“Technically I think they’re using me, this time around. I guess we have fans.”
That got a smile, albeit one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. He probably still had a way to go earning back her trust. “Wonders never cease.”
Aubrey managed a weak smile back, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Look, I know my contract says you don’t have to tell me anything about the show, but… is everything okay?”
She opened her mouth to answer—or maybe to tell him off for being nosy—but before she could say anything, her cell phone rang. The contact on the screen was Larry Melchor, the owner of the network. Aubrey wondered if that was an answer in and of itself.
“Sorry, he’ll just call back six more times if I don’t answer,” Jess said, and she did actually sound apologetic.
“Sure.” Aubrey backed toward the door, tamping down the impulse to feel sad. Jess wasn’t ignoring him; she just had important things to do, and the show was still in trouble. “I’ll see myself out.” Maybe he’d stop at the coffee shop downstairs and grab pastries for the ride home. He could get his dose of appreciation from Nate instead.
But despite his occasional worries about his job, as the weeks passed, Aubrey fell into a comfortable routine—work, skating with Greg, skating by himself. On his off days, he checked out museums or went shopping or explored the city. If the weather sucked, he put his headphones in and went downstairs to the building’s pool and swam laps until his legs felt like jelly. He went out clubbing a couple times, but he didn’t connect with anyone, and the whole process just brought home to him that his friends had scattered across the globe, either still competing or working as coaches, and the closest thing he had to a gay friend in Chicago was Nate.
That thought didn’t quite horrify him, but it didn’t comfort him either. Maybe he shouldn’t look too closely at his life.
Fortunately he still had Greg, even if he was tragically heterosexual.
“You are such a diva,” Greg said fondly from the bench, where he was running a new set of laces through a skate after the old ones had snapped.
“I was a professional goddamn figure skater.” Aubrey let that sink in as he scrolled through Greg’s phone for a song he wanted—it’d take him a few minutes to gear back up, and Aubrey didn’t waste ice time. “At the risk of making myself sound exactly as old as I actually am, duh.”
And then he passed the perfect song and thought,Yes.
He took a lap around the ice as a typical cheesy eighties synth intro played, and then he caught Caley’s eye as she came to the bench. She’d been coming earlier and earlier to watch the show, because her team somehow always had the time slot right after theirs, even though the league had four teams—and he swung by the bench and borrowed her stick.
“Diva!” Greg shouted.
Aubrey flipped him off and skated away with his makeshift microphone to go be ridiculous.
“Oh my God,” Caley shouted when the lyrics started. “Is this fromThe Cutting Edge?”
Aubrey ignored her as he tried to work out how to do a lutz while holding a hockey stick. He managed not to fall, somehow, but didn’t think he’d quite achievedgraceful. Room for improvement. Greg and Caley catcalled and cheered anyway.
Truth told, while Aubrey had seen the movie a handful of times, he only half remembered the lyrics to the song. Fortunately it didn’t much matter. A double axel later and he managed to knock the stick out of his own hands, sending it clattering to the ice, so he improvised thirty seconds’ worth of program and then went down on one leg to shoot the duck, snagging the stick off the ice as he came up right at the chorus of “Feels Like Forever.”
A crowd had gathered now, probably drawn by Greg and Caley’s laughter. The sound of it made Aubrey grin, remembering what he loved about performing live. He loved doing the show with Nate, but it wasn’t the same as entertaining people in person.
As much fun as he was having, though, the song didn’t suit him as a skater—a little too slow, not enough energy. In the slower sections, Aubrey found himself bored and thought, well, what the hell. Suddenly, instead of figure skating, he shifted into a hockey stance, a little clumsy since he hadn’t played a real game in almost two decades and Caley’s stick was left-handed. He burned rubber for the imagined offensive zone, pulled the stick back—
—caught a blade and went down chest-first, sliding on his belly like a penguin.
“Toe pick!” someone shouted, and Aubrey knew without looking it had to be Nate. He wouldn’t have thought he had enough air in his lungs to laugh, but he did anyway, raising his arm weakly to show he was okay and also to shoot Nate the finger. That fucker.
When he picked himself up off the ice, he got a mixed reception of applause and stick taps. But the thing that made his cheeks go pink was the way Nate looked at him, straight in the eyes for once, his face pulled into an expression of fond amusement.
He’s married, Aubrey reminded himself, and the flush faded as he stepped off the ice.
“SO, YOUthink this is the one?” Greg asked as they sat at a cafe after their skate one morning. Aubrey had offered to share his ice time now that they were really gearing up for the audition. Greg was poking at an enormous cobb salad. Sucked to be him. Aubrey had the best burger in the city.
“It has good energy, very dynamic.” Aubrey dipped a fry in ketchup and gestured with it. “Once we nail the timing, I think it’s the perfect program—dynamic and fun, technical without being stuffy.”
Greg looked longingly at Aubrey’s burger and speared a piece of boiled egg. He chewed, then put down his fork and said, “I agree. And since you bring up stuffy—”
Aubrey glanced at him, betrayed. “Who talked?”
“Freddie. He said you went out dancing with the crew but, and I quote, ‘his head wasn’t in the game.’” Greg methodically shoveled in a mouthful of lettuce. When he’d swallowed, he said, “Your head is literally always in the game, so naturally he thinks you’re dying.”
“Nice,” Aubrey said dryly. Of course his…friendswas too strong a word for the crew he went dancing with, since they only ever met to go hook up. Anyway, of course Freddie sold him out.
