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

“Surely there’s a deed?”

Aaron shrugged. He honestly didn’t know. He knew deeds to houses were things people had. But people also usually came from places that weren’t like this.

“My dad grew up here, and his father before him, and his father before him,” he said. “Everyone he remembers always said everyone they remembered before them was from here too. So that's all any of us have. Stories fade in and out of truth, and all sorts of people are always making up tales about where they're from. Maybe the story about the war is true. Maybe the story about the seals is true. Maybe it’s both or neither. Maybe it's worse."

Zack shuddered. It might have been the cold, but Aaron wondered if he’d made a mistake telling him. Especially when Zack had no way of escaping and was stuck with Aaron’s probably-not-the-descendants-of-seals family for the next few days.

"Like I said," Aaron repeated firmly. "It's just the ice."

“Do you believe that?” Zack asked.

“Which?”

“Any of it.”

Aaron shrugged. “The seals. Sometimes. Maybe. Ari takes it seriously. It’s why she’s never left, not even to go to college. But in the end, does it really matter? We are who we are. Everyone has something that calls them home. Whatever home means for them.”

By now they’d reached the end of his family’s dock. Aaron stopped and tipped his head back, looking up at the sky. Zack did the same.

“I know in all the selkie stories it’s the human who wants to catch the seal and keep them on land with them forever. But I’d rather be the one who stays here with you.”

Aaron looked sharply at Zack, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. He was as shocked by the heat in Zack’s gaze as much as by his words. An entire life trying to exist in two worlds, a season struggling to bring his hidden home to light, and now—after everything that had happened, and then hadn’t happened, between them—Zack accepted everything about Aaron, everything he was and might be, so easily.

“Really?” Aaron asked.

“Yes,” Zack said firmly.

Aaron kissed him.

Even in the dark, even after he’d been so terribly frightening, Zack accepted him into his arms easily. After all this time. Aaron felt calm and giddy and like he was going to fly out of his skin all at once.

Aaron loved the play between the heat of his mouth and the terrible cold of the outdoors, but if he wanted this to go anywhere, they needed to go inside.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Zack said. “What will your parents think?”

Aaron laughed. “That’s not the problem,” he said, although he did not know the answer to the question. “Last I checked, we were broken up, and I told you this wasn’t about anything. No expectations. And yet, here we are.”

“The best, least surprising surprise,” Zack replied. “So yes, of course you can.”

THEY SLIPPED BACK INTO the house as quietly as they could, which wasn’t very between the whispering and the boots and other layers that had to be discarded right in the entrance way.

Downstairs in Zack’s room, Aaron got undressed as quick as he could before diving under the blankets on Zack’s bed. He remembered the first time they slept together and how he had curled up under the covers on the bed in Zack’s Saint Paul apartment, simply holding his cock in his mouth. It had been so strange, and soothing, and intimate, but this—his parents’ house, their peculiar reunion with still unexamined consequences—was not the time for anything but the sort. And there were plenty of ways to make their bodies bright with the simpleness of hands.

“WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE get back to Minnesota?” Aaron asked. His head was pillowed on Zack’s chest, and Zack was lazily combing his fingers through his hair. The room was dark around them, lit only by the glow of the bedside lamp. The pilot light on the water heater hissed quietly, and in the distance he could still hear the snapping of the ice. Or the seals.

“What do you want to happen?” Zack asked.

Aaron didn’t miss the note of caution in his voice, and hoped he wasn’t about to get dumped again. Among other things, he could hardly storm out of his own house.

Evasion seemed safest. “You mean besides making the Olympic team?”

“I figured that was a given,” Zack said. Aaron could hear the smile in his voice. “I don’t want to mess up your deal. I also don’t want to assume that I know what you want... or what’s best for you.”

“Thank you for that lovely change of pace,” Aaron said, sarcastic. Then, he tried to be realistic. Which was difficult, with Zack’s skin lovely and warm against his. “I can’t...I shouldn’t. Take my eye off the ball for the next few weeks. Nationals is everything when it comes to team placement. Also I just won’t have time. It’s a logistical question as much as a focus one.”

Zack nodded. “That’s more than fair.”

“But,” Aaron said. “When that’s all done and the team assignment is out, for better or for worse, I’ll have the bandwidth for things off the ice. And once I’m done with, or know I don’t have to worry about, the Olympics, you should feel free to tie me up and have ridiculously hot sex with me as much as you want.”

“Provided I ask first. And you say yes,” Zack said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Aaron said.

Zack gave him a teasing smile. “You say that like I don’t know you get off on my asking permission.”

Aaron wanted to lean in, to kiss the smile off Zack’s mouth and return to what they’d been doing, but there was something else he needed to do. He’d told Zack about the seals, he’d gone to bed with him again, but there was one more thing he wanted to share. One more thing he hadn’t told another soul, except Ari.

“Speaking of permission,” he said, rolling the edge of