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

He glanced through the window into Katie and Brendan’s living room. Zack was there, in the center of everyone, playing board games. He laughed at something someone else said, his eyes sparkling. Zack, somehow, had been folded into his extended skating family. Zack, who Aaron had fallen so hard for in so many ways, who’d seen Aaron skate his heart out but still knew almost nothing about Ari, about his family, about the life he had come from.

And now Aaron, wrung out with guilt and uncertainty, had to go back inside and pretend everything in his head was fine to everyone he was closest to—or, in the case of Zack, the person he wanted to be closest to. It felt like too much, but what else could he do?

Zack and Katie both glanced up at him when he slipped back inside. Katie gave him the look she’d given him across the boards a hundred times at practices that had gotten too hard, too weird, too emotional. It meant: Are you okay?

He nodded. He wasn’t really, but it was nothing she could do anything about.

“Aren’t you freezing?” Zack asked, looking him over with a concern that made warmth bloom in Aaron’s chest.

“I never get cold. You know that,” he said.

“I know you never get cold at the rink,” Zack corrected with a hint of a smile. Aaron blushed; he knew he had hogged the blankets every time he had shared a bed with Zack, how he had complained that he was freezing, and insisted that Zack hold him closer.

“Dude, you’re making me cold just looking at you,” Huy piped up from his corner of the couch.

“Do you want to play?” Zack asked, resetting the board for whatever they’d been playing. That teasing look was still in his eyes.

“Yeah, sure, all right.”

Zack shifted in his own seat, making room for Aaron if he wanted it. Aaron very much did. Their shoulders pressed against each other as he sat down, and he let himself bask in the warmth. He still wanted to get Zack alone for a conversation—he owed him that, after inviting him here in the first place—but Aaron still didn’t know what he’d say when he did. In the meantime, proximity was nice.

The idea to invite Zack to the island occurred to him as he hopped his piece around the board. It was so patently absurd that he shook his head at himself and told himself to forget it immediately. But apparently he’d left all his mental discipline at the rink, because he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He’d spent the season bringing more of his island self to the world. Maybe, just maybe, the path actually needed to go both ways. If he could show Ari more of who he was on the mainland then he could be that person and her twin. And he could show Zack the island in person—he had asked how to make that happen from almost the moment Aaron had told him about it.

In the end, impulse control lost to feeling.

“Question,” Aaron said during a break in the game while the others chatted together. He jiggled his foot as Zack glanced over at him.

“Yeah?” Zack said.

“What are you doing for your winter holiday of choice?” Well, here we go.

A faint crease appeared on Zack’s forehead. “Um. I’m not sure,” he said. “Avoiding my family and their opinions about my life choices, probably.”

Aaron couldn’t imagine being estranged from his family like that. The idea of Zack being alone over the holidays was wretched; which seemed to make inviting him to the island make slightly more sense.

“Do you want to come home with me?” he asked.

Zack stammered for a moment. Aaron tried not to giggle even as he realized he should have phrased his question more precisely.

“I mean to the island,” he clarified. “For the holidays. You can’t stay here by yourself!”

“Oh I absolutely can.” Zack looked somewhere between horrified and amused, which was not precisely the reaction Aaron had been hoping for. Though was the reaction he knew he deserved.

Zack went on. “I also probably shouldn’t impose for several days, including a major holiday, on people I’ve never met.”

“Oh! Don’t worry about that.” Aaron shook his head, glad to be able to put that uneasiness to rest. “We don’t actually do Christmas. Except for the Chanukah bush.”

Zack frowned. “What the fuck is a Hannukah bush?”

“It’s what you call a Christmas tree when you’re the only Jewish family in an ice-bound island community.” It’s a way of seeming normal, Aaron thought somewhat glumly, when you’re different from the people you live around.

Zack looked baffled. But the frown was gone, replaced by a look of cautious delight and curiosity. The look was one Aaron had seen on his face before, usually right before Zack suggested they do something involving rope and very little clothing. Aaron loved that look. Even now when they definitely weren’t together at all, and he was probably starting a giant mess when he absolutely did not have the time to deal with anything of the sort.

“You should come,” he urged. “I mean, except, of course, if you don’t want to,” he added. I have weird boundaries, not bad boundaries, he told himself. “We hardly ever get visitors in the winter, you’d be a hit.”

“This feels strange and ill-advised,” Zack said, looking around nervously.

Aaron followed his gaze. Katie, seated in the armchair diagonally from them, was clearly following every word while pretending—badly—to ignore them.

“Everything about me is strange and ill-advised,” he said, dropping his voice and leaning into Zack’s shoulder so Katie—or anyone else—couldn’t hear. “And no pressure or assumptions or expectations. I get where we’re at, which is basically nowhere, but I don’t know. Your job when you showed up here was to find out who I am. Well, come find out who I am.”

“Yeah.” Zack took a breath. “Yeah, okay.”

AT THE END OF THE NIGHT they were among the last to leave.