33. Nico
It felt nice to have my own room again.
Or it should have.
I tossed the blanket onto a nearby armchair and pulled back the top sheet—my hotel routine no matter how nice the accommodations.
Hung up all my clothes. Shook out my costumes and checked for wrinkles.
Arranged my toiletries on the bathroom counter in the specific order I liked.
Now I was lounging on my bed staring at my phone.
Waiting.
Waiting for what?
Adrian and I had finally exchanged phone numbers a few days ago and we’d begun a tentative texting routine. Mostly related to the Avatar episodes I was watching. Maybe a funny TikTok. The occasional skating video with commentary.
We had been apart for approximately thirty minutes and I was already expecting… what?
My phone buzzed. The relief of seeing his name flash on the screen was embarrassing.
Adrian: You want to finish that episode?
I bit back a smile.
Your room or mine?
Adrian: Mine. I have it downloaded.
Adrian: Also got a box of croissants. And macarons.
We had a competition in two days. I should rest. Hydrate. Visualize my programs. Do literally anything other than go next door to watch cartoons with the man I’d been trying not to think about.
I was knocking on his door a minute later.
“That was fast,” Adrian said when he opened it, grinning. “Almost like you were waiting by your phone.”
“Almost like I was bored.”
“Uh huh.”
He stepped aside to let me in. His room was already a disaster—suitcase open across the armchair, clothes spilling out, toiletries scattered over the desk. A small mint coloured macaron box sat on top of a giant pastry box on the nightstand.
Priorities, apparently.
He’d changed out of his airplane clothes into a tight black tank top and loose grey sweatpants that sat dangerously low on his hips.
I tried not to stare. Failed.
“Eyes up here, Nicky.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.” He flopped onto the bed and patted the space beside him. “Come on. We left off right before the Day of Black Sun.”
I kicked off my shoes and settled beside him, backs against the headboard, his iPad propped on a pillow between us. Our bodies touched from shoulder to hip. Neither of us moved away.
The episode started. I watched approximately four minutes of it.
The rest of my attention was consumed by the heat of him beside me.
The way his skin pressed against mine. The ink visible on his arms and collarbone.
His tank top had hiked up, exposing the edge of the serpent tattoo disappearing beneath his waistband.
The sweet herbal scent from his vape that he probably hit the second we landed and something underneath that was just him.
On screen, the invasion was failing. The Fire Nation had been prepared. Everything was falling apart.
Adrian’s hand landed on my thigh.
I stopped breathing.
“You’re not watching,” he said quietly.
“Neither are you.”
“No.” His thumb traced a slow circle against my leg. “You’re much more interesting to watch.”
I turned my head. He was already looking at me—those dark eyes steady, waiting. Not pushing. Not provoking. Letting me lead. Letting me choose.
The last few weeks had been the scariest of my life.
Not because of skating, or pressure, or Renaud’s disappointment. Those were familiar terrors. Well worn grooves my anxiety knew by heart.
This was new.
This was Adrian dissecting cartoon characters with me at midnight. Bringing me coffee before practice without being asked. Stretching beside me on the mats while I told him things I hadn’t told anyone.
This was every wall I’d spent years building coming down one careful piece at a time.
And the terrifying part wasn’t that he was doing it.
It was that I was letting him.
I knew my pattern. Dr. Priya and I had mapped it out in excruciating detail. The way I reached for people when I was hurting, mistook proximity for love, poured myself into someone else because being needed felt safer than being alone.
Théo. Julien.
Each time, I’d told myself it was different.
So the smart thing was to be careful. To take it slow. To not dive into the deep end with another person when I was still learning how to doggy paddle.
But this was Adrian.
Adrian, who called me insufferable like it was a compliment. Adrian, who didn’t flinch when I told him about the pills. Adrian, who made room for me to be something other than perfect and golden and fine.
I didn’t want to be careful.
For the first time in a long time, I wanted something without immediately calculating what it would cost me.
So I closed the distance between us and kissed him.
It was nothing like Osaka. That had been anger and adrenaline and the desperate need to burn something down.
This was something that had been building quietly for weeks, all of our time together accumulating like pressure beneath the surface.
At the rink we had structure, rules, the safety of routine.
But here, in a dim hotel room with his hand on my thigh and the door locked and no one expecting us anywhere, the distance we'd carefully maintained didn't have anywhere to hide.
His hand came up to cup my jaw and I leaned into it, into him, let myself sink into the kiss like I had all the time in the world.
The iPad slid off the pillow and landed somewhere on the floor. Neither of us cared.
I pushed forward, shifting my weight, and then I was on top of him—knees bracketing his hips, hands planted on either side of his head. He looked up at me with a mix of wonder and want, his chest rising and falling faster now.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“This is new.”
“Is it okay?”
“Nicky.” He laughed, breathless. “It’s extremely okay.”
I kissed him again, deeper this time, and felt his hands slide up my back under my shirt. His fingers traced my spine and I shivered. I couldn't help rolling my hips down against his, swallowing the groan he made against my mouth.
“Tell me,” I murmured against his lips, “did you bring your giant box of condoms to Paris?”
Adrian's laugh was husky and delighted. “Are you ever going to let that go?”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes, I brought them. Same box from Osaka.” A beat. His voice dropped. “Haven't used any since.”
Heat flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. Since Osaka. Since me. He hadn't been with anyone since me. My hips rolled down involuntarily and we both groaned at the friction.
“Good.” I sat back, pulling my shirt over my head in one motion. His eyes went dark, tracking down my chest, and the naked hunger in his expression made something hot coil tight low in my stomach. “Because I have plans.”
“Plans,” he repeated, voice strained. “What kind of plans?”
I leaned down, mouth brushing his ear. “The kind where I’m inside you.”
His whole body went rigid. I felt the breath punch out of him—the stutter in his chest, his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to leave marks.
“Nicky.” His voice was wrecked. “You want to—”
“I want to top you.” I said it plainly, the way I’d never said anything in my life. No hedging. No politeness. Just the truth, delivered against the shell of his ear. “I’ve been thinking about it since Osaka.”
He groaned.
“Are you sure?” His hands were shaking where they gripped me.
“I'm sure.” I pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “Unless you don't want—”
“I want.” He said it fast, almost tripping over the words. “I very much want. Should we—should we talk about it first?”
“About what?”
“The—what this is. The situation. Whatever we're—” He gestured vaguely between us with one hand, which was difficult given that I was sitting on him. “This.”
“Right this second?” I punctuated the question with a slow, deliberate grind that made his head fall back against the pillow and his eyes flutter shut.
“I mean—fuck—it can wait.” His hands tightened on my hips, pulling me harder against him. “I'm not going to last very long anyway.”
Then he reached up, fisted a hand in my hair, and dragged me down to him.
The kiss was filthy from the first second. No hesitation, no careful testing. Just his mouth opening under mine, hot and demanding, his tongue sliding against mine like he was trying to memorize every part of my mouth.
I braced one hand beside his head. He made a sound into my mouth when I bit his bottom lip—not hard, just enough to make his grip tighten in my hair. We kissed until my head was swimming, all thoughts of taking things slowly abandoned.
“Condoms,” he said against my lips, breath wrecked. “Front pocket of my suitcase.”
I kissed him again because I could. His mouth was swollen and greedy and still chasing mine when I pulled back.
“Nicky, stop teasing me,” he whined.
I laughed—surprised by how easy this felt, how right—and climbed off him to find his giant box of condoms. My hands were shaking when I unzipped the pocket. Not from nerves—from want.
When I came back, he'd stripped off his tank top and was watching me with an expression I'd never seen on him before. Open. Vulnerable. Wanting. No smirk. No bravado. Just Adrian, bare chested and covered in ink and looking at me like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.
“Come here,” he said.
I crawled on top of him, settling between his spread legs. Ran my fingers through his pink hair—freshly touched up for the competition, vibrant under the low hotel lighting—and when I reached his nape, I yanked it back to expose the long line of his throat.
He gasped. Arched into me.
I licked a slow line down his neck, pausing to suck on his Adam's apple, feeling it bob beneath my tongue when he swallowed.
Then I traced the script along his collarbone with my mouth—the tattoo I'd been staring at for months, the one that peeked out from his training shirts and his competition costumes, the one I'd traced with my fingers in Osaka in the dark. Fall seven times, get up eight.
This time I traced it with my tongue and the sound he made went straight to my already leaking and aching cock.
“Nicky—”
“Shh.”