SIX WEEKS AFTER HARBIN

On a Bus Somewhere Between Salt Lake City, UT and Portland, OR

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THIS WAS NOT, EXACTLY, how Katie ever thought her life would turn out. Oh, she had secretly expected to win gold in pair skating; she had worked too hard and faced too many setbacks not to. But the whirlwind she’d been in since ... that was the confusing part.

No one had ever told her to think about what would happen after she won. In fact, lots of people had told her to avoid considering it at all; it would bring bad luck, weaken her intent, and aggravate her anxiety. And so, for twenty years, she had harbored only a single desire and a complete inability to plan for a life beyond skating.

Now, six weeks after the closing ceremonies in Harbin, she was on an International Ice Spectacular tour bus, sharing a hard, narrow bunk with Brendan. They lay side-by-side, his mobile phone suctioned to the low ceiling above them as they watched the latest episode of some makeover show, sharing a single pair of earbuds. They’d been doing this — trashy TV included — nearly their whole lives, ever since they had started skating together. She’d been nine, and Brendan had been ten.

Katie pointed at the small screen. “I like that dress, but I don’t like it on her.”

Brendan batted her hand away so he could see. “Yeah, but look at what the host is wearing. I’m sorry, but she doesn’t get to have an opinion.”

Katie laughed as she tangled her legs with his. He leaned his head against hers in response. Easy. Predictable. Safe. Their physical comfort with each other had never entirely made sense to others — especially people who didn’t skate. But they had always been each other’s refuge in the midst of relentless training, endless travel, and the acute pressures of the public eye. For them, physical closeness was situation normal. That, combined with the disaster of their first Olympics in Annecy and their brief, doomed attempt at dating afterwards, meant that the media constantly asked if they were a couple. It had only gotten worse since Harbin.

Katie understood why people were curious, but didn’t feel like she knew how to answer the query. She and Brendan were together in ways most romantic couples never would be and which no one but them could understand. Even she didn’t understand it a lot of the time. They’d spent most of their lives learning how to touch each other so that they could do things that were nearly impossible. Whether they were dating and/or screwing — which they weren’t, because terrible things happened when they did — was purely incidental.

“I like this,” Brendan said.

“Me too,” she said after too long a pause.

The bus was uncomfortable, but being pressed so close to Brendan wasn’t. His body was warm. His soft breath and steady heartbeat made Katie feel calm. She already missed competing; touring never could scratch the itch she had to push herself and Brendan relentlessly. But at least they were together. Being with Brendan twenty-four/seven because of the ice was how she functioned.

“Your dye’s growing out.” He touched her hair near the part, where it was a honey drab and not the rich, dark brown she favored.

“I know.” Katie sighed. “I need to deal with that.” The constant to-do list of keeping up public appearances was exhausting, for her so much more than for Brendan. On the days he didn’t have time to shave, his fans just got more excited.

“Why haven’t you?” Brendan asked. “Brushing mascara on it before every performance has to be a pain.”

Katie shrugged. “Maybe I was thinking I’d let it grow out.”

Brendan laughed quietly at her and fingered the strands. “You should. I always liked it. Don’t know why you don’t.”

“If I’m thinking about growing it out, doesn’t that mean I like it fine?” she said irritably. Whatever complicated feelings she had about her image, her hair, and how they were all tied up in her all-but-finished career, she didn’t feel like talking about them right now. Even with Brendan.

“Maybe,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘maybe?’”

He shrugged. “You’re my inscrutable Katie.”

She was his, wasn’t she?

Katie turned her head to smile at him. In so many ways she knew his features better than she knew her own. After all, she spent the majority of every day looking at him. I guess he’s my something-or-other too.

Brendan’s face was easy. Friendly. The boy next door. Brown hair, green eyes, a smile that would assure any parent he had only the kindest heart. Which he did, but that was only one of the reasons Katie loved him. He had a fierce mind and a dogged sort of ambition; Katie loved him for that, too; perhaps more than for the qualities of his heart. If all she had wanted was a good man — or a good woman, for that matter — there were plenty at their Denver rink or at home in Wisconsin. But what she wanted was someone who didn’t mind that she liked to run and who could keep up with her whenever and wherever she did.

Too bad jumping into bed together had ruined their first Olympics in Annecy, split their partnership, and sent them down a road of unsuccessful careers with other partners. Reuniting after their miserable showing in Stockholm had been Katie’s idea. Four years after the fact, she could remember the visceral rush of relief at being with Brendan on the ice again. Skating had been easy at first. She’d missed her best friend and her partner in crime. It had been so good to see him first thing every morning and to go back to hanging out with each other every night.

That had lasted about a week. As ease and familiarity returned to their partnership, so did the trust between them — and the chemistry that had gotten them into trouble in the first place. For months Katie had been terrified they’d end up right back where they started, in bed with each other and broken on the ice. But after more than a few arguments — and a few awkward conversations with their coach — they’d decided to bring their connection, so impossible to deny or ignore, to the ice.

The more they acted out love in its most brutal and desperate forms, they more they were able to keep their desire compartmentalized and their energy channeled in useful directions. They shared rooms on the road. They even sometimes shared a bed — just to sleep. But they’d drawn their line, and they diligently stayed on the safe side of it all the way to Olympic gold.

But ... but, Katie thought as she watched Brendan’s face, mere inches from her own. Their competitive career was all but officially over. Did the old rules still apply? They were the best skaters in the world. They were in talks to do a skating tour that was all about them as headliners instead of the usual Team USA branding. No other pair had done such a thing in decades.

None of that would change if they kissed. Time would not unwind. Their medals couldn’t be taken away. Maybe they didn’t need to deny the totality of their connection anymore.

Slowly, Katie rubbed her face against Brendan’s. If the gesture was strange, she didn’t care. She’d wanted all of him for so long without being able to have him like this. The anticipation — and the suspense of whether either of them would put a stop to it — made her skin feel like it was on fire.

“What are you doing?” Brendan asked, his voice lazy and curious. Katie envied him his easygoingness. If his mind was churning as rapidly as hers — which she doubted — he wasn’t showing it.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Can I keep doing it?”

“Be my guest,” he said, absurdly polite for the situation they were in. But that was who Brendan was.

Katie wanted more of this, more of him. She nosed along the line of his jaw, breathing in the warm scent of his skin. He smelled like his deodorant and her shampoo; he must have run out of his own and borrowed hers this morning. Again.

When her lips pressed to the point at his throat where she could feel his pulse beat beneath the skin, his breathing hitched. He rolled towards her, and Katie mirrored him, unwilling to lose the warm press of his body against hers. Before the noise in her head could talk her out of it, she kissed him.

Brendan’s lips were warm. They fit against hers as if they’d done this for years. Why hadn’t they been doing this for years? She nipped his lower lip sharply. He used to like that. Does he still?

With a soft groan in the back of his throat Brendan opened his mouth to her. So that’s a yes. His arm, slung loosely around her waist, tightened, but he was letting her lead. Given their shared history, that might have been a wise choice. But it wasn’t what Katie wanted. On the ice, this was a man who could throw her across the rink, who ran his hands all over her body for the cheer of the crowd, who pushed and pulled in response to her relentless pursuit. Now that they were finally doing this, Katie wanted all the intensity they’d bottled up and poured out only onto the ice.

She cupped his face in her hands and pushed her fingers up into his hair, pulling at it, daring Brendan to respond in kind.

He did.

He slid his hand under the hem of her shirt, his palm warm against the small of her back, his fingernails pricking her skin. Heat unfurled from her core. Reflexively Katie shifted to wrap her leg around his waist. That was like being on the ice; Brendan being absolutely, definitely, achingly hard against her was not. He wanted her, too, and Katie needed so much more than she currently had.

Awkwardly — the space was so small — Katie helped Brendan struggle out of his T-shirt. In the dim light she could make out the strong lines of his chest, all the defined muscle that was the result of hours spent in the gym and on the ice. Katie was a world-class athlete surrounded by world-class athletes; there was no shortage of eye candy in her life. But after years of competing together she knew Brendan’s body and what it could do so intimately it couldn’t help but be her favorite.

Brendan tossed his shirt to the side and rolled on top of her. His knees straddled her waist; his weight was braced on his arms. Finally it was his turn to dig a hand into her hair. He kissed her until they had to break apart for breath. With his bare skin pressed to her, Katie never wanted to be anywhere else, even if there were too many people far too close to them for her to get what she really wanted.

Because if she could hear her tour mates, they could hear her. And she could definitely hear them. Shane and David were arguing about hockey again. Andrej was listening to Czech pop music without his headphones. Haruka and Yume were playing cards. And somewhere, Natalya was snoring. Katie didn’t think athletes were supposed to snore. Especially really pretty Russians. But what did she know? Right now, she wasn’t sure she knew anything except Brendan’s body and her own.

Despite her concerns, Brendan was heedless of their lack of true privacy. He slipped a hand into her pajama bottoms and between her legs. “You’re soaking wet,” he murmured, pressing kisses down the line of her throat.

Katie gasped at both his touch and at his words.

“Do you think you can be quiet?” he asked.

“Obviously not,” she hissed in his ear. “And I think almost everyone’s awake to hear.”

Brendan dropped his hand to her thigh and his forehead to her chest. “Why can’t anyone on this bus sleep like normal people?”

Katie curled her fingers into his hair to hold him there. She had a million responses to that. Starting with the fact that they weren’t sleeping like normal people either. Above them, his phone advanced to the next episode of the makeover show. “Do you care if they hear?” she asked.

“No.” Brendan’s reply was immediate. “Do you?”

Katie had spent her entire life worrying about what other people saw when they looked at her. Sometimes reasonably, sometimes not. Perhaps it was time to let that go. Or at least try. She shook her head.

As if to comment on that choice, the bus started to slow. Then it jolted. Hard.

Katie yelped.

“Well there’s no need to advertise it,” Brendan whispered in her ear, aggrieved. He kissed her.

Whether that was to muffle any other sound she might make or for the sake of kissing her, Katie didn’t know. She also didn’t care. She laughed into his mouth. Brendan’s body pressing down on hers was ecstasy.

After a moment, the bus started moving again, leaning into some sort of turn. The curve of it was long, the bus was fast, and the driver seemed to think he had a bobsled in his hands.

Brendan shifted onto his back as his body was pulled away from her by the force of the turn, taking Katie with him. Skating habit or desire made her go with him, but then she kept going, her body rolling over his and to the outside edge of the bunk.

She was going to fall.

She reached out to him. But just like in Annecy, her fingers slipped through his.

With a startled shriek, Katie fell out of the bunk and dropped several feet into the aisle. Curtains up and down the length of the vehicle snapped open. Everyone stared down at her, knowing exactly what she had been doing and with whom.

Brendan’s head appeared last. He must have been trying to figure out an appropriate response. Not that there was one. He still wasn’t wearing his shirt.

“Are you okay?” he asked sheepishly.

Katie stared up at his infuriating, genial, too-handsome face, his tousled hair, and his wry grin. She felt herself turn red. Not — despite his bare torso and kiss-bitten lips — with embarrassment, but with fury.

Physically she was fine. But in every other sense, she was a mess. Perhaps if she stayed very still, she would somehow be rendered invisible to the eyes of the other skaters. At least Leo, their tour manager, slept with earplugs.

“Seriously, Katie, are you okay?” the no-longer-snoring Natalya asked.

“No!” Katie snapped at her, slowly sitting up from where she was splayed on the bus floor. She didn’t think she was hurt. At least not physically. But every one of her fears had come true, and the risk they’d taken had ended in humiliation. As she should have known it would.

Katie pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up at Brendan. His face was a mixture of hesitant concern and amusement.

“I am making all the worst choices!” she hollered at him, fairly or not. “Again! And they’re all your fault!”