Chapter Twenty-Four
Nate was not a romantic gift-giver by nature.
He always defaulted to the practical. When he needed to give someone a gift, he asked the recipient what they wanted.
With Marty they’d gone so far as to purchase the items together and use them immediately rather than wrap them and wait for the occasion, be it birthday, anniversary, or Christmas.
NHL money made it easy to buy extravagant gifts, and extravagance could make up for the lack of romance and surprise, Nate often found.
But Aubrey wasn’t Marty. Aubrey had never been in a romantic relationship before Nate.
And Aubrey also wouldn’t be impressed with simple extravagance; he’d grown up with that.
No, the way to please him would be to surprise him with something that showed how well Nate knew him.
Nate was going to get him a romantic, thoughtful gift if it killed him, goddammit.
If the holiday crowds were any indication, it might.
He went to the bookstore first. With a clerk’s help, he found a few prospective series in similar veins to those he knew Aubrey liked, all in paperback, and bought the first two books in each set.
He was turning away from the cash desk when a child of about five or six ran into his leg and looked up with that expectant expression that children get when they look at their parents, which turned to easily read horror when he realized Nate was a stranger.
“Jimmy,” called a woman about Nate’s age from close to the door. She had a stroller as well, and a man wearing a similar coat to Nate’s stood next to her. “Sorry,” she said to Nate as Jimmy ran toward her, relief plain in his posture.
He shook his head and smiled. “It’s fine.”
Jimmy took his father’s hand and they walked away.
Cute kid, Nate thought wistfully.
Maybe someday.
After the bookstore, he puttered around the mall for an hour and popped in and out of shops, searching for inspiration.
Aubrey had mentioned that the knives provided at his rental weren’t up to snuff, so Nate picked up a nice set, but that didn’t really count.
He was tempted by a gorgeous cream sweater in an upscale department store, but it was a thick cable knit.
Wouldn’t Aubrey roast wearing that in Vegas?
Instead he found himself fingering a very fine silk shirt in navy, with a pattern of tiny martini glasses.
He liked the whimsy of it, and it reminded him of that first night in Winnipeg.
Aubrey would’ve had something to say about it.
He would have teased Nate until Nate blushed and suggested they could recreate that night once they got home.
The thought made Nate feel suddenly very alone, but he bought the shirt anyway because Aubrey would love it.
But it wasn’t romantic. It didn’t feel like enough. Aubrey had asked him to move across the country, and he’d said no. He needed something good, something that would let Aubrey know, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted them to have a future together.
He paused in front of a swimwear shop, lost in thought.
And then he had an idea.
Aubrey hadn’t worn a harness since his first jump, when he was eight or so.
And that had been nothing like this. He certainly had never landed a triple axel only to leap again and twirl midair to end up dangling crotch-first from an arena ceiling while acrobats on long cloth apparatuses performed aerial feats on either side.
He couldn’t wait to do this in front of an audience… except for one thing.
When the show started, he’d have even less opportunity to spend time with Nate.
With performances three nights a week and Nate needed in Chicago for filming three nights, the odds of them finding time to be together in person seemed stacked against them.
Aubrey missed him.
He’d never lived with a boyfriend—obviously, since he’d never had one—and his only roommates had been temporary ones at competitions.
He was used to being alone… or he had been.
These days he found himself turning on the television just so the house felt less empty.
He had Greg over for dinner one night because he missed cooking and couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to make dinner just for himself.
Greg took one look around, raised his eyebrows, and immediately opened the wine he’d brought. But he didn’t made Aubrey talk about it, so that was nice.
The tech in charge of Aubrey’s wire lowered him smoothly back to the ice, moving him laterally so he could transition seamlessly into skating. After that, it was just one more spin and that segment of the program was over.
The gymnasts dismounted as well. One of them, Kyla, must have spotted someone she knew, because she hopped off the ice and right into someone’s arms. They spun her around, and she laughed with joy. Apparently she didn’t get enough twirling in the air.
How did people do it? How did they make relationships work?
Most of the professional athletes he’d trained with were either single or married to their training partner.
The ones who played team sports seemed to fare better—at least they’d be home about half the time and their spouses would have each other for a support group when they weren’t.
But those athletes could be traded at any time.
Then what? Their families were just supposed to pick everything up and trail after them?
What about their schools, their friends, their jobs?
It seemed like a lot to sacrifice. He was starting to understand that.
Aubrey was still turning that over in his brain when he walked past Kyla and realized the person who’d twirled her around was Greg, who must’ve been waiting for the next segment.
Greg waved at him as he passed but otherwise didn’t pull his attention from Kyla. Had they known each other before Greg moved out here? Or had they somehow forged a connection in the past two weeks?
Aubrey unbuckled his harness, handed it back to the prop master, and retreated to the locker room. Reflexively, he checked his phone. No missed calls.
Well, Nate knew his practice schedule by now. Aubrey would call from the car on his way home, like he usually did.
He just hoped he could steer the conversation away from any Christmas plans.
He wanted to spend time with Nate, but his mother had specifically asked him to come home to attend his cousin’s wedding and spend the holidays with his family.
Aubrey couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, and he’d been at odds with them for so long. He felt like he had to go.
Aubrey had convinced himself he didn’t need Nate to put him first. He’d taken the job instead of putting Nate first, and Nate stayed in Chicago instead of putting Aubrey first, and now Aubrey might not see him at Christmas either.
How did people actually do this?
Maybe I should just give up.
But as he was reaching into his locker for his towel, the light on his phone blinked. He reached over and swiped to unlock.
It was a text message from Caley—no words, just a picture that took a moment to download. When it did, he was treated to a photograph of Nate and Carter Ng mid pillow fight, Nate with his weapon raised over his head and Carter in the process of a wide sideways swipe, inches from making contact.
A moment later, a text message followed. He misses you.
Aubrey enlarged the picture, memorizing the smile lines around Nate’s eyes.
What was it like for Kelly to leave her family every weekend? Aubrey imagined she must hate it. He’d seen how close the three of them were, and it would be worse now that Caley was pregnant.
On the other hand, while she was gone part of the weekend and two weeknights, she had the rest of her days free to spend time with Carter, bring Caley lunch at work, cook family meals…. There was a happy medium there somewhere.
Aubrey just didn’t know how to find it.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you or am I going to have to guess? I haven’t slept through the night in a week because an embryo the size of a goldfish cracker has moved in to the apartment above my bladder, and my patience is shot.”
Nate blinked at Caley. Hadn’t it only been two days ago that he’d been at her and Kelly’s place, having a pillow fight? How had they gotten to this? “Uh. Hi to you too.”
She pushed past him into his apartment and handed him a tub of ice cream. “Spoons,” she demanded imperiously, holding her own ice cream under one arm. “Chop-chop. Also I’m using your bathroom.”
Well, that was why she was the captain.
Nate procured spoons as well as napkins and glasses of water, and when Caley emerged from the bathroom, she picked up right where she left off.
“So you’re a miserable sad sack, and it’s making Kelly cry.
Not literally, she doesn’t cry, but you’re upsetting my wife and I’m pregnant.
I need to have dibs on the mood swings. What gives? ”
He huffed. “Aside from the obvious?”
Caley rolled her eyes. “Look. The past couple weeks have been challenging. I get it. But humor me. Pregnancy brain is real. Is this about the show or about Aubrey leaving?”
Nate didn’t know that he was emotionally capable of separating the two right then. But apparently he really did need to talk about it, because he offered hesitantly, “Yes?”
“Oh good, an easy one.” Caley dug a prodigious scoop of ice cream from the carton. “Do you want to elaborate, or am I going to have to play Twenty Questions?”
They’d run out of ice cream long before they came to any useful observations that way. “I didn’t expect the show to be sold. I thought it’d be canceled or go on as it was. I wasn’t ready for this.”
Caley nodded and licked ice cream from her thumb. “That’s fair. It’s a big change.”
But not the worst of it, actually. “I don’t like the direction the show is taking. It feels like a betrayal of everything Jess and I worked to make it. And I know the network is forcing her out of her role.”
“And Paul is an asshat.”