After the Gold

Chapter 5-2

HER ALARM WAS SET FOR 3:45 a.m., but Katie woke up before it went off. Somehow, the act of setting her clock always, in turn, set the clock in her head. Such had been the case since she was little, getting up while it was still the dead of night to go to skating practice or work on her family’s farm. She was relieved the habit remained with her and Brendan no longer training for competition. If nothing else, it would keep Natalya from killing her for having her alarm go off so very, very early.

She found it immensely strange to room with someone who wasn’t Brendan. Was this how people felt all the time on the road? Sharing space with someone they liked well enough but who wasn’t — Katie didn’t know how else to put it — an extension of their own body and mind? The fact that she and Brendan couldn’t kiss and skate together didn’t change that about them.

Enough about missing Brendan. Last night she had fallen, and now she had to fix it. She pulled on her practice clothes — black leggings, a tank top, and a form-fitting jacket with a zipper up the front. She tugged it all the way up but knew she’d spend the whole practice slowly inching it back down as the cold of the ice gave way to the heat of the work. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail and spared the briefest of moments to brush her teeth. Makeup could wait. A shower could wait. Getting out on the ice and getting it right could not.

Katie grabbed her skate bag, slipped out of her room, jogged up three flights of stairs, and threaded her way through another hotel corridor until she was in front of Brendan’s room. Damn him for having the courage and decency to take a step away from their too-close quarters.

Katie banged on the door. When no one answered, she kept banging.

Brendan finally opened the door with tousled hair, a rumpled T-shirt, and a frown. “What?” he asked. Behind him, in the bed closest to the door, Justin swore at them both and pulled a pillow over his head.

“Come on, get dressed, we’re going to the rink.”

“It’s four in the f*****g morning.” Brendan scrubbed a hand over his face.

“I’m aware of that.” Katie’s days had started at four most of her life. She knew what the hour — and its utility — looked like better than most.

“We don’t have to get up at four in the morning anymore.”

Says the boy who’s never lived on a farm. She shrugged as if she didn’t care. That was an act, but hopefully one he would fall for. “Well, you can sleep in. I’m going.”

She turned from the door, prepared for it fall shut behind her, but at the last moment, she heard Brendan’s hand slap against it. “Yeah, all right, give me ten, and you’re buying coffee.”

Katie smiled. They may have been a disaster, but that didn’t mean they weren’t better together than apart.

***