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

Aaron, as if to take his hands again, but stopped himself. “You still have a shot!”

And maybe it was, or should have been, but all Aaron felt was panic and dismay. His mind was a whirl, adrenaline was coursing through him, and his heart was a wreck of so many emotions—fear, excitement, elation, dread—that he couldn’t begin to sort them out. He felt, suddenly, so very, very tired.

“It’s not fantastic,” he snapped, stepping back from Zack. “It’s horrible! It means I have to do all this again with your article floating around and all that rest of it. If today had to go badly, at least it was going to be the end. And now it’s not!”

“Okay, but—”

“Auuuughhhhhhhhh!!!” Aaron yelled in frustration. He was intensely satisfied when Zack jumped back.

“Does anyone need me for anything?” Aaron asked, looking from Katie to Brendan.

“Not ’til the gala,” Brendan said.

“Good. I’m going for a walk. You all can do... whatever.”

And with that Aaron stormed out of his own room to wander around this city with his only true wish being not to run into any goddamn seals.

Chapter 30

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,