know my athlete. Who is also a gossip. I know more details of the mess you two are in with each other than any of us want. So. To be very clear. The men’s long program starts in thirty hours, and I don’t care how you get your ass here, just do it.”
With that, she hung up.
Zack pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it. Well, that was all sorts of data points. About Aaron. About Katie. About, by extension, Brendan. He half-sighed and half-laughed. What a damn mess.
“Well, respect to you, Katie,” he muttered at his phone.
And then he called Matt. It was after six, his shift was over by now, and Zack desperately needed advice.
Matt answered, sounding as cheery as ever. “Hey, what’s up?”
“I have a problem,” Zack said. He wandered out of his new kitchen into his new living room, which was empty except for a futon and a folding lawn chair. He dropped down onto the futon.
Matt’s tone shifted instantly to one of concern. “What’s going on?”
Zack did his best to explain. The things that had led up to this moment, at least, Matt already knew. “Katie wants me to go to Salt Lake to help get Aaron’s head screwed on straight but I am the one who unscrewed it in the first place, and I am absolutely sure he has no idea Katie called me.”
“Okay,” Matt said slowly. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know!”
“What do you want to do?”
Rewind time and not put in that damn paragraph about the island. Or the picture. But that wasn’t an option. “What I want doesn’t matter. What matters here is what Aaron wants, and making sure I don’t intrude where he doesn’t want me.” Saying that out loud helped. How on earth could he even be considering taking such a step? And yet, he was.
“You think he doesn’t want you there, then?”
“Given that the last time we spoke he was shouting at me, I do think that, yes. If there’s time or space to start making what I did right, it is not during the latest most important competition of his career.”
“So don’t go,” Matt said simply.
Zack felt his heart lurch in disappointment. He knew Matt was right, but that hadn’t been what he wanted his friend to say.
“So you do want to go,” Matt said, too knowingly, when Zack didn’t say anything.
“What I want doesn’t matter,” Zack said firmly.
“Okay. Yes. In this instance, you’re right,” Matt said. “He’s a big boy who gets to make his own decisions. And based on what I know of her, I am also sure Katie didn’t tell Aaron she was calling you.”
Zack dropped his forehead into his free hand. “If I show up there without warning he’s going to murder me. Why couldn’t Katie just tell me to call him?”
“Because she’s his coach, and that’s not what she thinks he needs. Okay. Zack. I need you to listen to me.”
“Okay?” Zack asked warily. His head and his heart were a mess. He honestly didn’t know what to do. But he could listen to his friend.
“The stakes for Aaron here are like, massive, right?”
Zack nodded, even though Matt couldn’t see him. “The most massive,” he said.
“Do you trust Katie to have his best interests at heart?”
“Absolutely.” There was no question of that.
“Do you trust Katie to have the knowledge to accurately assess what Aaron’s best interests are?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I know more details of the mess you two are in with each other than any of us want. But just because Aaron liked being tied up didn’t mean he had a subby bone in his body. Zack was entirely sure he didn’t. And even if he did, Zack still didn’t have the right to make decisions for him.
Matt continued. “If you go, will you make things worse?”
Zack thought about that one. “Probably not. Aaron might hate me forever but that’s kind of already what we’re dealing with.”
“If you go, will it help?”
“Katie thinks so.”
“Then trust Katie. Because yeah this is fucked up, but so’s figure skating. If he didn’t need you there, she wouldn’t have asked.”
It was a gamble. A wild, long-shot gamble both for Aaron’s Olympic dreams and their relationship. Which probably wasn’t going to come through this intact. But if Zack could save his dream, he had to at least try.
“How far is it from here to Salt Lake City?” he asked, not expecting Matt to have an answer. But he did.
“Nineteen hours by car. I just googled.”
“How long by plane?” Zack asked.
“You hate flying.”
“I can’t drive nineteen hours alone and get there alive.”
“Which is why I,” Matt said grandly. “Am coming with you.”
***
“THIS,” MATT SAID AS they pulled out from a gas station where they’d stocked up on extremely unhealthy snacks that would probably appall real athletes, or at least their nutritionists. “Is a nearly heterosexual level of disaster you are engaged in.”
“Uhhhh, thanks?” Zack said, having no real idea how to interpret that. It was his turn to drive, and his focus was marginally occupied by figuring out how to turn on the windshield wipers in Matt’s truck. Their stuff, including Zack’s camera bag, were stashed behind their seats.
“It’s like a romantic comedy,” Matt said. “Filled with things you shouldn’t actually do in real life but work in the movies. Because I used to try to do things like the dudes in romcoms, and girls super told me to stop doing that.”
“You know the gays have romantic comedies too, right?” Zack asked.
“Yes. But are they this ridiculous? Really?”
It was, Zack thought, a nearly fair philosophical question. And to the extent it wasn’t, it was perfect for a useless road trip debate.
***
“OKAY,” MATT SAID AS they approached the Wyoming state line and the clock approached midnight. “We’re going to stop for the night, right? Because I am all for true love and shit but not for one of us falling asleep at the wheel.”
Zack decided not to argue. Death was, after all, bad. “Will we still be able to get there in time?”
“When’s his thing?”
“Five-thirty p.m. tomorrow,” Zack said.
“Which time zone?” Matt asked.
“Which—fuck!” Zack fumbled for his phone. “Uh. Mountain Time. Which apparently we crossed into like an hour ago.”
“Okay. So it’s midnight now, we have...” Matt tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his mouth moving as he counted. “Seventeen and a half hours. We’re going to be fine.”
“Fine like, we’ll have a couple of hours so I can do whatever Katie thinks I can do or fine like we’ll roll in just as his skate starts?”
“The first one. What are you going to do when you get there?”
“Call Katie. Beyond that. I have no damn idea. She says she has a plan; I’m letting her have a plan.”
“Do you think she knows how much boys like doing what she says?” Matt mused.
“I’m going with yes.”
***
ZACK ASSUMED THAT THEY would not have any problem finding a hotel room somewhere along I-80 in the middle of the night on a random weekend in January. He had, however, not counted on a business tech convention taking place in Cheyenne.
“I’ve just got the one room,” the clerk told them at the first hotel they pulled into.
“That’s fine,” Zack said. Anywhere with a mattress and a pillow—and a shower—sounded great at this point.
“It’s, uh, the honeymoon suite,” the clerk said.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Zack strongly considered putting his head down on the check-in counter.
“That’s fine,” Matt said, stepping up.
***
“SHOULD I CARRY YOU over the threshold?” Matt asked as they reached the door.
“I think that’s just for when you get to your own house? Also no. No marriedness.”
Matt cackled and keyed them into the room. “Aww!” he exclaimed, dropping his suitcase in the middle of the floor. “The towels are all folded up like swans! And hearts!”
“How is this happening?” Zack muttered, mostly to himself. This trip was just becoming too absurd.
“Because we are two very lucky men in pursuit of true love, in your case, and a deeply excellent story I can tell forever, in mine.”
“I suppose I should thank you for being cool about this,” Zack said, eyeing the one bed. Which at least was a king. Hopefully Matt didn’t hog blankets.
“Fuck cool, this is hilarious! Now help me take pictures.” Matt dug out his phone. “I wanna make people on social media scared I got married!”
Zack shook his head and laughed. Matt was ridiculous and also a good, kind, and fair friend.
***
THEY WERE ON THE ROAD by seven the next morning, multiple cups of hotel breakfast coffee in the cupholder between them.
“You know,” Zack said as he got up to speed on the highway. “This is everything I used to love about war reporting, without the getting shot at.” There was a thrill in this, on the road before dawn, a deadline to beat and the rush of adrenaline and uncertainty.
Matt looked over at him from the passenger seat. “You’ve got a therapist, right?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Good, good. ‘Cause you’re a fucking mess. Got any more of a plan than yesterday?”
“Nope. Not a clue.”
***
THEY ROLLED INTO SALT Lake at three in the afternoon. For all the travel he’d done, both internationally and domestically, Zack had never been there before. It was beautiful. The sky was a dazzlingly blue dome above them, curving down to touch the mountains that ringed the city. He wondered if he’d have a chance to get out and take any photos.
Probably not.
As soon as they found a parking spot, Zack pulled out his phone and called Katie. Next to him, Matt drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was enjoying this entirely far too much.
The call connected, and she answered immediately.
“I swear to God, if you are still in Saint Paul...” Katie began.
“I’m in a parking garage two miles away from the venue because this is the closest we could get,” Zack said.
“We?”
“You wanted me to get to Utah in thirty hours,” Zack said. “That was not a one-person drive. One of the guys from hockey volunteered.”
“Sure, but planes are a thing?” Katie sounded baffled.
“Yeah, I hate planes,” Zack said. Then he paused. “Aaron’s mentioned that, hasn’t he?”
“Maybe,” Katie said. “At any rate, so glad you’re here. I got you tickets, and I guess we can get your friend tickets. Anyway. Whatever. Just get to the venue. Brendan will meet you with credentials and we’ll sneak you back before the comp starts.”
“Does Aaron have any idea this is happening?” Zack asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“No. But he’s a jittery, unfocused mess,” Katie said. “And his sister keeps texting him. Even if he wants to murder me for this and hates you, it’ll at least give him some focus.”
“Uh. Great. At least you’re clear about how this is probably going to go.”
“I am a mean, anxious, unpleasant person, Zack Kelly. But my instincts are fantastic. Get out of your damn car and start walking.”
Zack hung up the phone and looked at Matt. “So, er, you wanna go watch some figure skating?”
“Does that come with you getting your ass handed to you?”
“I think so.”
Matt was definitely enjoying this way too much. Zack tried to focus on being annoyed at him for that, instead of wildly apprehensive about what he was about to do.
“Cool. Sounds great,” Matt said and held up his phone to snap a picture of Zack for his latest social media update.
***
“SO HERE WE GO,” MATT said, as they stood on the sidewalk looking up at the concrete and glass structure that was the Salt Lake City Ice Center. It was growing dark outside, and bright lights gleamed from inside the building, illuminating the staircases that zig-zagged between floors.
“Yeah.” Zack took a deep breath. Here we go. “You ready?”
“More than you.”
The venue was packed. Zack thought he had seen the peak of competitive figure skating crowds—the Olympics, at least—at Nationals, but that paled in comparison to this. There were throngs of people, speaking multiple languages, all jostled together and buzzing with excitement. A lot of them were holding stuffed animals, flowers, or both. Zack narrowed his eyes at someone—was that a seal plushie under their arm?
He was just wondering how Katie thought he’d be able to meet up with her when there was a sharp whistle from above; looking up, he saw Brendan on the steps leading to an upper level, waving at him.
Zack weaved his way through the crowd toward him, Matt following behind. When they reached Brendan’s step, he pulled Zack into a hug. “Glad you made it.”
“Uh. Yeah.” Zack hugged him back.
“Come on, he’s this way.”
Brendan led them through a dizzying route of hallways, up and down flights of stairs and through hallways that didn’t get less crowded, but were definitely filled with skaters and team staff instead of spectators. The further they went, the more worried Zack got.
This was a terrible idea. He’s going to hate me forever. And I’m going to ruin his career—
“Holy shit,” Matt breathed, interrupting the churn of Zack’s brain. “Is that—Isao Chiba?”
“Yeah,” Brendan said, though, looking at the man walking down the hall in sequined trousers, a Team Japan jacket zipped up over his shirt.
“He’s set so many world records. He got gold at the last Olympics, in Harbin,” Matt breathed. His eyes were actually starry. “His free skate to Carmen is legendary.”
“Yeah,” Brendan said. “He’s a nice kid too. He tries to bake for everybody.”
“How do you know that?” Zack demanded of Matt.
“I follow him on Instagram. How do you not know that? You’re the one who wrote an article on figure skating for the country’s biggest sports publication!”
Zack, however, had stopped listening. They’d reached a room at the end of a hallway and in the doorway stood Aaron. His hand was on the doorframe, and Zack didn’t think he was imagining how white his knuckles were from gripping it too hard. He was dressed in his free skate costume, and staring at Zack like he’d seen a ghost.
“Uh, hi,” Zack stammered.
“Here for the final chapter?” Aaron asked, sharp and sullen. But it was all defensive bluster, Zack could tell. His heart wasn’t in it.
“Here because Katie ordered me to be here,” he said. “And while I could say no to her, I wanted to give you the chance to say no to me yourself.” Zack was distantly aware of Brendan and Matt in the hallway behind him, along with the other staff and skaters moving past. “Can I come in? We probably shouldn’t be doing this out in front of people.”
Aaron looked about to make a cutting remark, but then he stepped back to let Zack in.
The room was small, concrete walls painted white and blue under a glaring fluorescent light. There was a folding table and a few chairs, all looking somewhat the worse for wear. Aaron’s skate bag was in one corner, the contents spread out on the floor. What must have been Katie and Brendan’s things were piled together against another wall. A garment bag hung from a hook, and Aaron’s street clothes were draped over the back of a chair.
Behind them, Brendan cleared his throat. “I’m gonna go,” he said awkwardly. “But there’s about fifteen minutes before we have to get on to actually doing this thing. So if you’re going to sort yourselves out, I’d do it quickly.”
Zack almost laughed as he and Aaron nodded in unison.
“Katie’s got your tickets, let’s get you settled,” Brendan said to Matt, leading off in the direction of, Zack could only assume, the arena itself.
Aaron pushed the door shut, the sounds of the hallway outside instantly falling away.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he said, his shoulders slumping. More than angry, he looked exhausted.
“Yeah, well, neither did I,” Zack said. “But here I am.”
“I’m still mad at you.”
“If yelling at me is what helps right now, I’m fine with that. I know this is a lot.”
“You’re damn right it’s a lot!” Aaron snapped, jerking his head up to glare at Zack, and there, there was the fire Zack had seen so often on the ice.
That was one way to help, Zack supposed.
“I said yes to Katie because she asked me to come and because I trust her. I know this is way beyond weird skater boundaries and into just bad boundaries, but if there was even a chance I could help, I wanted to offer it.”
Zack hesitated, waiting for Aaron to say something, but Aaron just stood there glowering at him. But maybe—just maybe—that fire was starting to melt something in his gaze.
“When this is over I am going to apologize again for everything and then we can do the work or not do the work or whatever you want. And if you want I will walk right out of this room and you’ll never have to see me again. But all I am here for, right now, is to do whatever I can so you can go have the skate of your life,” Zack said.
“What if I don’t want that to be the only reason you’re here?” Aaron’s words were hesitant, more than they ever had been with Zack before. But his eyes caught Zack’s and held them.
Zack decided that was enough of a cue that it was worth reaching out to touch Aaron’s hand. Touch was, he was fairly sure, the only thing that was going to settle him anyway.
Sure enough, Aaron didn’t pull away. As their hands slid together, Zack expected that they would simply interweave their fingers—a bit of quiet, of reassurance, maybe even a promise for a future with or without the Olympics. But Aaron was always full of surprises and didn’t stop moving until his wrist rested in Zack’s palm.
Slowly, carefully, Zack closed his fingers around the delicate bones.
“Give me the other one,” he said softly. It wasn’t any sort of question, and Aaron did as he was told, with an exhale that sounded to Zack like gratitude.
“Better?” he asked, when Aaron had closed his eyes.
Aaron nodded, but said nothing. Under any other circumstances, Zack would have prodded for more. But this was not that.
“Okay. Then I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?” he asked.
Aaron, eyes still closed nodded. Then, as an afterthought, actually answered him with words. “Yeah. I can.”
“Good. So the other thing I need you to do is stop skating like you’re scared. I know you are, and I know there’s nothing you can do about it. But I need you to go out there and frighten the judges and your coaches and me, whether that’s because your jumps are better with your eyes closed or because you’re not even really human—I don’t know, and I don’t care. But I need you to be who you really are out there. Everyone else be damned. Very much including me. Okay?”
Aaron bit his lip and nodded fiercely. “Okay,” he said.
“Good. Now is there anything else I can do?”
Aaron opened his eyes. “You can kiss me.”
“Right now?” Zack asked. He adored Aaron, but the boundaries of this situation were already so bizarre, he simply had to double check.
“I don’t mean on the ice,” Aaron said.
Zack knew he meant the arena, but he couldn’t help but think of the island.
He took Aaron’s face in his hands. “Can I kiss you, like I did at your home, next to the cold of your lake?” he asked.
Wide-eyed, Aaron nodded.
So Zack did.