The Inside Edge, page 4
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 was preempted. It gave him time to catch up on his Netflix shows—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 somehow 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 that no-goal. Roll the tape.”
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.”
Chapter Five
LIVING IN a single place rather than following a competition circuit might have felt weird if Aubrey didn’t spend most weekends traveling for a game. A set work schedule that had him at the office at the same time two nights a week felt strange too; until recently he’d been training six days a week. Suddenly he had all this time—entire days he didn’t have to be anywhere or do anything.
Part of him wanted to ask Nate how he handled it. He figured it must have been the same for him when he retired from playing. But then he reminded himself that it had taken an entire week to talk Nate into carpooling to work with him, so probably that was too personal a question.
At least the show seemed to be doing well.
Congrats, you’re a meme! Jackson texted, along with a variety of fireworks emojis and a party hat. A GIF followed—first a clip of an opposing player catching up to a Bruin with the puck behind the net in Boston’s defensive zone, picking his pocket, and scoring, then a cut to Aubrey: At least one of these guys is gonna end up in the harbor.
Aubrey snorted, amused. Wow, now I’ve really made it.
The phone rang a minute later. “Dude, like three different guys have made me promise they get to do the interview with you when we play Chicago next,” Jackson told him over the phone, laughing. “Do you know how much these assholes hate talking to the media?”
Aubrey did not know, but when he asked Nate on the way to the studio one night, “Who would you rather have for a phone interview—Jean-Marc Poisson, Jordie Hamilton, or Nikita Namestnikov?” Nate looked at him like he was crazy.
“None of those guys is going to give us an interview.”
So apparently Aubrey had an ace up his sleeve the next time they covered Seattle. Maybe he could talk Jess into doing a panel interview or something.
When he brought it up with her—his first time alone in her office since his royal chewing-out—she seemed interested in the idea but distracted. Aubrey wondered if their numbers were still struggling. He knew they wouldn’t have dropped John and brought him on if the situation were anything but dire.
“That’s not a bad idea, actually. You know, I always expected Nate would be the one using his contacts for ideas like this,” Jess mused.
“Technically I think they’re using me, this time around. I guess we have fans.”
That got a smile, albeit one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. He probably still had a way to go earning back her trust. “Wonders never cease.”
Aubrey managed a weak smile back, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Look, I know my contract says you don’t have to tell me anything about the show, but… is everything okay?”
She opened her mouth to answer—or maybe to tell him off for being nosy—but before she could say anything, her cell phone rang. The contact on the screen was Larry Melchor, the owner of the network. Aubrey wondered if that was an answer in and of itself.
“Sorry, he’ll just call back six more times if I don’t answer,” Jess said, and she did actually sound apologetic.
“Sure.” Aubrey backed toward the door, tamping down the impulse to feel sad. Jess wasn’t ignoring him; she just had important things to do, and the show was still in trouble. “I’ll see myself out.” Maybe he’d stop at the coffee shop downstairs and grab pastries for the ride home. He could get his dose of appreciation from Nate instead.
But despite his occasional worries about his job, as the weeks passed, Aubrey fell into a comfortable routine—work, skating with Greg, skating by himself. On his off days, he checked out museums or went shopping or explored the city. If the weather sucked, he put his headphones in and went downstairs to the building’s pool and swam laps until his legs felt like jelly. He went out clubbing a couple times, but he didn’t connect with anyone, and the whole process just brought home to him that his friends had scattered across the globe, either still competing or working as coaches, and the closest thing he had to a gay friend in Chicago was Nate.
That thought didn’t quite horrify him, but it didn’t comfort him either. Maybe he shouldn’t look too closely at his life.
Fortunately he still had Greg, even if he was tragically heterosexual.
“You are such a diva,” Greg said fondly from the bench, where he was running a new set of laces through a skate after the old ones had snapped.
“I was a professional goddamn figure skater.” Aubrey let that sink in as he scrolled through Greg’s phone for a song he wanted—it’d take him a few minutes to gear back up, and Aubrey didn’t waste ice time. “At the risk of making myself sound exactly as old as I actually am, duh.”
And then he passed the perfect song and thought, Yes.
He took a lap around the ice as a typical cheesy eighties synth intro played, and then he caught Caley’s eye as she came to the bench. She’d been coming earlier and earlier to watch the show, because her team somehow always had the time slot right after theirs, even though the league had four teams—and he swung by the bench and borrowed her stick.
“Diva!” Greg shouted.
Aubrey flipped him off and skated away with his makeshift microphone to go be ridiculous.
“Oh my God,” Caley shouted when the lyrics started. “Is this from The Cutting Edge?”
Aubrey ignored her as he tried to work out how to do a lutz while holding a hockey stick. He managed not to fall, somehow, but didn’t think he’d quite achieved graceful. Room for improvement. Greg and Caley catcalled and cheered anyway.
Truth told, while Aubrey had seen the movie a handful of times, he only half remembered the lyrics to the song. Fortunately it didn’t much matter. A double axel later and he managed to knock the stick out of his own hands, sending it clattering to the ice, so he improvised thirty seconds’ worth of program and then went down on one leg to shoot the duck, snagging the stick off the ice as he came up right at the chorus of “Feels Like Forever.”
