Chapter 14 #5
Sergio scrunches his face, wondering how someone like Jeremy, with all of his natural talent, could have such an answer. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I obviously love it, and I’m glad my dad took me to the rink, but believe me, this is not what he had in mind for me when we stepped into the pro shop to buy me gear.”
“Ahh.” Sergio nods his head yes in understanding. “He wanted you to be a hockey player.”
Jeremy points at him with his free hand. “Got it on your first try.”
“What can I say, I’m perceptive.”
“Clearly.” He takes a deep breath. “But yeah, let’s just say my father went through a whole swirl of emotions the moment I pointed at the figure skaters on the ice instead of the hockey players and declared that’s what I wanted to be.”
“I’m assuming he got over his feelings about that at some point.”
“He didn’t really have much of a choice.” He lets go of Sergio’s hand and loops around, then spins off in the other direction, leaving Sergio no other option but to skate after him the best he can.
When he eventually catches him, clumsily employing a snowplow stop to slow himself, he asks, “What was it about the figure skaters you liked back then that made you say no to your dad’s wishes?”
“Honestly?” Jeremy runs his hand through his hair.
“I was a kid. I was more impressed with how high they could jump and how fast they could spin.” He shrugs his shoulders, then grabs hold of Sergio’s hand and begins to skate again, pulling Sergio along with him.
“Although, looking back now, I may have made the wrong choice.”
“I’m not sure hockey would have been any better for your situation.”
“No, probably not.” Jeremy laughs again. “But …” He turns to smirk at Sergio. “The thought of being chased around the ice and smashed up against the glass by a bunch of men is something young me couldn’t have conceived at the time as being desirable.”
Sergio’s stomach drops. “Is that something you’d rather have now?”
“No.” Jeremy slows them to a stop. “One man is enough for me.”
“One man like me?”
“That remains to be seen.” He turns to come face-to-face with Sergio. “I still haven’t experienced this kiss you mentioned.”
“Is that all it’s going to take?”
“No.” He uses his toe pick to slide himself closer. “You of all people know I’m not that easy. But it’s a start.”
Sergio searches his eyes, finding that his sincerity and hope are reflected back at him. “I never thought you were easy.”
“And I never thought you were a total dog.”
Sergio furrows his brow. “I think you’re alone on that one.”
“Well, if it is how you say it is, and there is no tomorrow, let’s not worry about anyone else’s opinion at this moment.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“It can be. At least for today.” He reaches and places his hand onto Sergio’s shoulder, then uses his strong leg to twirl them like a pair of ice dancers. He’s chewing on his bottom lip when they come to a stop. “Am I right in supposing it’s around this time that you kiss me every day?”
“Just about,” Sergio says, staring at Jeremy’s trapped lip, the one he’s come to love and crave feeling against his own each of these days. “Until Henry comes storming down the stairs from your apartment and cock blocks us.”
“Oh, no.” Jeremy closes the gap between them. “We can’t have him do that.”
“There’s no stopping him.”
“There’s no stopping us either, is there?” he asks softly and cranes his neck the little bit he needs to bring his lips in line with Sergio’s.
“No. I don’t think there is,” Sergio says, and kisses him like he’s been kissing him for ages. Like there is no one else in the world that Sergio will ever need to kiss. Because there isn’t.
“Are you two kissing?” Henry’s voice echoes through the rink.
Sergio pulls away so their lips barely come apart. “Yeah, we’re kissing,” he says, then kisses Jeremy again.
“Mommy is gonna be so mad at you, Uncle Sergio,” Henry says with a huff, and Jeremy and Sergio pull apart, laughing.
“Henry, my boy,” Sergio says, this time leading Jeremy on skates to the low ledge where Henry is standing, watching them with his hands on his hips. “Perhaps now is a good time to explain to you the importance of not tattling on your Uncle Sergio to your mother.”
“I don’t tattle,” Henry denies with balled-up fists.
Sergio bursts out laughing and sits down on the ledge, pulling Henry into his lap and tickling his sides. “You do actually,” he says. “A lot. But that’s okay. I love you anyway.”
Jeremy puts his blade guards on and steps off the ice. He ruffles Henry’s hair as he walks towards the shelves where they keep all their skates stored and grabs the smallest pair, then comes back and takes a seat beside Sergio and Henry. He taps Henry on the nose. “You want to skate?”
“Yeah!” Henry yells, shaking his fists, almost punching Sergio in the nose in his excitement.
“Alright!” Jeremy says with equal excitement.
“Gimme your feet, buddy,” he directs and begins to lace Henry into his skates.
Once he’s done, he picks Henry up from Sergio’s lap and places him on the ice, then gives him a little push.
Henry is clumsy on the ice, but he clearly enjoys himself.
Jeremy skates to him and grabs his tiny hand, leading him around.
He looks over his shoulder and smiles at Sergio. “Are you coming?”
Sergio nods and rises to his feet, making his way towards them.
Once there, he grabs onto Henry’s other hand.
Balanced and happy, gliding together around the ice, a warmth settles over Sergio despite the barn's ice rink chill.
He may want to leave this day behind, but he never wants to leave this place.
He wants this life, and he wants it with Jeremy.
After another lap, when they find themselves close to the ledge, Sergio lets go of Henry and turns to face Jeremy. “Will you skate for me?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Jeremy laughs.
“Not like this,” Sergio says, slowing to a stop and placing his hand onto Jeremy’s shoulder.
He runs his fingertips down Jeremy’s arm, then pulls his hand away and brings it to cup Jeremy’s cheek.
His thumb gives a gentle tug to the side of Jeremy’s eye.
“I want to watch you skate alone, without you having to drag us along.”
“Why?” Jeremy averts his eyes, but Sergio tips his head back up to look at him. “After everything you’ve told me, I’m not dumb enough to think you don’t find a way to watch me skate every day.”
“I do,” Sergio concedes. “Most days at least.”
“And you’re not tired of it?”
“Nope.” Sergio slowly shakes his head. “Not even close.”
“There you go with those smooth lines again,” Jeremy says. He lets go of Henry’s hand and skates away, but there’s a playful lilt to his voice, and he does a series of turns on one foot that suggests he’s not completely turned off by the idea.
“That wasn’t a no!” Sergio yells after him.
“It’s not a yes either!” Jeremy yells back, then comes to an abrupt stop before gliding back towards Sergio. “But seeing as how you’ve already watched me, and there supposedly is no tomorrow, I guess there’s no harm in skating for you again.”
Jeremy’s playfulness warms Sergio from the inside. He bends down and places his hands on Henry’s shoulders to help guide him to the low ledge. Once there, he sits down and places Henry on his lap to look out onto the ice.
“Is Jeremy gonna skate for us?” Henry asks.
“He is,” Sergio says. “’Cause he’s the best.”
“The best after Mommy,” Henry says in his quietest voice.
It’s as if even he knows there’s something special lingering between Sergio and Jeremy.
A bubble not to be burst. But he is five after all, so it’s only natural he’d maintain an allegiance to his mother despite the tension hanging in the air around the rink.
“Of course.” Sergio hugs Henry a little closer to his chest and rests his chin on top of his head. “The best after Mommy.” His words are as quiet as Henry’s were, and they’re barely audible as Wicked Game begins to play through the barn’s speakers.
From where Sergio sits with Henry on his lap, they watch Jeremy skate in rapt attention.
Each three-turn Jeremy makes, every deep edge switch from inside to outside and then back again, all the slow spins and loops and the occasional single turn in the air has Sergio mesmerized.
Jeremy makes it look effortless. Which is even more impressive given how much effort Sergio knows Jeremy needs to put into his every movement.
It’s not even so much the physicality that Sergio has assumed that makes it hard for Jeremy to do.
It’s more so the mental. These moves are ingrained in Jeremy’s body.
His muscles have them memorized, even if there are days when his body wants to act as if they don’t.
It must be terrifying to wake up each day not knowing what to expect.
Not knowing what will be easy and natural, like it should be, and what will require extreme concentration.
But here he is, despite all of that, skating for Sergio and Henry.
Gliding across the ice to the melody of the music that encapsulates Sergio’s growing desire for the man floating across the frozen water like a bird in flight.
Content and happy, Sergio lets out a low hum that is abruptly interrupted.
“Hey, guys!” Holden yells out, announcing his arrival.
Jeremy puts a pause on his moves, and Henry waves so enthusiastically from his seat on Sergio’s lap that he falls onto the ice, laughing.
Sergio quickly picks him back up and places him back onto less slippery ground, where he runs immediately to his father, who picks him up, swinging him onto his shoulders.
“Routine is looking good. Legs feeling alright today?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy says, smiling at him, a slight blush on his cheeks. “It’s a good day.” And Sergio can’t quite figure out if he’s only talking about his legs, or maybe, hopefully, whatever’s growing between them as well.