Chapter Four
They didn’t have a show Thursday, preempted by some kind of network special on Michael Phelps or something; Aubrey didn’t care enough to pay attention.
Instead he took the time to grocery shop, catch up on his Twitter feed, and work out in the gym in his building.
Jackson had texted him a blow-by-blow breakdown of the show when he watched yesterday, and Aubrey was pretending to give him the silent treatment for insinuating that Aubrey wanted to get in his cohost’s pants.
He did—Nate was, like, five-alarm-fire hot, with an absurd shoulder-to-waist ratio and the hockey ass and that carefully clean-cut image that made Aubrey want to mess him up—but Nate was married, and Aubrey was a grown-ass man, and he wasn’t going to be a creep.
But if he said that to Jackson, Jackson would say “methinks the boy doth protest too much,” and then Aubrey would have to fly to Seattle and maim him.
He capped off the day with a trip to his therapist, who handed him a notebook and no-nonsense instructions.
“You’ve got to stop believing everything is about you or has to be about you,” she said, waving the book until he took it.
“So next time you find yourself getting worked up because you think someone’s ignoring you, I want you to write down what other things they might have on their mind.
And every time someone spends time with you or does something considerate of you, you’re going to write that down too. ”
Aubrey had thought graduating from high school meant the end of homework, but apparently not. He couldn’t exactly say he didn’t need to do this work either. He wanted to change, so he accepted the assignment with a mental note to get a really obnoxious sparkly plastic cover for the book.
Friday morning he got a text from a guy he used to train with—free ice time in exchange for a practiced eye and some feedback while he worked up a routine to audition for one of the on-ice Cirque shows in Vegas.
In Chicago it wasn’t so much about paying for ice time—Aubrey’s trust fund handled that—but finding an open slot could be challenging. Besides, he hadn’t seen Greg in ages.
Which was how he found himself standing at center ice in a rink that had seen better days—probably sometime in the sixties, judging by the hockey pennants hanging from the rafters. But beggars and choosers, et cetera. The ice was smooth. Aubrey didn’t care about anything else.
“So, Cirque, eh?”
Greg barely nodded as he started a warm-up lap of long, elegant backward crossovers. Aubrey kept pace with him easily, neither of them pushing yet. “Too old to compete,” Greg said, flicking his gaze at Aubrey and then toward the ceiling.
God, didn’t Aubrey know how that felt. “Figure skating has completely ruined ‘Pretty Young Thing’ for me, I’ll tell you that.”
With a snort, Greg segued into a breezy one eighty, arms outstretched. “Let me shed a tear for you, white boy. Come on. No one’s prettier than you,” he teased.
“Sorry, I don’t fuck straight guys,” Aubrey laughed and put on a burst of speed. Three more long strides and he toe-picked into a casual single axel.
“Tuck your arms in, you’re sloppy.”
Aubrey flipped him the bird. “Do I look like I’m trying to impress you?
” He had ice time a couple days a week to stay in shape.
Now that he had retired, he got to skate because he loved it.
Though it admittedly wasn’t quite as much fun without thousands of people watching.
“What kind of routine are you putting together, anyway?” He caught up to Greg and matched him stride for stride, holding his arms out at his sides to mimic his posture, the way pairs skaters might.
“You wanna try some lifts? I might have to hit the gym first.” Greg had an inch and probably ten pounds on him, which Aubrey might have been able to handle if he’d ever skated pairs.
“I was thinking something a little less….”
“Gay?” Aubrey offered dryly.
Greg pivoted and kept going backward. “You said it, not me. But I was thinking something Broadway style, maybe? Big gestures, overdrawn emotion, that sort of thing. Plenty to choose from that have two male parts. ‘That Guy’ from Blood Brothers. ‘Consider Yourself’ from Oliver! ‘The Confrontation’ from Les Mis.”
Aubrey raised an eyebrow as Greg broke away for a lutz. Not much to critique there; he executed it perfectly. “You made the leap from ‘less gay’ right to show tunes, huh.”
“Hey, no stereotyping.”
They finished their warmup, which got competitive about five minutes in, and then took a quick break for water and to scroll through playlists on Greg’s phone.
Aubrey had a reasonable knowledge of musical theater, but he didn’t recognize all the songs, so they cued up a few to listen to while they freestyled.
Before Aubrey knew it, their time ran out—the doors to the locker rooms kept banging open and closed as a hockey team trickled in.
“Cool-down?” Greg suggested. He skated over to his phone to change the playlist.
Aubrey nodded and reached for his water bottle, breathing hard.
His muscles sang with exertion, and he imagined happy little exercise endorphins dancing through his veins.
Skating didn’t feel as good as sex, not by a long shot.
But he hadn’t exactly been tearing up the club scene lately, and the exertion loosened him up in the same way.
He grinned when Greg changed the playlist over to disco. “You’re sure you’re straight?” He paused. “Actually, scratch that. Are you sure you’re not as old as the kids make you feel?”
Greg threw a sweaty towel at him. “You wanna go, tough guy?” He backed up, making a “bring it” gesture.
Aubrey snorted but put up his fists—all for show—and skated after him anyway. “Have you ever even been in a fight?”
“I was a straight black kid who was into figure skating,” Greg said wryly.
“Fair point.” Aubrey threw an easy faux punch in time to the beat of “Hot Stuff.”
Greg faked taking a hit and went into a camel spin. “What about you?”
“I got in a hockey fight once. I was seven.”
“Aww.”
Since neither of them had much experience, their “fight” quickly evolved into a dance-off, with “Stayin’ Alive” echoing from the speakers as they got increasingly ridiculous. Greg knew all the lyrics. Even Aubrey had to admit he was killing it.
He probably had to add this into the notebook.
When the last strains faded, hoots and applause echoed from the bench. Aubrey broke his dramatic disco pose and looked over to see a mixed group of hockey players tapping their sticks against the boards. He bowed flamboyantly, then motioned to Greg and began to applaud.
Someone whistled. Wait a second—Aubrey recognized that face. “Caley!” He ambled over for a fist bump. “Haven’t seen you since PyeongChang.” She’d played for Team Canada, so they’d seen each other around the Village. “How’s retirement?”
“Eh.” She grinned. “Ice time sucks, but the pregame show just got a lot better.” She made eyes at Greg, which was hilarious, since Aubrey was pretty sure she was strictly into women.
Oh boy. “You should see us do ‘It’s Raining Men.’” Greg slid smoothly up next to Aubrey, grinning.
“Might have to take you boys up on that.” She cut back to Aubrey and jerked a gloved hand over her shoulder. “We can’t all get cushy retirement gigs like you and Donut over here.”
Startled, Aubrey followed her gesture and met gazes with a wide-eyed Nate, who looked…
. Aubrey took in the suddenly defensive posture, the way he broke Aubrey’s gaze to stare over his left shoulder, the bright spots of color on his cheeks when he hadn’t even touched the ice yet.
He looked guilty. “Caught with his hand in the cookie jar” guilty.
Maybe Aubrey shouldn’t have said what he said about Nate needing to get laid, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true—not if a married man was looking at Aubrey like that.
“Didn’t you go into sports medicine?” Aubrey said, mostly to cover that he didn’t know what to say to Nate.
“I did, and you’re gonna need it if you don’t get off the ice and let the Zamboni do its job. Clock’s ticking, twinkle toes.”
“Hockey players. So bloodthirsty,” he teased. But he was grateful for the out. He didn’t want to examine how he felt about being the cookies when Nate was on a diet plan. Instead he just nodded to the group and made for the gate. “Guess I’ll see you next week.”
Mercifully, Greg didn’t ask about it as they showered and changed back into street clothes. But Aubrey thought about it all the way back to his apartment, all the way up to his floor, all the way through sorting his laundry and ordering a late dinner and an episode of Umbrella Academy.
He was still thinking about it when the delivery guy left and he realized he had no idea what was happening on his show. He sighed and leaned back against the couch, tipping his head up to the ceiling. Goddammit.
Nate was used to traveling weekends to do an on-site show, but that weekend they stuck around to film an extra episode to make up for the one that got preempted.
It gave him time to catch up on Netflix—at least that was what he told himself—but by the time Thursday rolled around, he was so sick of his apartment and his own company he could’ve screamed.
The vase on the console table had entered full-on “Yellow Wallpaper” territory.
With its iridescent coloring and oddly irregular shape covered in bulbous protrusions, it reminded him of something a giant squid might have shat out.
He’d made a habit of showing up to set extra early ever since last Tuesday, as if he could make up for previous lateness, and today was no exception. Only today, before he could make it as far as Makeup, Jess poked her head out of her office and beckoned him inside. “Nate! Can I have a minute?”
He followed her in and took the chair across from hers, his stomach sinking. The past few times he’d come in here, the news had not been good. Figuring she’d called him in to chew him out for his on-air animosity with Aubrey, he braced himself and asked, “What’s up?”
“Ratings, actually.”
Nate blinked in an attempt to mask his surprise. He and Aubrey barely managed a veneer of civility on the air. He’d figured viewers would find it juvenile. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s great.” Jess leaned back in her chair and raised her ever-present coffee mug in a toast. “I can’t believe you bit your tongue around John for three years and Aubrey Chase is the one who makes you lose it, but thank God you never got to be friends.”
“People really enjoy us going after each other that much?”
Jess shrugged. “Guess so. Maybe they miss hockey fights and this is their replacement. I have to say, I personally prefer it to the blood.” She set her coffee mug down and picked up her tablet, which she handed across the table. “Voila.”
Nate looked down to see… a screenshot from the station’s Twitter account. Nothing stuck out to him as being particularly noteworthy. “What’s this?”
“That is a list of trending hashtags in Chicago last weekend. You booted the Bears right off the map. Which, considering how often and how vocally people complain about the Bears, is impressive.”
Sure enough, in the right-hand column, #InsideEdge proclaimed in bold blue letters that yes, people were talking about them, though Nate still wondered why. “That’s great, I guess.”
“Oh, you guess. Yes, it’s great. Swipe left, check out what the critics are saying.”
@EndicottFleetman—If you thought the departure of John Plum meant there was nothing worth watching on hockey TV, check out this clip from The Inside Edge. These guys have it.
Below was a video. Nate tapped the icon to play it.
“First we have the Maple Leafs, who, despite a third-period push, weren’t able to overcome the Sabres’ defense—” That was Nate.
“Or the frankly terrible officiating.” The camera panned over to Aubrey, who was rolling his eyes. Nate hadn’t caught that before, but he had noticed Jess holding two thumbs up. Nate had rolled with that.
“An odd complaint, since Buffalo and Toronto each received three minors in the last frame.” Nate smiled his most professional, confident smile at the camera.
“Buffalo—too many men, delay of game, and oh, a face-off violation in the O-zone, but nothing for cross-checking or slashing when Toronto got called for poltergeist activity.” In contrast to Nate’s demeanor, Aubrey was smirking.
At the time it had been annoying, but now, seeing it like their audience, Nate had to admit it was engaging, even funny, with Aubrey playing the snarker and Nate the straight man.
“Poltergeist activity?”
“I’m not sure what else you call goaltender interference that isn’t observable on this plane of existence. Maybe the ref has an e-meter?”
Nate had looked directly at the camera. “While my cohost auditions for Ghost Hunters, why don’t the rest of us check out a replay of that no-goal.”
The video ended and Nate saw the number of likes and retweets.
He couldn’t remember any of his clips with John getting this kind of attention.
He was still worried people were going to see this chemistry and assume they were sleeping together, but he couldn’t do anything about that.
He could continue doing what he was doing and maybe save the show.
Nate put the tablet back on the table. “So we’re off the chopping block?”
“I—”
A rapid knock at the door interrupted, and a second later, Bob poked his head in. He flicked his gaze over Nate and then seemed to dismiss him. “Hey, boss. You got a minute? I have the breakdown for the new ad-space projections I need to go over.”
Nate turned back toward Jess so he could safely roll his eyes.
She met his gaze with a flat look and tilted her head.
Nate guessed they wouldn’t be getting anything else accomplished today, since Bob had a tendency to hijack meetings without regard for other people getting work done, specifically in situations that didn’t include him.
“We’ll finish up later?” Nate offered, trying to save Jess the trouble of trying to walk the line between being nice and telling Bob to take a hike. “I should get to Makeup anyway.”
Jess’s expression said she’d have preferred to tell Bob to take a hike, but they both knew he’d sulk for three days. “Go,” she said. “Put a tack on Aubrey’s chair or something. Or maybe pretend he put one on yours.”
After seeing that eye roll, Nate wouldn’t have to pretend to be annoyed. “See you on set.”