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

standing as Aaron was elated. But for once he said nothing.

Brendan led the way further backstage and down a small hallway that was mercifully quiet and somehow empty of other people.

“I have to go find Zack,” Aaron said. He liked to think of himself as a good competitor and knew he should go back and watch the rest of the skaters coming after him, but Zack had driven all this way for him under the most uncertain of circumstances.

“Not if he finds you first.” Katie said smugly, looking somewhere over Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron turned to follow her gaze and there, once more, coming around a corner into the little hallway, was Zack.

Aaron was already trembling with spent nerves and adrenaline. His knees went even weaker at the sight of him.

Zack stopped in front of him. “Hi.”

Aaron smiled up at him. “You didn’t catch frostbite out there. Impressive.”

“Yeah, well.” Zack grinned back. “I brought layers.”

It was then Aaron noticed the guy standing next to Zack, who looked vaguely familiar.

Aaron squinted. “Who are you?”

“Oh, yeah. This is my buddy Matt, from hockey.”

“I thought I recognized you. Why are you here?” Aaron was genuinely curious. And far too wound up to be more polite.

“He needed a co-pilot.” Matt jerked a thumb at Zack.

“You drove out here with him?”

“Well, yeah. What are friends for?”

Before Aaron could reply, his phone, tucked in the pocket of his jacket, barked. He stilled. He’d muted every single contact he had, except one.

Katie’s phone chirped too. So did Brendan’s.

“I still really hate this part,” Aaron said.

“Don’t strangle the seal,” Zack warned. Aaron looked down at the poor plushie he’d been unconsciously twisting in his hands.

“We looked last time,” Katie said. “Your turn now.”

“I hate you, too.”

“You’ll thank me someday.”

“Ugh!” Aaron shoved the seal at Zack and dug the phone out of his pocket. His hands were too sweaty for the fingerprint sensor to work and shaking so badly it took three tries to get his unlock code right.

Once he did, he stared at the text.

“Okay technically,” he said, looking up at Zack, his voice somehow steady. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone about this.” He was glad there was no one around but his coaches, Zack, and Zack’s random friend.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Matt said, stepping back a few paces.

Katie gave a muffled shout, her hands clapped over her mouth. “Oh my God!”

“Yeah.” Aaron’s face hurt. Possibly from smiling so broadly.

“Okay, all of you” Brendan wrapped one arm around Katie’s shoulders and one around Aaron’s. “If you’re not going to have poker faces, let’s get you somewhere people aren’t going to stumble in on you.”

“My hotel is walking distance from here,” Aaron told Zack.

“You’ll want to get your skates off first.” Zack smiled.

Chapter 32

ELEVEN DAYS BEFORE the Olympics

Almaty, Kazakhstan

THERE WERE ELEVEN DAYS in between the one where Aaron was named to the U.S. Figure Skating Team for the Olympics and the opening ceremonies in Almaty. Which to most people probably was a laughably short space of time to prepare for intercontinental travel and also being in the Olympics, but Aaron had his coaches and federation to help him, and Zack had been sent off on assignments into combat zones on shorter notice than that.

Olympic prep was much more fun.

Zack could even be useful. While Brendan dealt with the federation and Katie dealt with Aaron’s skating, Zack packed for Aaron and worked with his family to make sure they all got to Kazakhstan. And when the major news networks started calling wanting to do human interest pieces about Aaron and his family and his island...well, Zack knew how to manage that, too. Often by talking to Aaron and agreeing that the lesser of two evils was human interest pieces about their relationship and not a camera crew descending on the smallest inhabited chunk of rocks in the middle of Lake Erie.

Zack suspected Aaron would have spent more time yelling about that if he hadn’t been training every waking hour.

ZACK TRAVELLED WITH Aaron’s family and they all stayed in a rented apartment in Almaty. It should have been awkward, and on some level, probably was. But he was a welcome distraction as they fretted about Aaron and navigated the chaos of an Olympic city. They didn’t question his fear of flying, and he didn’t question Ari’s scowls in the face of so much land and so little water.

He didn’t see much of Aaron in the days leading up to his skates—after all, Aaron had an entire Olympic Village to explore, friends to make, and experiences to soak in—but whenever he did, Aaron radiated with happiness and bubbled over with stories about the adventures he was having with Huy and the other skaters who were there. The media—both U.S. and international outlets alike—adored him, and the audience was rapt at his performances.

They kept throwing the seal plushies onto the ice, too.

In the end Aaron didn’t win or medal, but they all knew that going in. That wasn’t the point. The point was being an Olympian and getting to be in the one place in the world other than his island where people were at least a little bit like him. Besides, coming in seventh was a hell of an achievement for someone who’d hadn’t even been an also-ran a year ago.

Aaron might not have gotten a medal, but when he got back to Saint Paul he did get his rings. Zack went with him when he went to get them tattooed below his ribcage, where they’d never be seen in any competition-legal costume.

“I want to go back,” Aaron said, gripping Zack’s hand tight as the tattoo artist worked her magic. “Another four years. I want to do that again.”

“Whatever you want,” Zack said, gripping back.

BUT OF COURSE THE ISLAND and the lake and the seals called, and Aaron had no idea what to do but fret about the cost of four more years of hard work away from home, and Zack had no idea