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

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.

Chapter 31

FOUR CONTINENTS - MEN’S Free Skate

Salt Lake City, UT

AARON MOVED THROUGH the crowded backstage area toward the ice. His motions were slow but his limbs felt weightless, and all sounds seemed very far away. Even his emotions felt distant, like he was looking at them through deep water.

Zack was here. Zack had come to—to what, Aaron still wasn’t sure. He also didn’t care. Zack had driven nineteen hours just to give him one directive. And maybe that was messed up, but maybe it was also what they both needed. Even if Aaron was still angry at him and still wanted to yell.

There were all sorts of conversations they needed to have. But that wasn’t going to happen right now. Because right now, Aaron had to skate. And to do that, he needed to be exactly who he was.

Other skaters in his group took the ice; he ignored them. Cayden skated, and Aaron had no idea how he’d done. It didn’t matter anymore. As he waited for his turn, he closed his eyes. The distant hum of the music and roar of the crowd was like waves on the island, pounding and retreating, leaving the shore rocky and water-swept after a storm.

Eventually, Katie patted his shoulder gently. “It’s time,” she said.

He opened his eyes.

The sound of the world and his own stomach-clenching limb-freezing nerves came slamming back. Aaron breathed through the sensory onslaught, both internal and external. He would let the fear go when it was time. And if he couldn’t, he would work through it. Either would be fine. After all, this was what he had trained for.

Aaron skated laps while the skater before him, Aizat Beysenov, waited for his scores in the kiss and cry. There would be no beating him this time: Aizat had turned in a flawless performance. Aaron didn’t mind. Aizat was a good guy and an incredible skater.

He couldn’t help smiling at the feel of the ice under his blades, of the wind of his own speed in his face. This was who he was: A boy with skates on his feet and the water in his heart.

Aizat’s score was announced, Aaron’s name was called, and he raised his hands to acknowledge the cheers in the crowd. He found center ice, took his starting position, and closed his eyes.

He could feel the tension of the audience when he started skating, his eyes still closed. That was what he needed, to carry them along with him while he told the story of what he had once been and would be again.

Eyes still closed, he set up his axel, the sound of his blades echoing through the arena as they cut through the ice, building up speed. Right back outside. Left forward outside.

Jump.

Aaron snapped his eyes open on the landing—and there was Zack. He was in one of the seats behind the judging panel, his elbows on his knees, his hands pressed to his mouth. Rapt.

Aaron smiled, a feral come-hither, for Zack and the judges, for the audience, and for the journey he was going to take them on.

FIVE MINUTES LATER Aaron was sitting in the kiss and cry between Brendan and Katie, clutching a seal plushie on his knees. Ari would probably be furious. Ten minutes ago, he’d have been furious too. But right now, he could only laugh at it and the scatter of other seal stuffed animals the sweepers had picked up off the ice. Zack had told the world about his seals, and people had, apparently, taken them, and him—the seal boy—to heart.

Also he’d just skated brilliantly, and he knew it. But waiting for his scores was always the worst.

And he really, really, really wanted to see Zack.

“And the scores for Aaron Sheftall...” Aaron startled at the announcement; he could feel Katie and Brendan tense beside him too. When the numbers were read out, Aaron shrieked, covering his face with the plush seal while Katie and Brendan shouted with delight and hugged him between them.

A season’s best, a personal best, and, absolutely crucially, ahead of Cayden. By several places. It wouldn’t get him on the podium, but the podium here had never been the goal.

“You did it!” Katie was chanting in his ear as she rocked him back and forth on the bench. “You did it, you did it you did it!”

“It’s not over yet!” Elated as he was—and hopeful as he was—the Olympic decision hadn’t been made yet. He wiped his tear-streaked cheeks on Katie’s shoulder and grinned when she glared at him.

“You’re gross,” Katie complained.

“You’re going to jinx me!” Aaron protested.

“Let’s go watch the rest of this thing, okay?” Brendan said, urging them up and out of the kiss and cry as the next skater’s program began. They passed Cayden and his coach; Aaron could feel the strength of his glare boring into him. Evidently, he was as pissed at Aaron’s final