by A. E. Wasp
And if they fell apart, if they were in an indie film and not a mainstream romance, it would devastate him. So he had to be sure. As sure as he could be.
The only thing they hadn’t done was anything sexual; the only place in their relationship where it wasn’t too late to apply the brakes, was in bed. Running a washcloth under the warm water, he wiped the remaining shaving cream off Sergei’s face. Then he reached for the aftershave he knew Sergei liked and patted it on his skin. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom,” he said, gently pushing Sergei away so he could hop down off the counter.
Sergei kept his hand on Alex’s waist. It was his turn to tilt Alex’s chin up. Alex forced himself to meet Sergei’s eyes. The look he saw in them took his breath away. It looked a lot like love. It looked like forever.
“Can I kiss you?” Sergei asked quietly. “Is that within your rules?”
Alex could only nod.
Sergei kept his hands on Alex’s waist, above his shirt. Alex braced his hands on Sergei’s biceps, thrilling in the feel of the rock-hard muscle. He was beginning to love the way he had to rise on his tiptoes to kiss Sergei.
Sergei kissed him gently, pulled away, and then leaned down to do it over and over again. He didn’t try to force his way into Alex’s mouth, didn’t haul Alex against him. Just dropped a gentle rain of kisses on Alex that threatened to drown him.
His whole body trembling, Alex lowered himself to his feet. He rested his head against Sergei’s chest. Sergei rubbed up and down his back. It was almost a hug.
This was too much. Tears threatened, and he had to change the energy in this suddenly-too-small bathroom before he did something stupid like run away, or scream, or ask Sergei to marry him.
Bumping his head gently against Sergei’s chest, he pulled away and then walked into the bedroom. "Okay,” he said, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he felt. “I feel like we forgot the most obvious rule: no sex."
"Define sex," Sergei said, coming out of the bathroom.
Alex frowned at him. “Who are you, Bill Clinton all of a sudden? You know what I mean.”
“For how long? No sex ever?”
“Until I say so,” Alex answered with a grin, hands on his hips.
Sergei raised his bushy eyebrows. “Only you get to decide? That seems unfair.” Much to Alex’s relief, he went over to his bureau and pulled out a light blue Thunder t-shirt.
“True. How about until we decide together?” Alex compromised, still smiling.
Sergei’s face when it popped out of the shirt collar was more serious. “Until next year,” he said.
“That’s only ten days away,” Alex pointed out.
Sergei fiddled with the hem of his shirt, then searched deliberately through his top drawer for a pair of socks. “How long will it take?” he asked so quietly Alex could barely hear him.
“How long will what take, exactly?” Alex asked, walking closer until he stood in front of Sergei again. It didn’t matter what his mind said, Alex’s body was drawn to Sergei’s like they were opposite poles of a magnet.
“Until you make up your mind about me?”
It suddenly hit Alex that Sergei was worried Alex didn’t feel the same way about Sergei that he felt about Alex. And what way is that, exactly? a niggling voice in his head asked. Alex told the voice to shut the fuck up. He’d only been thinking of his own potential pain; it hadn’t occurred to him that he had the power to hurt Sergei just as much.
He would die first. “Come here.” He took Sergei by the hand and led him over to the bed. They sat on the end, facing each other. Alex held both of Sergei’s hands.
“Serhoya, you know I love you. I always have. But you want to move from my best friend to boyfriend literally overnight. I know you’ve had this revelation. It’s insanely flattering, and I’d be lying if I said a large part of me didn’t want to jump off this cliff with you. But I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I need to know that I can take care of myself; that I’m not with you because I’m scared and I have nowhere else to go.”
Sergei started to say something, but Alex covered his mouth. “Shh. Because right now? Today? I am here because I have nowhere else to go. And in a way, it feels like shit. I’ll feel better when I’m not worried you think of me as some, some, fair maiden in need of rescue.”
“I don’t,” Sergei said, the rarely used contraction slipping out in his haste to reassure Alex.
Alex squeezed Sergei’s calloused hands tightly. “Just give me some time to catch up. Okay?” He smiled and smoothed Sergei’s hair off his forehead. “Just a little time.”
Sergei nodded. “Da. Okay.” He put his socks on and walked to the closet, dodging the cats who were taking advantage of a sunbeam that had managed to push through the cloud cover and paint a stripe on the carpet.
He came back to the bed with a pair of shoes in his hand. “So, things that are not sex,” he asked, standing in front of Alex, “how long do I have to wait for those?” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the bed and forcing Alex to lean back. He hovered over Alex, not touching him anywhere.
“How long until I can touch you under your clothes? Until I can feel your skin wherever I want? When can I get my mouth on you? How many days for that?” His voice was an unfairly sexy rumble.
Alex's mouth went dry. He was so proud of Sergei; he might be late getting into it, but the man had some serious game. Alex reached up and put a hand on Sergei’s chest. “New rule, only for you. No talking. At all. No sexy talking. You’re evil.”
“So I can’t talk, and I can’t touch. Soon everything will be on this list.” Sergei crossed his arms over his chest and frowned.
“That’s because everything can be sex.”
Sergei looked skeptical. “Only sex is sex.”
“Holding hands is sex if you do it right.”
Sergei frowned in disbelief.
“I’ll show you.” Alex might regret the demonstration he was about to provide, but he knew it would get Sergei all hot and bothered. He considered it payback for those stupid kisses in the bathroom.
He took Sergei’s hand and turned it palm up. Sergei’s hands were strong, huge, and callused from decades of holding a hockey stick. Alex remembered Sergei’s hand on his cock; he had felt the heat of it even through his clothing.
Alex’s fingers traced a path across the width of the warm hand; then he stroked his thumb across the pulse in his wrist. Sergei’s eyes locked on Alex’s finger, his breath hitching when Alex used his fingernail to draw a spiral at the center of his palm. Alex switched his concentration to the soft spaces between Sergei’s fingers, caressing them with a feather-light touch, then gripping each finger between two of his and dragging them up to Sergei’s fingertips.
Sergei exhaled loudly, shivering in anticipation as Alex worked his magic one finger at a time. By the time he finished, Alex was hard in his jeans, and he knew Sergei must be as well.
He let Sergei’s hand drop and stepped away.
Sergei’s jaw hung open, a pink flush covering his cheekbones.
“Believe me now?”
Sergei nodded.
“Don’t get so caught up in semantics. Sex is ninety percent mental.”
Sergei cleared his throat. “I have to…um, brush teeth. I forgot.” Judging by the huge bulge in his jeans, Sergei obviously had to take care of something more personal than dental care.
Alex would have as well if he hadn’t already jerked off in the shower earlier. He would probably have to do it again later today.
Sergei looked dazed, and it was Alex’s turn to be smug. He stood on tiptoe and pulled Sergei’s head down. “Come here.” He gave him a chaste kiss. “Think of me while you ‘brush your teeth,’” he whispered. “I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”
11
Alex
The ride to the practice rink added a few more rules including ‘both hands on the steering wheel if you’re driving a car that costs over $200,000,’ and ‘no calling Sergei Ha
ndsy McHanderson,’ which would later be amended to add ‘in public.’
Sergei was meeting his backup goalie, Jim McVicker, to work with him on some things their goalie coach had suggested. He’d suggested that working with Alex would help a lot, but Vicky wasn’t sold on the idea. He also wasn’t sold on being called Vicky, but after years of being on a hockey team, he answered to it more readily than he answered to Jim.
Nausea bubbled in Alex’s stomach. Allie hadn’t cancelled the skating lesson. Alex had wanted to say something to her over the phone, but it seemed such a cowardly way to tell someone you had been screwing their husband. Even if Charles had told Alex he was divorced, Alex should have known he was lying.
He owed Allie the courtesy of telling her in person so she could hit him if she wanted do. She probably would want to. He wanted to punch himself half the time.
The sounds and smells of the rink were as familiar to Alex as the faces of his parents. The cut of blades through the ice, the artificial chill, and the way sounds echoed in the open space. Over the years, he’d spent more time on the ice than with them. Despite his concerns over money and the tightrope of emotion he was walking, he couldn’t help feeling lighter and happier than he had in a long time.
Sergei’s assertiveness thrilled him, sending shivers down his spine every time he recalled the way his voice had sounded when he’d asked how long it would be before he could get his mouth on Alex.
Alex yanked his puffy silver zippered jacket down over his crotch and shifted on the hard wooden bench. He had to stop thinking about that. The pants he wore for skating emphasized rather than disguised his junk on a normal day. If he got hard, he’d probably be arrested for indecent exposure.
Leaning down to give a final check to the laces of his skates, he smirked, picturing old ladies screaming and moms covering their precious children’s eyes as he skated around the rink pitching a tent in his bright blue stretch pants.
“What’s so funny?” a woman’s voice close to his ear asked.
Alex startled, hand to his heart. “B'en crisse, Allie! You scared me!”
With her shiny long blonde hair, wide smiling mouth, and guileless blue eyes, she reminded Alex of a happy golden retriever puppy. As they hugged hello, Alex knew that it would feel exactly like kicking that same puppy in the ribs when he told her about Charles’s infidelity and his part in it.
Of course, he would tell her that he hadn’t known Charles was married, that he had believed all of his lies. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d have a lot of sympathy for him. She would probably be disgusted with his gullibility as well as hating him for sleeping with her husband.
“You’re really out of it,” Allie said, sitting down on the bench next to him. “And I know that smile. Did you find a special somebody? Tell me everything,” she teased, elbowing him gently. A tissue-paper-stuffed Christmas bag rested on the floor between her feet.
To his great surprise, Alex found that he desperately wanted to talk to someone about Sergei. Someone to help him process what the heck was going on. He hadn’t had time to make any friends in Seattle yet. Most of his friends were skaters or former skaters, and they were scattered to the far corners of the world.
How sad was it that the person he talked to the most was his ex-lover's wife?
“Kind of,” he admitted with a small smile. It was so hard not to look over to where Sergei and Vicky were stretching on the ice.
Allie clapped her hands over her mouth. “I knew it! I want to hear all about it.” Her smile dropped. “But it’s going to have to wait until after I get back from vacation. Yay,” she said with an eye roll.
“You don’t sound excited.” Alex looked more deeply at her. There was a worried crease between her eyes and dark circles under them. Her normal vivacity felt a little forced.
“Are the kids at the snack counter?” He would be surprised if they were; Allie never left them alone.
Allie shook her head. “The kids aren’t coming today. And they aren’t happy about it. Believe it or not, they’re actually with Charles. Think he can keep them alive for an entire hour?” She laughed bitterly.
He was going to puke. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d puked in an ice rink, but usually it was due to the pressure of competition, not guilt. Last time she had mentioned the kids being with Charles, he’d assumed it was because it was his turn to have them, not because he was their father and lived in the same house as they did.
“Oh, now you don’t look so happy,” she said. “I know I should have called you, so you didn’t have to get all changed, but I wanted to see you before I left. I’m sorry.”
Alex laid a hand on her knee. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever touched her before. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He was the one who was sorry. She hadn’t done anything wrong besides sharing his terrible taste in men.
Allie shrugged and picked up the package. She didn’t hand it to him. Instead, she toyed with the red tissue paper, ripping strips off the thin sheet. She looked down at her feet, hair curtaining her face.
He had the urge to push her hair back from her face and hug her. Before last night, guilt had kept him from accepting the hand of friendship Allie kept extending. He could see it hurt her, but he just couldn’t. He didn’t deserve her friendship.
But this was the start of a new, post-Charles, post-any kind of sugar daddy life. If Allie kept bringing the kids for lessons, one day he would get the nerve to tell her everything. He would be a friend to her.
Giving in to the urge, he smoothed her hair back, tucking it behind her ears.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She lifted her head and stared out over the ice. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh,” Alex said. “You look fine.” He gently pulled the shredded tissue paper out of her hands.
“Oh,” she said as if she just remembered she was holding it. “This is for you. The envelope is from me, and the wrapped gift is from the kids.”
Alex perked up. “The kids got me a present?”
“Made you a present. Don’t get too excited before you see it.”
“No one ever made me a present before,” Alex said softly, pulling out the rectangular package. The wrapping paper was crumpled and covered with tape. A small card was stuck to the top of it, so Alex started with that.
The front of the card was a winter scene with people ice skating on a pond. “Sweet,” Alex said, opening the card.
“They were very excited to find a ‘skating card.’” She made air quotes with her fingers.
Inside the card was a drawing that sprawled across both sides. One of the kids, presumably Zane, had drawn one tall person and two shorter people holding hands and skating. Each figure was labeled with an arrow pointing to the appropriate name. He’d even given the Alex figure a bun in his hair.
Daisy had painstakingly printed Merry Christmas, and Thank You Alex in big letters that staggered across the width of the card.
“Oh.” Alex covered his mouth with one hand, tears pricking at his eyelids. “That’s the sweetest thing…” He shook his head, not able to finish the sentence.
“Open it,” Allie said with a soft smile.
Alex carefully slid the card back into the bag, then ripped the paper off the box. He gasped when he lifted the lid off the small, flat box.
“Oh, Allie.” He looked up at her, knowing there were tears in his eyes and not caring. To his surprise, her eyes were bright, too.
“Zane made the frame. And, well, you can guess Daisy’s contribution.” She smiled as she ran her fingers across the dented and scratched bottle caps. “I took the picture.”
With shaking hands, Alex lifted the framed photo out of the box. The frame was made of painted and glittered popsicle sticks laid carefully in rows of three and glued together. Daisy had glued bottle caps to every open space.
The picture was of him and the kids on the ice. He was holding their hands. Daisy was laughing the same big laugh as her mother. Zane looked s
keptical, an expression he had a lot as a prematurely-jaded six-year-old. Alex could see the happiness on his own face clear as day.
“I remember this,” he whispered. “We were playing ring-around-the-rosie.” It was his favorite way to teach kids how to move sideways and help them get over their fear of falling. Because if there was one guarantee in life, it was that if you strapped blades on your feet and went out on the ice, you were going to fall. A lot.
“Do you like it?” Allie asked.
Alex carefully hugged the delicate frame to his chest. “It’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten,” he said truthfully, wiping away the tears that had escaped. God, he was a shit. He didn’t deserve any of this; he had to tell her.
Allie’s smile was genuine, but tears still shimmered in her eyes. She cleared her throat. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it.” He pulled it away from his chest to look at it again. Smiling, imagining the look on Daisy’s face as she picked out the perfect bottle caps, he traced his finger around the edges of the frame.
“Well, don’t throw the bag out,” Allie said, sounding like she had pulled herself together. “The envelope in there is from me. A thank you for being so good with the kids.”
“They’re great kids.”
“Thanks.”
An awkward silence fell between them. Alex carefully laid the frame in the box and put it back in the bag.
Allie stared over the ice with a small frown.
Alex got the feeling she had something she wanted to say and was debating whether or not to say it. He waited quietly, giving her the space to decide.
She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the short wall separating the bench from the ice. She looked like any other young mom in the area. Her casually expensive sweater topped a pair of tailored dark jeans tucked into leather boots. The coat draped over the bench next to her was stylish and perfect for the chilly, damp December weather.
