Ink and Ice by Erin McRae (novel books to read txt) 📕

Olympic figure skating team. He only had three thousand words, not thirty thousand, and he needed to contain himself for this article, but Zack would be lying if he said he wasn’t tinkering in his head with extended metaphors and an essay on how he’d gotten from there to here.

There was one, rather glaring, downside, which had nothing to do with the Twin Cities at all: He couldn’t get Cayden Sauer to talk to him. Phone calls to him and his coaches were ignored; emails got one-line responses about getting in touch soon and then nothing. As much as Zack wanted to go out to Sauer’s rink in Phoenix to conduct interviews in person so the two halves of his story would be equally weighted, there was no point in doing it if no one wanted to talk to him, and he was close to giving up on it. Generally, people who were good at things wanted media coverage about how intensely good at things they were. Why this dude had to be an exception, he didn’t know.

After his latest attempt to call Sauer, which went to voicemail, Zack tossed his phone on the couch in his apartment and dropped down to sit next to it.

So far he hadn’t been giving Sammy blow-by-blow updates on the problem. But if he kept that up, Zack knew how easily his attempts to get it solved or make do could easily turn into avoidance and a nasty surprise for his editor. But if he told Sammy about it, he’d inevitably tell Sammy everything, and his editor—and friend—was going to roll his eyes so hard at the whole mess they'd knock back and forth along the length of his office. Then he’d ask Zack if he was—inappropriately because journalistic ethics existed—into Aaron. Which Zack would be helpless to deny convincingly.

“So that’s spectacular,” Zack muttered to himself. Afternoon sunshine gleamed on the trees outside, and he considered going for a run, or at least a walk, to get moving. Maybe he’d go skating. But he probably really needed to let Sammy know what was happening before he got distracted by the ice again. Maybe he could even get some damn help on solving both the Sauer problem and the wishing he had more words problem.

With a sigh of aggrievement at the universe, Zack picked up his phone again.

Sammy, for his part, seemed completely unsurprised by any of it and laughed about the mess with Sauer.

“Why do you think I sent you up to Minnesota and told you to figure out the rest yourself? I also got exactly nowhere, but since you’re a journalist and I’m just some sort of word manager, I thought you’d work some magic that would leave me feeling inadequate yet thrilled.”

“I wish you had told me that upfront,” Zack said, feeling both too fond of Sammy and like he didn’t want to express those particular feelings right now.

“Sorry. How is it up there anyway? Have you fallen through the ice yet?

"Um... it's not ice fishing?" Zack said

"Great, whatever. Tell me you’ve at least got good stuff there.”

“I think so. Honestly, if anything, I’m struggling because everything is weird.” Zack heard Sammy slap his hands together in delight.

“I told you! Figure skating is wild! Whatever you find, I trust you, write whatever you want, we’ll figure it out.”

“I have the suspicion.” Zack said delicately, “that whatever you’re imagining is probably not the sort of stuff that’s fascinating me right now.”

"What? Glitter and drama is glitter and drama, yeah?"

"No, not glitter and drama,” Zack corrected. “I'm staying in an ex nun's basement, sometimes we drink hard liquor together and gossip. The coaches also have a dairy farm. Everyone is wildly superstitious, and the rink has these wacked out acoustics where I’m constantly hearing shit I shouldn’t. Also the guy whose last name you keep messing up is super cute and totally trying to get into my pants.”

Sammy sighed in a way that Zack knew meant long-suffering frustration and a desperate desire for nicotine. "Zack. Zack Zack Zack. Zack."

"Yeah. Still here. What?"

"The story is not the nun. The story is not the cows. The story is not whichever random guy you want to fuck."

"Except that he is," Zack said. “I mean, not for that reason of course. But here we are!”

"I’m going to assume all your various adventures haven’t knocked all the journalistic sense out of your head and you’re just venting at me.”

“Pretty much,” Zack said, and while he believed it in the moment, he wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“Great. I’m going to pretend we didn’t have half this conversation. Keep me posted on Sauer and tell me nothing about whatever I sincerely hope you’re not going to do with Sheftall.”

SAMMY HADN’T GIVEN Zack his blessing for either more words or his desire to follow his very worst impulses. But what he had given him, no matter how inadvertently, was time and space to explore, which for now was enough.

Zack gave himself a mental pat on the back for achieving that much, and, feeling on a roll, turned to his non-journalistic to-do list. It was filled with things like calls to his ex, his lawyer, and his realtor, to deal with lingering issues of the divorce. He should also probably call his parents, so he could also reassure them that he hadn’t fallen through the ice, it remained, in fact, impossible to fall through.

Before he could do any of that, though, his phone lit up with a text.

Aaron: Wanna do a thing?

Oh, so many things, Zack thought.

Zack: What sort of thing?

Aaron: Farm dinner, Friday night? I’ll get u details

Zack was immensely curious and very game. The one place he hadn’t been yet, that seemed central to the life of so many skaters here, was Katie and Brendan’s farm. He very much wanted to go, and he was grateful for the gift of the invitation, regardless of what the motives behind it might be.

Zack: Sure, that sounds great.

Chapter 7

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