After the Gold

Chapter 4-4

BRENDAN LOOKED FOR Katie when he was finished getting dressed but couldn’t find her anywhere. Maybe she’d gone out for a run to work off some of her nervous energy. Which was fine, but Brendan would have preferred to discuss the need for a room switch before he went and did anything about it. But that apparently was not to be, and he needed to catch people before they got too settled.

Justin and Natalya were willing to help him out, and once that was settled, Brendan helped Natalya move her luggage to the room that was now Katie’s and dragged his own to the one he was sharing with Justin. Logistics finally resolved, he face-planted on his bed and slept for two hours without moving. When his alarm woke him so that he could eat dinner and get to the rink in time for that evening’s performance, he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, letting the disorientation of travel wash over him.

Forgetting where he was, was par for the course in a life that involved so much travel. But this kind of disorientation came from the fact that the bags on the other side of the room weren’t Katie’s and that, tonight after the performance, they wouldn’t be coming back to the same place. The decision to switch rooms was the right one, Brendan was sure, but it sucked all the same.

Despite everything, getting back to the rink for that night’s performance felt like a weight lifting off his shoulders. He liked skating; he loved skating with Katie. While he missed the adrenaline rush of competing a bit, he did not at all miss the sickening, stomach-dropping nerves of stepping onto the ice and hearing their names announced. No matter how long he’d had to get used to it, that had never really gone away. But on a night like tonight, all he had to do was relax and enjoy himself. He was determined to do that regardless of whatever was happening between him and Katie.

Once he got himself changed into his costume for the first number, Brendan knocked on the door to the girl’s dressing room. “It’s me, can I come in?”

He was greeted, as usual, by a chorus of assent, so he pushed the door open.

Katie, seated at a makeup table along the far side of the wall, looked over her shoulder at him. Her pale, elegant arms were raised above her head, her fingers attempting to twist her hair into place. “Oh good. I was going to text you.”

“Do you need a hand?” Usually the other women ignored his presence in their dressing room, but tonight, presumably thanks to the bus make-out, several pairs of eyes followed him as he went to Katie.

“God, please, I can’t get it to stay.”

“All right, here.” Brendan put his hands over Katie’s in her hair, carefully taking the braids between his own fingers.

“Do you have them?” she asked, as if he couldn’t redo her braids if they came loose.

Brendan nodded. “Yeah, you can let go.”

Katie slid her hands slowly out from beneath Brendan’s, the gesture almost a caress. He grabbed a handful of bobby pins off her table and stuck them in his mouth before he could do something like catch her hands again and kiss the backs of them in front of everyone.

“I hate this costume,” Katie grumbled once Brendan had taken over. She plucked at the short, fluttery sleeves of her dress.

“Stop moving your head,” Brendan said through his mouthful of bobby pins. Katie could have figured out her own hair or gotten one of the other girls to do it, but he’d learned to help her when they were kids and her mom or her uncles couldn’t come to competitions. It had become another ritual for them.

He worked in silence for a few more minutes. Katie picked up the hairbrush sitting on the counter and started turning it over in her hands. “You could have warned me about Natalya,” she said, not looking at him in the mirror.

Brendan took in a breath to steady himself and made his voice calm. Casual. Neither accusatory, nor defensive. If Katie wanted to be upset about his unilateral decision to change rooms, that was more than fair, but he didn’t want to have that fight minutes before they went on. “Sorry. It felt like the right thing to do. I needed a nap and I had no idea where you were.”

“Stretching.”

“How’s your leg?” Brendan leapt at the chance to change the subject.

“Attached to my body,” Katie said flatly.

No further discussion of that topic today, okay. “Excellent, now will you please stop fidgeting?”

Katie finally stilled herself. “Neon pink is not my color.”

“Consider yourself lucky. Someone thought orange suits me. I look like a sunflower.”

“That’s ’cause you’re so cheery all the time.” Katie finally looked up and made a face at him in the mirror. Then she passed him the hair spray.

Brendan’s heart leapt. Routine had always been their friend. It helped with the nerves that came with the sport and the anxiety that Katie battled regardless of it. If she was complaining about the admittedly hideous costumes they had to wear for the group numbers and feeling up to teasing him, things were returning to something like normal.

That hopeful feeling lasted all the way through the opening number, the girls’ number, the guys’ number, and a particularly fierce backstage game of Sorry! while other solo routines went on. But when it was time for their own program, he could feel Katie draw away from him again.

He watched her face in the dim light of the tunnel as Justin finished his routine. She’d changed out of the hated neon into the dress that their own beloved seamstress had made for her. She looked stunning in it, her dark hair and pale skin beautifully offset by the emerald green velour. But she also looked remote and untouchable, and Brendan groaned inwardly.

There was no time to talk her out of whatever nerves and insecurity the events of the last day had planted in her brain. The applause for Justin was dying down, and soon Justin himself was there, stepping off the ice as Katie and Brendan’s names were announced. Brendan high-fived him reflexively and took Katie’s hand. He hoped this wasn’t about to be a disaster.

He knew they were doomed when their first side-by-side jumps weren’t synchronized. The crowd applauded, but that almost didn’t matter when he could feel how off they were. Katie was too rigid on the first lift, and Brendan was helpless to do anything for her.

He commanded himself not to hold his breath for the throw jump; it was instinct to do so, but that would screw everything up. Throws were a moment when every part of his body needed to work perfectly so that Katie wouldn’t get hurt.

Katie spun through the air as he released her. When she hit the ice, her leg wobbled. It happened quickly, but Brendan felt like he was seeing it in slow motion. She tried to save her balance but couldn’t. She went down on both knees, her hands trailing through the bits of ice shaved off by their and others skaters’ blades before she regained her feet.

Only a few seconds passed before they fully caught up to the music again. Katie’s hand was cold when he held it tightly for the death spiral. She was smiling, but her smile was brittle, pasted on for the sake of the crowds and the judges that were probably still there in her head.

As soon as they were back in the tunnel, Brendan pulled her into a hug. That’s what they did when something went wrong on the ice. Still together. Still okay. Still one.

Katie’s back rose and fell under his arms as she caught her breath. He wondered how long it would take her to remember that, after the events of the last twenty-four hours, she probably didn’t want his comfort.

“s**t. s**t s**t s**t,” she hissed even as she leaned into him.

“Hey.” He brushed the loose part of her hair back, untangling a strand from one of her earrings. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Katie didn’t reply, but when she pressed her face into his shoulder he could practically feel her frown. Angry with herself, not him. Brendan ached for her. Things happened on the ice. There was no reason for her to feel more pain about it than necessary.

He touched her cheek, the soft skin by her ear. “Come on, look at me.”

She raised her head. As he looked down into her eyes, all Brendan wanted to do was kiss her. If it hadn’t been for recent events he would have, on her forehead, like the good friend and perfectly platonic partner he was supposed to be. But given the circumstances, he had no idea what to do.

Something in his eyes must have shifted, because she straightened up, cold and remote and made of steel. Before Brendan could say anything, Katie nodded as if deciding something in her own head.

“Extra practice tomorrow,” she said. And then she was gone.