WAY TOO EARLY IN THE Morning

Portland, OR

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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 fucking 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.

***

THIRTY MINUTES AND one Dunkin Donuts stop later they were at the rink. This early, it was empty of even the most dedicated of their tour mates. Katie dropped her bags and began to work through her stretch routine, loosening ankles and knees and hips. Beside her, Brendan did the same, albeit much more slowly.

Katie considered giving him grief for that. After all, she was the one who was injured and yet here he was moving like an old man. But she didn’t want to disturb their peace, hard-won with exhaustion and coffee.

In the first year that they had come back together after Stockholm, sometimes their coach had forbidden them from speaking on the ice. In the immediacy of it, Katie had felt that was a punishment for all their bickering, but it had been a trick that worked. If they couldn’t speak, they had to listen — not just to their coach, but to each other’s bodies and breathing and facial expressions.

She sat down on the floor, folded herself over her knees and grabbed her feet, massaging the tendons as she pointed and flexed. She was aware of Brendan watching her, but he remained silent as he focused on his arms and shoulders

Good. He won’t drop me again.

Katie lay back on the floor and kicked one leg up. She pulled it towards her, creeping into a split. By the end of the day, this would be almost easy, but for the moment, her body was reluctant. She huffed in annoyance, and Brendan, ridiculously, was instantly by her side.

“I’m fine,” she said, feeling shame, somehow, at breaking the silence.

“I know. Do you want help?”

She gave a little acquiescent tilt of her head. Brendan put a hand to her thigh and another to her calf and pushed her leg back slowly, until her flexed toes touched the floor.

“All right?” he asked.

She nodded, breathing through it. She pointed her foot, and Brendan pushed again, leaning against her leg until the top of her foot hit the floor. Katie sighed in relief at the feel of him and at the stretch successfully completed without agenda, but with so much wanting.

With their warmup finished and their skates on, Katie leaned on the wall at the edge of the rink, took off her skate guards, and glided out onto the ice. Beside her, Brendan did the same.

She’d been doing this for more than two decades, but this moment had never ceased to thrill her: The rest of the world home, warm and asleep; the ice a smooth blank canvas in front of them. It was far from bliss: It was cold; adrenaline and endorphins had yet to kick in, and she could feel every bruise and blister on her feet. But Brendan would reach out — she knew, without having to look at him — their hands would meet, and suddenly everything was possible.

When their skating worked, Katie didn’t have to think about what she was doing. Her mind could drift, a highly kinetic kind of meditation. But this morning, there was too much to do to let her mind wander.

They ran through the first minute or so of their Harbin routine, or at least their modified Harbin routine. The changes they were making so Katie could skate it relatively safely were far from a lock. Katie knew she wasn’t making that process any easier, but after a year of developing the original program any change felt like sacrilege and defeat. No matter how long she and Brendan worked together on tours and exhibitions, they’d never skate at the level that won them gold again. Everything had been on the line at the Games. Replicating that without the pressure of competition was impossible.

Katie wanted to get as close to it as she could, though. If she couldn’t have her favorite jumps, she could make other things harder. As they assessed what they could make work she did progressively harder jumps that she could land on her good knee.

The third time she landed a quad salchow throw, though, Brendan found her hand and pulled her to a stop in front of him. “I get you’re pissed about falling yesterday, but now you’re doing quads?”

Katie brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face with her free hand. “You throw, I spin. Don’t worry about it.”

Brendan frowned and gave a minute shake of his head. “This doesn’t work that way.”

“I can land them,” Katie insisted. The warm, intimate feel of the morning was draining quickly away, leaving them where they so often ended up: On the ice and upset with each other. She knew that was inevitable, but it still felt a little like heartbreak.

“I know you can.” Brendan pulled her closer and dropped his voice, not that there was anyone around to hear. “But your knee is one bad landing away from being out of commission for the rest of the tour and possibly the rest of your life.”

“I wasn’t landing on that leg,” Katie protested.

“And you can’t guarantee you won’t stumble or fall and hurt yourself anyway. You want to take risks with your health, fine, whatever, it’s your body. But you’re my partner and it’s damn irresponsible for you to take risks with my job.”

Brendan was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent correct. Which only made Katie angrier. “You don’t need to patronize me,” she snapped, skating backwards away from him and pulling her hand out of his grasp. “I know my own limits.”

Brendan followed her. “I’m not trying to be patronizing. Really. Just, Kate, you’re my partner. I will always worry about you.”

“And don’t say you’re my partner!” She spun away from Brendan, not able to look at him. He only ever called her Kate when he was very serious about something.

“Why? I am. And you’re mine.”

Brendan sounded hurt. Which only made Katie more frustrated. She loved him, more than she would ever be able to express in any kind of language. Why did she have to find a way to make that a bug and not a feature?

“On the ice. Nowhere else.” Which was also neither fair nor accurate. But Brendan saying things like partner so easily terrified her. Nothing about what they did together was easy or simple. And she couldn’t afford to give in to her desire for him again.

“Did I say otherwise?” Brendan swept around in front of her, cutting off her forward motion.

Katie’s breath caught in her throat. He was magnificent when he was angry. “You implied it.”

”I did not. Stop treating me like I’m your enemy. Or that this is something I did to you. I am not the bad guy. Your anxiety is real, but this is not my fault. We used to date, we’ve spent years being a millimeter away from fucking, and you kissed me on that damn bus first.”

“That was a mistake.” Katie put out a hand to Brendan’s chest. She’d meant to push him away, but her fingers tightened in the fabric of his shirt instead. His heartbeat thudded against her fingertips.

Brendan closed his hand over her wrist, holding her there. “It sure didn’t feel like a mistake. Other than the fact we were on a bus. I will concede that part was a bad idea.”

Hah ha. Very funny. Brendan could make her laugh so easily when she didn’t want to strangle him. “We do not skate well when we’re together. I know this. You know this. We’ve been over this before, and the only thing either of us have to show for it is a four-year detour.”

Brendan shook his head, his hair falling over his forehead. “One, that is superstitious crap, and also it disgusts me that you view that as wasted time.”

“It was wasted! We could have been winning.”

Brendan pulled her closer, so close she could make out the flecks of gold in his green eyes. “We also could have been together, but neither of those things matter anymore. Three — I think we’re up to three? — if you don’t want to do this at all, that’s cool. I will drop it. But if you don’t want to do it because you’re having a freakout about the end of our competitive skating career — and I think that’s exactly what you’re doing — I am going to keep being right here wanting you.”

The offer, or the promise, whatever it was, was far too tempting. Katie did a crossover and shifted out of his grip. “The Harbin program, two minutes in. We should make the jump an axel.”

Brendan threw his hands up in the air. “Or we could change the damn topic again. The jump stays a flip,” he said firmly. “Neither of us need to get hurt for the sake of your mid-life crisis.”

***

THAT AFTERNOON AT GROUP practice, Katie’s knee twinged. She tried to hide it, but Brendan saw her brief grimace of pain. Of course he did. At the break he grabbed her hand and, without a word, led her to the side of the rink where Dr. Meyer was sitting talking with Leo.

Dr. Meyer asked her some questions, prodded at her leg carefully, then looked at Katie over the top of her glasses.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you.” Dr. Meyer had been on the Team USA medical staff in addition to being the tour doctor for five years running. She’d had an eye on Katie’s knee for as long as Katie had known her and was one of the few people Katie trusted with her injury.

“Take it easy, don’t work too hard, and tell you if anything changes instead to trying to hide it?”

“Exactly. Just like I’ve been telling you for months.”

Katie nodded.

“Except you seem to keep doing exactly the opposite,” Dr. Meyer said, sternly unamused.

“It’s complicated,” Katie said, because it was. Taking it easy could radically limit her future choices as easily as pushing too hard. That it was all tangled up with Brendan and their impending official retirement only made it worse.

“Yes, and so is your Facebook status. But you don’t need me to tell you what happens if you let this get too bad.”

***

KATIE COULDN’T HELP pacing up and down in the hallway backstage that night before she had to put her skates on, though she knew she should be doing literally anything other than putting more strain on her leg. It ached, and that scared her, although things ached all the time in this business. She’d managed to escape serious injury during the competitive season by good luck as much as anything else. But what if that luck ran out? What could she do if she couldn’t skate? Brendan would blame her for being careless. The whole solo tour they were relying on for work after this wouldn’t happen. She’d be alone and out of a job. And it would be entirely her fault.

Katie realized her hands were shaking.

Incipient panic attack. Fantastic.

She rubbed her palms on her thighs and tried to focus on her breathing. It didn’t work. What if I can’t stop shaking to skate? They’ll say I can’t handle the pressure. That we won gold but still aren’t good enough ....

“Kate.”

Katie whipped her head up to see Brendan standing a few feet down the hall from her. She dug her fingers into the awful neon-pink fabric of her skirt, but he wasn’t fooled.

“Hey.” His face softened in concern. He crossed the small space between them and closed his hands around hers. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.” She pulled her hands away.

Brendan let them slide out of his grasp. He always did that; gave her space when she wanted it. Because he was a gentleman, Katie thought with irritation, and from Minnesota. He was nice. But Katie didn’t want nice. Not know when she was ruining everything and didn’t deserve nice anyway.

“Bullshit,” he said easily. “Is it your knee?”

“It was my knee. Now it’s definitely my head.”

Not wanting nice would be a lot easier if nice didn’t sooner or later work. She hoped Brendan wouldn’t notice the tears that were starting to sting her eyes despite all of her commands to her body to stop.

But if he noticed, he didn’t comment on them. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad. I mean — really. It’s fine.”

Brendan’s forehead creased in a frown. “Are you sure? Because we can sit this show out, you know, if you need a rest. For whatever reason.”

“No!” Katie’s head snapped up. “No, we can’t.”

“Look, if one night off is going to save you a bigger injury in the long run —”

“No!” She was sure she was audible inside the green room, which made everything worse. “No, we can’t take a night off. My knee is fine. If I take a night off they’ll think we can’t hack a post-competitive career, and the tour will fall through, and then where will we be? I am completely freaking out.”

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Okay, there it is. It’s okay.” Brendan put an arm around her shoulders and gently steered her to a bench at the side of the hallway. He sat down next to her, keeping his arm around her. Katie glanced down the hallway to make sure no one was around to see, then leaned against him.

Brendan’s body was warm and solid. She felt herself relax a little just from his proximity. His hand found hers on her knee, and he laced their fingers together. This time, she let him.

“I know you’re pissed.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “And I know you’re scared. I know your nerves are doing things without your permission right now. But you know how to take care of yourself and your knee.”

“Except for this morning,” Katie said, bitter with self-recrimination.

“You pushed your limits. You were always going to do that. If not today, then at some other point. It’s ridiculous to think you weren’t going to do that and ridiculous to be angry at yourself for it when there have been literally no dire consequences.”

“Not yet, at least.”

“Do you want to be stubborn or do you want me to make you feel better?”

Katie couldn’t see Brendan’s face, but she could hear his raised eyebrow. She smiled. She couldn’t help it. “Can’t I have both?”

“Sure. Turn sideways.” He was laughing at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind.

Katie shifted so that her back was to him and she was sitting cross-legged on the bench. She was expecting it, but couldn’t suppress a shiver when Brendan put his hands lightly on her shoulders. His hands were deft and practiced, and his fingers sought out the knots where he knew she held her tension.

“Breathe,” he reminded her softly.

Katie hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. She filled and emptied her lungs and felt so much of the tension of the day leave her body.

“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re going to take care of yourself, and you’re not going to get hurt. We’re going to get this solo tour, and we are going to kill it. Okay?”

Reassurance or platitudes would have infuriated Katie. But in the face of Brendan’s calm certainty — and the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck — she couldn’t help but feel calm and certain, too. Or at least, more so than she had five minutes ago.

“Okay,” she said.

***

AS THEY TOOK THEIR starting positions Katie commanded herself to relax and enjoy this. They had a finite number of performances in this tour. All she had to do was get through them. Everything that could come after was a question mark too terrifying to think about. But standing here, in a darkened arena, her arm around Brendan’s neck and her head on his chest, the two of them breathing in unison as they waited for the lights to come up and the music to start ... this was happiness.

The lights came up, bathing them in a vibrant purple. The first beats of the music began to play, and Katie tucked her face into Brendan’s neck for the opening choreography. So much in my life would be better if I could calm down and appreciate it.

But that wasn’t how anxiety worked.

One of the few periods of pure happiness in her life had been when she and Brendan had first started dating in Annecy. With Brendan, in bed, her brain had finally shut up. She didn’t have to worry about choreography or scores or press or any of the other hundred things that whirled through her mind when she was anywhere else but wrapped up with him, their bodies entwined as surely as the rest of their beings were. And then they’d lost. Horribly. Katie hadn’t known how to trust peace since.

The song shifted, and the music pulsed, slow and relentless like the soundtrack in a club. Their coach had begged them to pick any song other than this for their comeback season, but they’d insisted. Katie was still sure they’d been right. This wasn’t what anyone expected two kids from the Midwest to skate to, and that had been exactly the point.

From their pair spin they moved into the throw jump. Katie made it a double, not a triple, and landed without any complaint from her knee. The audience applauded, but the concession felt like a failure.

Brendan moved beside her on the ice, sometimes ahead of her, sometimes pursuing her. Many male skaters didn’t have the artistic flare Brendan did, which was one of the reasons they were the best. He had years of ballet training to thank for that, but that wasn’t the only reason.

There was, in Brendan, a willingness to submit — to the demands of the sport, to the proscribed posture and technique of artistry, to his partner, to skating itself. He didn’t just fill time between jumps and lifts that made him look strong and masculine. As a result, the lines of his body, the curve of his arm, the position of his fingertips, were so precise they drew Katie in along with everyone else watching him. Never mind that Brendan’s costumes were simple, almost severe; no rhinestones or billowing sleeves for him. Tonight he wore a black short-sleeved shirt and pants that made no effort to pretend to be street clothes. Why should he hide the work he did on the ice? Why should he be any less feline and captivating than her? Together, they were irresistible.

This program’s second overhead lift and the twist lift were terrifyingly close together. The strength Brendan needed to pick her up, hold her, throw her, and catch her, was incredible. But if they did it right, the audience wouldn’t be thinking about how hard Brendan was working. They’d only be thinking about how he and Katie moved like there was nothing and no one else in the world.

Brendan caught her after the twist lift as if doing so was the most effortless thing, but as always Katie could feel the strain of the muscles in his arms and chest. He held her for the next few steps, her arms around his neck, her body curled against his. Two people, dissolving into one.

God, the sex with him had been fun. There had been a lot of it in the short time they were together. They had laughed about it then, how much they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. In hindsight Katie could admit the sex hadn’t been expert or mind-blowing — they’d been young and not terribly experienced — but it had been good, good in a way she hadn’t been able to recapture with anyone else.

Guys who were skaters were too interested in their own egos. Guys who weren’t skaters worked too hard to impress her, which made her nervous. They didn’t really want to date her; they wanted to tell their friends they were sleeping with an Olympic athlete. And dating other women usually ended poorly for all involved. Katie liked women as driven and obsessive about their work as she was, which never left a lot of room or energy for actually having a relationship.

She and Brendan leaned into each other during the last bit of footwork, their limbs intertwining, their hands on each other, intent and wanting. Everything was about building to that final moment and making sure the tension stretched tight to the very end.

Katie leaned back and Brendan caught her, one arm around her waist, his other hand digging into her hair, too hard and also perfect. She only remembered the audience existed when thunderous applause broke out.

***

ONCE THE SHOW WAS OVER, the last thing Katie wanted to do was face the bright lights, microphones, and digital recorders of the diligent sports reporters who’d come to cover the tour. Interviews felt intrusive after the intense focus of skating. But smiling for the press was as much a part of her job as landing triple flips was. If she and Brendan wanted to tour in the future, they had to continue to be America’s sweethearts. At least Brendan was suffering right along with her.

“How’s life on the road?” a reporter from the local news asked.

Confusing and miserable without a competition to work towards. “Oh, you know, enjoying the chance to relax a little,” she said sweetly, using her biggest TV smile. “Sometimes I feel like we’re still recovering from Harbin.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Brendan put in. “She had us up and on the ice at four this morning.”

“So you’re working hard?” the reporter asked.

“We always work hard. Or, well, Katie does. I just try to keep up!” That was part of their ongoing patter, that Katie was the one who drove them hardest. Sometimes, that was true, but mostly it was a jab at the part of their audience who thought the lady in a pair was only there to look pretty.

“Does that mean you’re looking ahead to another competitive season?” the reporter asked.

Brendan glanced at Katie, as if he was looking for guidance instead of giving her a cue.

“We haven’t made any decisions about that yet,” Katie said, smiling for the camera. Which was a flat-out lie, but they weren’t going to make their retirement official until they reached Denver. “Retiring from competing would be a huge life change, and we’re still working out what’s going to be best for us and our partnership.”

“You two famously started a relationship during your first Olympics, though of course you subsequently broke up. Is there any chance there’s been another change to your relationship status after this last Olympics?”

Who writes these questions? Katie wondered. Surely someone who hated her.

But before she could say anything in response, Brendan wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into her side. “We’re as close as we ever were,” he said with a boyish grin and kissed her forehead. “No matter what we’re doing, Katie and I make a great team.”

She pinched the small of his back. Behave. But he only grinned more.

***

“YOU’RE RIDICULOUS,” Katie said as they walked towards the locker rooms. They were holding hands, though she couldn’t remember when that had started or who had taken whose hand first. Physical contact with Brendan was a lot like breathing: Almost constant, rarely conscious, always natural.

“You love me for it.”

“You’re also an asshole,” Katie said fondly.

“Probably.” Brendan gave her a teasing, sidelong smile. His thumb slid across the inside of her wrist in a gesture that he probably wasn’t aware of, though it made goosebumps stand up on her arm.

She gently disentangled their hands so she wasn’t tempted to do something ill-advised. Like press her lips to the hollow of his throat and taste his skin, salty with sweat. They were getting back on the horse with skating, and so long as they stuck to their established boundaries, they would stay there.

“We should do something tonight,” Brendan said.

“Yeah?” Katie asked cautiously. With them returning to a fragile equilibrium, she didn’t want to tempt fate.

“Yeah.” Brendan echoed her. “Tonight, Portland. Tomorrow, off to ... wherever the hell cow town we’re going to. I want to enjoy civilization while we can.”

“Excuse you?” Katie laughed, but she wasn’t amused. She was shocked. And uncomfortable. And really, really disappointed.

“What? Oh. No offense to your cows of course.”

“No offense to my cows?” Katie repeated, incredulous. She folded her arms over her chest, glad she had already let go of his hand. “What makes my cows special?”

“They’re ....” Brendan floundered for a moment. “I dunno, Katie. I was just saying.”

“Well, just don’t say things like that. It really makes you sound like an asshole. ‘Civilization.’” She snorted. “You’re from Minneapolis. Not New York.”

“Not so special as I think?” he teased.

Katie was not in the mood for teasing. “No,” she said sharply. “Not so special at all.”