Ink and Ice, Erin McRae [primary phonics .txt] 📗

of hot chocolate on the arm of Zack's chair, then dropped into the opposite chair, curling up in it around his own cup of tea.

"Thank you," Zack said, sitting up properly and wrapping his hands around the mug. It steamed gently.

"It's no problem.”

Zack became aware of the utter silence of the rest of the house, aside from the crackle of the fire which someone must have built up again while he dozed. In other places and times in his life, silence like this would have been eerie. Here it felt strange, to be sure, but comfortable nonetheless. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Gone to bed. It’s late.” Aaron took a sip of his tea. “For here, at least.”

“You always keep skaters’ hours, don’t you,” Zack guessed.

“Pretty much. Someday I’ll take a vacation and sleep ‘til ten in the morning every day,” Aaron said, looking off into the distance with exaggerated wistfulness.

Zack laughed. “Sounds decadent.”

Aaron smiled. “You have no idea.”

Zack could have said he had some idea; how many mornings had Aaron had to peel himself out of his bed to get to the rink? But he hesitated. Unlike Aaron, he could rarely blurt what he was feeling.

He realized, as he and Aaron sat and just...looked at each other, that this was the first time they had been alone together in months. The hours in transit today decidedly did not count. Zack should probably ask Aaron what his plan was, or if he even had one, but then he decided he didn’t care. Being here with him right now was enough.

Aaron broke the silence first, tucking his knees up under his chin and wrapping his arms around them. “How do you like it here?”

"This place is—haunting, I think, is the word,” Zack said.

Aaron cracked a smile. "I've been telling you. And you can see why I don’t say more than that.”

Zack nodded. "I guess it's the sort of thing you need to see to believe."

"Do you regret coming?" Aaron asked.

"No. God. Not at all," Zack said, with a vehemence that surprised even him. "I love it here," he admitted.

"Yeah? You haven’t even been here a whole day, yet.” Still, Aaron looked delighted at Zack’s declaration.

"Yeah," Zack said firmly. "Don't get me wrong, that plane ride in was fucking terrifying. But once we got here..." he trailed off, thinking about it. "Since I stopped going out on assignment, I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of hours in therapy trying to figure out how to exist. But here is just...out of the world. There's no crowds, no loud noises, nothing happening. I get to just be and be curious about something that’s not going to kill anyone. It’s great."

"Is it that hard for you? To—be, in the world?"

"I don't know. Honestly? I know I don't work in the way most people do. Even without the PTSD, I'm an adrenaline junkie.”

"Which is how you got the PTSD,” Aaron said.

Zack shook his head. "I have PTSD because I was in multiple war zones. If I'd been more reasonable, I could have gotten my thrills from, I dunno, bungee jumping."

Aaron tilted his head consideringly. "You don't really seem like the bungee jumping type. Although I didn't think you'd be the hockey bro type either, and look how that turned out."

"Thank you?" Zack wasn't sure if that was a compliment.

Aaron smiled. "I've watched some of your games. You're not half bad."

Zack was startled. "I didn't know that. That you'd watched any of the games."

Aaron shrugged. "Hard to keep an eye on the audience when you've got a helmet and everything on. Anyway. I never stuck around long. Just wanted to see you. I was surprised you stuck around, actually. After...everything."

"You mean with us?"

"Well yeah. You finished your article, right? Or at least the part that was about me. And then you broke up with me. I know you’d said you were going to move to Saint Paul, but I still sort of figured you'd just disappear after that."

“I didn’t move to the Twin Cities just for you, you know,” Zack said, careful to keep his tone light. Teasing.

“Really? Why not?” Aaron put on a look of exaggerated feigned offence. “But I’m so cute!”

Zack laughed. “I won’t deny that. But I like it there. I can get work done. And I feel like I have a community, with the hockey guys and Marie. Although Marie is kicking me out, so I need to find a new place of my own when we get back there."

"So you're really gonna stay? Aaron asked.

"For now, at least.” Zack looked down at the hot chocolate he still held cupped between his palms. He swirled the cup gently, watching the melted whipped cream marble the surface. “Which is probably the most I can say about any place at any point. I probably needed to say that about Florida, but didn’t realize it at the time. And like I said...I can get work done there, in Saint Paul. Which has value.”

“What are you working on?”

“A book,” Zack admitted.

“Oh. Like the one you won those awards for? That I still haven’t read and really need to some day?”

“It’s fine,” Zack said. “It’s not exactly easy reading.” Truth be told, he couldn’t quite square Aaron existing in the same universe in which he’d written that book. Some part of him, problematic as it was, wanted to protect Aaron from that world.

“Well, I’m not an easy reader. Come on, what’s your book about? You spent all those weeks watching me work, it’s payback time.”

Aaron had a point, but still, Zack hesitated. He hadn’t told anyone what, exactly, he was working on yet. Saying it out loud made him feel too vulnerable. But Aaron made him want to try.

He fortified himself with a sip of the hot chocolate. “It’s a memoir.”

Aaron frowned. "Aren't you a little young to be writing your memoirs?"

Zack chuckled. "A memoir is not an autobiography. It’s just a story that I happen to be in.”

“And what story are you in?” Aaron asked, too keenly