THE LAST DAY OF THE Tour

New York, NY

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KATIE WOKE UP WITH the same riot of emotions she’d gone to bed with: She was shaken and disappointed in herself, but profoundly grateful for Brendan giving her space, even if it had ended with them yelling at each other. Again. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling competent enough to deal with the choices that loomed in front of her.

As she went through her show day routine at the arena — stretching, ice for her knee, small high-protein meals, and more stretching — Brendan was nowhere to be seem. That was fine. He wasn’t required to be there until rehearsal, and she probably needed the alone time.

Last night had been a disaster, and more than anything she felt ashamed. Her brain was a mess and her body wasn’t much better. Those things could be corrected, but dealing with them seemed as overwhelming as any other decision about her — and Brendan’s — future. Their few weeks of tentative truce and slow, possible drifting back together had ended as she had feared: with another fight.

They were running out of time in which they could keep doing this, and Katie wasn’t sure they knew how to do anything else. At this rate, once they were done with skating, there would be nothing to keep them together at all.

When Brendan showed up for their rehearsal slot with barely a second to spare, Katie narrowed her eyes and immediately took her starting position for their solo number. What was the point of scolding him about being on time here on the last day of the tour?

“Wait, no, hey.” Gently, he touched her wrist, encouraged her to lower her arms.

“What?” she barked.

“Do you want to do this?”

“Fight? No. Rehearse? Yes.” She was tired. So very, very tired. Of the tour, of numbers she hated, of feeling lost and adrift.

Brendan shook his head. “No. I mean, tonight’s the last hurrah. Do you want to do this program?”

“I never want to do it. But what’s the alternative?”

“The one that won us gold in Harbin.”

Katie stared at him. “Have you magically figured out how to fix it so you’re comfortable with me skating it?” Brendan was a good choreographer, but Katie was long sick of hearing him talk about taking the challenge out of a program she so desperately loved.

He shook his head. “Nope. But what you do with your body is your business, not mine. How’s your knee?”

Katie shrugged, though her heart was thudding in her chest with hope, with the possibility of skating their absolute best again. “Same as it’s been.”

“Okay.” Brendan’s face was excited and so earnest. He wanted to give her this.

Why is he so wonderful even when we’re such a mess?

“So do you want to give our big moment one last spin tonight?” he asked.

Of course I do. “What’s the catch?” she asked. Brendan was up to something.

He shook his head. “No catch. Last night was awful. Maybe tomorrow will be awful too, I don’t know. But I do know no one should take what we are out here from us ... not even each other.” He reached out and took her hands “So one more time? Whether it’s forever and ever or just in case?”

Katie nodded. “One more time.”

***

THEY RAN THE PROGRAM once in rehearsal to prove to everyone that her knee could take it. It could, and they had skated clean. Now they just had to do it again.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Katie said hours later as they waited in the darkened tunnel for their names to be announced. She couldn’t believe Brendan had talked Leo into letting them do this. Hell, she couldn’t believe Brendan had talked himself into it.

One more one-more-time. She’d never felt this excited about a non-competitive skate before. If touring could always be like this, she was all in with this being the future of her and Brendan’s careers.

Beside her, Brendan found her hand and squeezed it.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I know. I just wanted to be nice or something.”

“You’re always nice. Except when you’re awful. Like me.”

Brendan laughed.

Katie glanced at him sideways. “Thank you for this, by the way.”

Brendan swung their hands a little. “No thanks necessary. With our meetings next week, the least we can do is take this moment to figure out who we are.” He paused, then pulled her against his side. “I know you don’t know what’s coming,” he said into her hair, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “But something good is going to happen for both of us. I’m sure of it.”

“I hope you’re right.” She leaned against him, but didn’t trust herself to say anything else. For all the fits and starts and disasters of their relationship, this skate, this moment, this return to their Harbin program against all good sense was the most romantic thing he’d ever done for her. She knew no way to repay him than to give it everything she had. This needed to be their performance of a lifetime.

The announcer’s voice crackled over the sound system, calling their names.

Brendan turned his head; Katie could feel his breath on her cheek and then his lips as he pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “We’re gonna kill it,” he murmured.

She hoped he was right. They hadn’t practiced enough, she wasn’t mentally prepared at all, and, worst of all, there weren’t any obvious stakes.

Except my whole future and this perfect mess with this perfect man.

The audience buzzed as they took the ice.

“With me?” Brendan asked.

Katie smiled at the familiar words. “Always.”

When they took their starting positions, which were entirely different from the other program, the sound from the audience changed. It became louder. More insistent. More confused. Happier. The audience knew, and they wanted something they didn’t believe they could have.

So do I, Katie thought. So do I.

Her focus narrowed away from the audience and to herself and Brendan. She couldn’t see the people in the stands, but she could feel them. When the music started the whole arena froze.

Except them.

Katie tried not to tense up as they approached the side-by-side triple axels. It had been so long since they’d done these, this afternoon’s practice aside. But nerves and doubt would kill you long before your muscles let you down. So she took a deep breath, kept Brendan at the right distance, and let herself trust.

They landed them perfectly. The crowd erupted into cheers.

Brendan caught her hand as they went into the sit spin. Their eyes locked; his face was incandescent with joy. Maybe now he could understand all the things she was so afraid to give up.

As they pulled out of the spin and into some footwork, Katie felt her expression shift from a performance smile to a real one. This, right here, was what they’d spent their lives learning how to do. And they were still perfect.

Brendan’s body against hers, the ice under their blades, the very air itself felt charged. Katie slid her face against his as they went through the steps they’d first memorized so many months ago in Denver, the movement almost a kiss. The crowd gasped, and maybe it was exhibitionist of Katie but their reaction made it better. For these four and a half minutes the ice was theirs, and no one could look away.

Splaying his hands wide across her back, Brendan guided Katie into position for the twist lift. She spun three times through the air, and Brendan caught her, but her knee ached oddly when he set her back on the ice. On the next side-by-side jumps, the triple lutzes, it twinged painfully when she landed. It only got worse as the program continued, but Katie had no choice — and no desire — to do anything but go on. She pushed the sinking feeling of something’s really wrong this time to the back of her brain, letting the music, Brendan’s body, and her own fierce desire to carry her through.

They struck their ending poses with the last dramatic beat of the music. There was a collective moment of indrawn breath, and then the audience roared.

Brendan pulled her upright into his arms with a crushing hug, kissing her hair.

Katie panted into his shoulder, clinging in both victory and relief. They’d done it. And it had been so, so good. But she was in pain. A lot of it. She wasn’t sure she could get off the ice while continuing to hide it. She needed to tell Brendan, but she didn’t know how. Speech in the sea of applause and pain and emotion felt beyond her.

“I love you,” he said.

She had no doubt he did. He always said that after they nailed an important skate. She’d never been more grateful for it than she was right now.

“They’re standing,” Brendan said, his voice awed. “It’s a standing ovation. We should do our bows.”

Finally she made herself say it. She pressed her mouth to his ear. She didn’t want to chance a camera catching it. “My knee really hurts.”

Brendan froze. “Shit. Shit.” He started to push away from her, to see her face or to check the injury, she didn’t know.

“Stop it!” she hissed. “Be normal. Help me hide this.”

“But —”

“Do you want the solo tour? Keep your fucking hands on me and don’t make it look like you’re carrying all my weight.”

She spun out of his grasp and kept her weight on her good leg as she curtseyed. They turned and bowed three more times, once to each side of the rink, making sure to acknowledge every bit of their incredible audience. And then Brendan scooped her up into his arms.

“Time to break the internet,” he whispered.

Katie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So she did the only thing she could — both.

***

BRENDAN DIDN’T MAKE a scene once he’d gotten them off the ice, which was a minor miracle for which Katie was desperately grateful. Now that the shock of whatever had happened out there had passed, the pain was ebbing enough for her to get backstage and to the ice therapy machine.

“Do you want me to get Dr. Meyer?” Brendan asked as he knelt by her side, wrapping the cuff of the machine into place. Katie could have done it herself under normal circumstances, but her hands were shaking too hard.

She shook her head. “I want you to figure out what I’m doing in the group finale so it doesn’t look weird when I skip the jumps.” Tears, which she thought she had been done with, sprang to her eyes again. She balled the fabric of her skirt in her hands and bit her lip. She had to change before the final number, and she didn’t have much time.

“Are you sure you want to go through with that?” Brendan pushed his hair off his forehead and looked up at her, his green eyes kind and his brow furrowed in concern. He deserved better than this, to be stuck at the side of a partner who couldn’t skate.

“I can be injured tomorrow,” she said firmly. “Or next week. In secret. I cannot be injured tonight. Now help me figure it out.”

“Okay.” Brendan pressed a hand to her thigh, like he was going to use it to lever himself up, but he stayed there, his elbow resting on one knee, his other knee on the floor, his eyes intent on hers. “Okay. I will.”

***

SOMEHOW, KATIE GOT through the rest of the show — and the meet and greet — and back to her room. She had it to herself tonight; Natalya was catching a late flight out of JFK. Which would have been perfect, if Brendan was staying with her. But he wasn’t, at least not for the night. After he made sure she was settled, asked repeatedly if she wanted him to get Dr. Meyer, and offered to get her anything she needed from her suitcase, he finally left with a kiss to her cheek and a worried frown.

Katie almost asked him to stay. The tour was over, her knee was no longer a problem she could pretend was going to go away, and maybe nothing mattered anymore. But she needed to figure out what to do. She didn’t want Brendan there to fret over her or complicate whatever her decision was.

In the morning, Katie found herself taking one of Brendan’s main suggestions from the night before and was relieved to find Dr. Meyer still in her hotel room.

“Katie,” she said in surprise when she pulled the door open at her knock. “Is something wrong?”

“Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Dr. Meyer stood back to let her in. “What is it?”

“My knee,” Katie said, twisting her fingers together. “I don’t know what I did to it last night, but it’s way worse. I need to find someone to take a look at it. Now. Like, today. And I need to be discreet about it because we’re about to start negotiating our tour. If you have any favors you can call in ....” She took a deep breath and finished in a rush. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

She nearly cried in relief when Dr. Meyer steered her into a chair and reached for her cell phone.

***

IN LESS TIME THAN KATIE thought would be possible, she was back from the doctor’s office and sitting in her and Brendan’s first meeting of the day. She didn’t know which was worse: having the imaging done on her knee or the meeting. She didn’t have much to say, which was only partially because she was waiting for a phone call to give her the results of the imaging, worrying about the surgery she might need, when she could possibly get it done if she did need it, and when she was going to tell anyone about it.

Katie had spent lots of time in meetings before, but they had been about things she understood: Jumps. Lifts. Spins. Music. Costumes. Arcane ISU politics. Even sponsorships. All things about which she had deep knowledge and strong opinions.

But now she was overwhelmed by all of the people they were meeting and all of the information they carried. Everyone had job descriptions that didn’t seem to involve actually doing anything. And sure, she knew ghostwriters were a thing, but writing a book she wasn’t going to actually write? About exercise tips or self-esteem or achieving your dreams? Not her speed. At all. The type of success she and Brendan had found wasn’t about smiling and believing in yourself, it was about blood and bone and a brutal ruthlessness. Who would let her write a book about how to come from nothing and sell your soul? No one, she was pretty sure.

This wasn’t her world. Brendan could nod along and ask all the right questions and pretend he was comfortable in fancy offices, but this wasn’t his world either; his world was at the gym and on the ice. Here, he was faking it all the way and everyone could tell. Somehow watching him left her more exhausted than her own feeling of being wildly out of place. She wasn’t used to not being an expert on her own career. She wasn’t used to her background showing. She wasn’t used to talking about her body instead of talking with it.

Her knee made everything more complicated. By discussing a tour without being honest about her health, Katie knew she was negotiating, if not in bad faith, at least not totally openly. Her conscience was soothed somewhat when she started to realize how long a tour would take to organize. Would she be able to comfortably address her knee issues in the interim created by logistics? Very possibly. But she knew she was considering any number of highly calculated risks. She didn’t only need a doctor, she probably needed a lawyer too.

As for the rest of the work being discussed, Katie could hardly consider it work. In the past, sponsors had paid for them to train and compete in exchange for her and Brendan wearing the right logos and filming an ad now and then. Now, companies would be paying them to smile and sell and pretend that the right hair care products had made their defunct skating careers possible. Katie knew it was the norm for retired athletes, but that didn’t make the prospect less repulsive.

You okay? Brendan scribbled on the corner of his notepad.

Katie gave a minute shake of her head. Of course she wasn’t okay. Her knee hurt. She was waiting for the doctor to call her back with his verdict on the imaging. That news wasn’t going to be good so much as a matter of how bad. She hadn’t told Brendan where she’d been early that morning and needed to figure out how. Her body was falling apart, and she was going from being a world-class athlete to being a doll.

That wasn’t a metaphor; there was a discussion of a doll. Little girls would carry it around like a good luck charm, dirty and dangling from their skate bags. It wouldn’t even have knees that could bend.

***

NOW THAT SHE AND BRENDAN were being courted by managers and agents and entertainment companies, shared rooms and overnight buses were a thing of the past. They had moved from the hotel they’d been in with the rest of the tour to another fancier than anything they’d had on the road. Here, in New York City, that was saying something. Katie knew each of their rooms could pay for a ridiculous amount of ice time. Instead, she got huge windows splattered with rain and a view of a sea of concrete that paid tribute to the types of ambitions she had never possessed.

Between her appointment and all the meetings, she and Brendan didn’t get a moment to themselves all day. Even their meals were business meetings. Their one break, which only happened because a representative from a sportswear company had been running late, had been interrupted by a call from the doctor. The news was what she dreaded: Her knee was definitely damaged in a way that couldn’t be corrected with rest and therapy. Given her medical history surgery, followed by months of recovery and physical therapy, was inevitable. Would she skate again at a level worthy of a post-Olympic athlete? Possibly. With hard work, time, and no small amount of luck.

I can work hard. But I can’t control the clock.

She needed to tell Brendan. But after dinner, their meetings finally done for the day, he went to make one of his regular but infrequent calls to his parents. Katie retreated to her room alone. She showered, changed into pajamas and sat on the bed, her bad knee stretched out in front of her. The solitude, for a second night in a row, was alien. Her whole life had been roommates to ignore or Brendan, too close and holding her hand.

Brendan. She needed to tell him about her knee. Before they went any farther in these negotiations, he needed to know everything so they could be a united front. She glanced at the clock; he’d be off the phone by now. He never talked to his family for long.

She slid on her flip-flops, grabbed her room key, and padded down the hall.

Brendan answered her knock wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a puzzled smile. “What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.” He looked skeptical. With good reason, her mind suggested traitorously. Still, he stepped back to let her in. “What’s going on?”

She opened her mouth to tell him about her knee, but couldn’t get the words out. To buy herself time, she gestured at the room and his own massive bank of windows. “All of this. New York. These meetings. I just ... I wanted to talk to you somewhere that’s not a boardroom or an office or some business dinner. I’m not used to this.”

“Neither am I,” he said.

“I’m not made for it,” she clarified.

“And I am?”

Yes. No. Maybe. “I’m really freaked out about the doll.” The doll was far from the only problem, but it sure summed it all up.

“You can say no to the doll.”

Katie frowned and sat down on one of the room’s beds. She assumed it was the one Bredan wasn’t sleeping in because his stuff was piled all over it.

“Are you jealous?” she asked.

Brendan laughed. “Nah. You’re the prettier one. People don’t turn up at things to look at me.”

“They do, actually,” Katie said. Brendan was gorgeous, and she knew there were plenty of fans who shared her opinion on that. His green eyes that looked so soulful in pictures were even more striking in person. His thick dark hair, that she loved to run her fingers through in choreography, was every bit as soft as it looked. And she was far from the only one who appreciated the lean, muscled lines of his body that his simple costumes only accentuated. There weren’t many men in the world strong enough to lift a grown woman over their heads with grace and a smile. Brendan could. That feat alone would have made him attractive.

“Maybe.” Brendan sat down on the other bed facing her. “But I always knew I wasn’t getting a doll.”

Katie frowned. “What does that mean?” She was genuinely curious. Brendan didn’t often talk about what was going on in his head if it didn’t relate to whatever task was directly in front of them.

Brendan turned his face to the side a little and didn’t quite meet her eyes. He seemed ... small, somehow. “Did it ever occur to you I keep talking about coaching and about the tour because that’s all I get?”

Katie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Brendan gave a small, almost imperceptible sigh. “This is where our paths diverge in so many ways,” he said quietly.

“But —”

“Make-up contracts. A line of workout clothes. The doll. Books about self-esteem for young women. Little girls dream of being ballerinas or skaters. You can work this for the rest of your life and turn it into anything you want. I can do exhibitions, and I can coach.”

“I thought you wanted to coach,” Katie said, her voice softening to match his.

“It’s the option I like most of the ones open to me,” Brendan said.

Katie felt absolutely ashamed. For so long she’d been focusing on her own pain and panic and grief at leaving competitive skating behind. Brendan was always so calm and together — at least, he seemed to be — that it hadn’t occurred to her that he might be as heartbroken at this transition as she was.

If only they could be as good at communicating with each other off the ice as they were on it. But they weren’t, and here at what felt like the end of everything, maybe they never would be.

“A lot of athletes go into politics,” she offered. She hated herself that she didn’t have anything more useful to say.

“Yeah. Football players.” Brendan grinned ruefully. “I’m a figure skater who got a black eye in a bar because I attempted to prove my masculinity by defending your honor. When I tried to hit the guy, I missed.”

Katie laughed. That night had been awful, and she knew she’d only made it worse. She couldn’t fix anything else, but maybe she could make up for that a little. “I love that you missed. And as mad as I was at you, I kind of love that you tried. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She smiled fiercely. “I wouldn’t have missed.”

“I know.”

“What do you want to do?” she asked, even as she realized it was far too late for such a question. And she still hadn’t told him about her knee.

“See what our options are — all our options — and choose the ones we can stomach. Do them, save money, and then do whatever we want after that I guess. You’ve always steered us, you’ve always set our goals and made sure we met them. I guess I took that for granted. I know I kept yelling at you for not having a plan, but I guess I’ve been pissed at you for not having a plan with me.”

“Because you love me?” she asked. Brendan admitting to weakness and uncertainty was very nearly breaking her heart. He was half of her being, and she hadn’t known.

“Because you’re getting a doll and I’m not.”

Now was her moment to confess. But she couldn’t. Brendan’s words left her feeling raw, like a scab she hadn’t known she had scraped open. She didn’t know how to move forward from here. She also didn’t know how to move away.

“Can I stay here tonight?” she asked.

Brendan raised an eyebrow.

Katie pointed at the bed she was sitting on. “I sleep here. You sleep there.”

“Why?”

He didn’t usually challenge her when she asked for things like that. But the question, like his skepticism when he let her into his room in the first place, was entirely fair. Katie knew she’d been, at best, mercurial over the last few days. Weeks. Months. Years.

But Brendan was home; he was where she felt safe. None of the words she needed were coming to her, so she said the only thing she could.

“Because I can’t think when you aren’t breathing next to me.”

***

KATIE LAY ON HER BACK in the dark, watching the lights of New York play on the ceiling. Brendan couldn’t sleep either — she could hear his quiet breathing from the bed next to hers, and the occasional rustle of the sheets as he turned over.

“This is terrible,” she said, flinging an arm out from under the blankets to reach for him.

Across the gap between the beds his fingers found hers, just like they had in so many hotel rooms after so many competitions all over the world.

“What is?”

“The lights,” she said. “How does anyone sleep?”

“I’m pretty sure they draw the curtains.” He was judging her. She could hear it in his voice.

“Even if you draw the curtains, it’s still there.”

“Do you want me to respond to that?” Brendan asked.

“I’m not lying here because I want you to be quiet.”

Brendan shrugged. “Maybe you want to talk. I want to give you space if you do.”

“What does it feel like for you? Here?” she asked. What else didn’t she know about the person who had been her whole world for so long?

“Where?” Brendan sounded uncertain.

“New York City,” she said.

“That I’d rather be seeing it than being stuck in all these meetings. Why? What does it feel like for you?”

“Like a TV show that I’m trapped in. Like it knows I don’t belong here. Aside from everything else, I miss home.”

Finally, cautiously, Brendan spoke. “So you do want to come back to Denver ...?”

Katie made a noise that she hoped didn’t entirely sound like disgust. “Home home. Wisconsin home. The middle of goddamn nowhere home. Home where you only get out by being good at something impossible. Home where you eventually have to go back because that’s what it costs and that’s who you are.”

Brendan squeezed her fingers lightly, like he did when she had too much sharp energy going into a skate and he was encouraging her to gentle herself. “That doesn’t sound like missing a place.”

“It wouldn’t, to you.” Of course Brendan wouldn’t understand. He never could.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Katie shifted under the covers. “You’re from Minneapolis.”

“... Yeah?”

“No. I mean like, you’re from a city. I grew up on a farm,” Katie said.

“I know. I’ve been there.”

“A farm doesn’t work if you don’t work. There’s no vacations or days off. I had to work really hard, all the time. Not just for skating, but so I could skate. So the barns didn’t flood. So the cows didn’t, you know, shrivel up and die.”

“You’re not painting a more appealing picture, there.”

She felt crushed by his lack of understanding. “Home needed me, Brendan. Needs me. I miss that.”

***

KATIE WOKE TO SUNLIGHT reflected into Brendan’s room by the building across the street. She felt like an ant set up to burn under a magnifying glass.

She looked over at him in the other bed. She’d woken up with him so many times in the last two decades. All the times they’d shared a room on the road, all the times they’d shared a bed just to be close, all the times they’d crashed at each other’s apartments. Despite her attempts to date over the years, she’d never been able to make sense of everyone else’s expectations about relationships. But she could imagine waking up next to Brendan every day.

That wasn’t going to happen in this life, though. She hadn’t managed to tell him about everything that needed to happen surrounding her knee. Shame settled as a cold, uncomfortable weight in her stomach. Their shared space should have been lovely, but she needed not to be here.

Katie slipped out from between the covers, put her flip-flops back on and padded to the hotel room door. Brendan stirred as she opened it. She hovered there for a moment, as if between one life and the next.

“Wha ...?” he asked, turning towards her and less than half awake.

“I’ve got to get ready for whatever is happening today,” she said softly. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

He made a noise of agreement and flopped back down.

Katie left. She was glad that no one was around to see her wandering in pajamas from her partner’s hotel room back to her own at five in the morning.

Inside, she stared at her half-packed bags, her skates in the corner, the Russian nesting dolls Natalya had given her, and the notes she had taken at the doctor’s office. The problem hadn’t been waking up in Brendan’s room this morning. It was being in New York at all. While she was here, she certainly wasn’t going to get over her concerns about the unappealing marketing options in front of her, about her knee, or about her terror of letting Brendan down. She needed to make some choices instead of only fretting about them.

She felt a stab of doubt as she threw the rest of her things in her bags. She was leaving Brendan to the wolves and without his partner in crime and in business. The tour was probably going to be a non-starter without her there to be part of the conversation. As for the rest of it ... it was like what Brendan had said about the doll. From here, their paths diverged regardless of what either of them wanted.

It was time to leave him to it.

***

KATIE DIDN’T START trembling until she was in the cab on the way to the airport. Any minute now, Brendan would make his way downstairs for breakfast and she wouldn’t be there. A little while after that he would realize something was wrong.

Except Brendan knew her better than she knew herself. He might realize what she had done immediately. And then he might panic. Wouldn’t that be a change of pace, she thought bitterly. Sometimes she really hated her brain. But whatever else she was doing, she didn’t want to scare him. She pulled out her phone and opened their text thread.

Hi. I need you to cover for me one last time. Yes, it’s my knee again. And my head and everything else. I’m going to turn off my phone after this, so don’t worry if you can’t get ahold of me. I’m okay; I just need to go home. For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.

She didn’t know when the next flight to Minneapolis-Saint Paul was. And wasn’t that ironic? She had to go through Brendan’s home to get to hers.