Chapter 8
Adonis
On one hand, the Collegiate Conference for Ice Sports was a nice networking event, a pipeline into professional sports where college athletes could mingle with agents and advisors, attend panels, and participate in informal competitions and scrimmages on the ice.
On the other hand (or maybe because of all of this), it was a pressure cooker for social and professional tension.
Adonis had attended every year of his college career, and as a senior, he was excited for his last romp in Minneapolis.
Over the years, he had made friends (and a few enemies) at College Ice Con. He was excited to see both friends and enemies, and especially excited to see Byron Fitzpatrick, an ice dancer from Stanford with whom Adonis enjoyed at least one amorous encounter whenever they were in the same city.
Adonis had texted him before the conference and already knew what room Byron would be staying in at the conference center’s hotel. He packed the necessary tools and equipment for at least one fun night.
The figure skaters and hockey players from Bellford going to College Ice Con were booked on a flight from Boston to Minneapolis, with a short layover at Chicago-O’Hare.
Adonis loved airplanes and flying, and spent most of the first flight watching a movie, chatting with Hugo and Clarisse, and doing everything he could to not look at Bash.
The hockey player sat in the row next to Adonis and spent the entire flight with earbuds in, his eyes closed.
Adonis briefly wondered if he might be deceased, but when they landed, Bash opened his eyes and sat patiently until it was their row’s turn to deplane.
He glanced over at Adonis and caught him looking.
Adonis quickly looked away.
“You first,” Bash said to Clarisse, Hugo, and Adonis, letting their side of the row off first. Hugo and Clarisse wiggled out of the cramped seats, and Adonis followed, lugging his backpack with him.
His carry-on had gotten wedged in the bin above, and he wrestled with it while Clarisse and Hugo continued down the center aisle.
“Let me,” said a deep voice behind him. Adonis froze as Bash stood behind him and reached around him with both arms to get the suitcase.
For a moment, Adonis was bracketed between Bash’s muscular arms. He caught a whiff of the hockey player’s cologne, a stark contrast to the stale, recycled air of the plane.
Bash grunted lightly, moved his arms, and lowered the suitcase to the carpet. “There.”
Adonis was a Victorian woman in need of a couch on which to faint. “Thank you,” he said.
Bash adjusted his shirt, which had ridden blessedly up, and said, “It’s not a problem.”
The entire walk off the plane, Adonis was viscerally conscious of Bash behind him.
His phone buzzed in his pocket when it connected to the airport WiFi. He checked it. It was a message from Byron on Instagram.
We just got to Minneapolis. When do u get here?
Adonis typed a reply with his thumbs:
Not for a while. We just landed in O’Hare.
“Are you excited for your last College Ice Con?”
Adonis almost dropped his phone. In imagining all the ways that Byron would make use of the toys Adonis had smuggled in his carry-on bag, Adonis had forgotten Bash was walking behind him in the gate.
He slipped his phone quickly into the pocket of his black joggers. “I am. I’m going to miss it, I think.”
“You are not feeling too much pressure?” Bash asked.
They fell into step with the other athletes.
Most figure skaters stuck with figure skaters, and hockey players stuck with hockey players.
They were the only two currently cross-pollinating, except for Jane and Weston, who were at the front of the group with Anamária, whom Adonis was happily avoiding.
“From my mother, you mean?” Adonis clarified. Bash’s legs were longer than his, but the hockey player had slowed so that Adonis could keep pace with him.
“No, from God.”
Adonis blinked.
Bash gave him a blank look. “It’s a joke.”
“Oh, right.”
“I mean, pressure from your mother, yes.”
“There are some people she wants me to meet here,” Adonis said. “Have you heard of Damien Zelinksi?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised. He’s a figure skating coach who got famous in the 1990s for winning gold in Nagano.
He spends most of his time now as a consulting coach, training Olympic hopefuls.
He’s trained six different athletes who’ve medaled in the Olympics.
Anamária wants me to work with him.” He snorted.
“Seems a bit last-minute for me, but if it’ll make her happy. ”
“Last-minute? What do you mean?”
They reached the gate of their next flight. The athletes dispersed to different chairs or to buy overpriced food at the various kiosks.
“I mean, if I’m not good enough to make Team USA, no amount of prestige coaching will get me ready, this close to the Olympics.”
“Let’s sit here,” Bash said, pointing to a row of chairs where no one else sat. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and looked at Adonis once Adonis was seated next to him. “You think you aren’t good enough to make Team USA?”
Bash’s bluntness still surprised Adonis. “I think my mother thinks I’m not good enough yet.”
“I didn’t ask what Anamária thinks. What do you think?”
Adonis paused. “I think I can do it.”
“Good. Then why be worried about this, Mr. Zelinski?”
Adonis smiled. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right. I usually am.” Bash clapped his hands on his thighs. “I am going to get gross airport food. Would you like to join me?”
“Yeah,” Adonis said. “I’d like that.”
While they wandered the concourse, looking at the different options for food, Bash carried Adonis’s bag and wouldn’t let Adonis take it back. “It’s not heavy,” he said when Adonis protested. So Adonis let him carry it, stopped complaining, and enjoyed himself.
They talked quietly while Adonis bought himself a cup of hot cinnamon sugar pretzel bites, and Bash bought an overpriced burrito.
“A burrito at an airport? Crazy,” Adonis commented, and Bash huffed something about calories.
Adonis learned that Bash didn’t like to talk about himself, and it was nearly impossible to pry personal details out of him.
He learned that Bash had grown up in Amsterdam, and his family was wealthy, though Bash didn’t like to talk about their money.
He had a younger sister still living in the Netherlands, where she studied finance at the University of Groningen.
“I’m studying business, not finance,” Bash commented when they were back at their seats. He wiped salsa from the corner of his mouth. “That was part of my agreement with my parents.”
He told Adonis about the agreement he had made: he could play hockey if he studied business at Bellford, one of the world's best business schools.
“They want me to go back and work for our company,” he said, “but I don’t want that. That is not why I’m really studying business.”
“Why’s that?” Adonis asked. Their plane would board soon, but he'd like to stay there talking to Bash.
“I want to be my own business,” Bash said.
“I will play for the NHL, and I will be my own business. I don’t want to rely on managers and agents.
I will have them, but I want to understand how I am being used in the business of…
” He waved a hand. “Of hockey. And then when I retire, or maybe before that, I want to open a foundation to support queer teenagers who are athletes.”
Adonis looked at Bash with newfound respect. The hockey player had more depth than he'd first thought. Hot and driven. A dangerous combination.
“I really admire that,” he said.
“And you?” Bash asked. “What do you want to do when you are done with figure skating?”
The gate agent called their boarding group, and they stood. Bash took Adonis’s suitcase again.
“I think I’ll go back to school,” Adonis said. “Law school.”
“Law school? Really.”
“Really.”
“Hm,” Bash said, nodding. “I think you will be a good lawyer.”
——
During the second flight, aboard a smaller plane, Adonis sat next to Clarisse. He was in the window seat. Bash was three rows ahead. His dark hair stuck up above the top of the headrest, and he eventually leaned his head against the window. Adonis also tried to sleep, but he couldn’t.
When they landed in Minneapolis, they had to hurry to meet their bus, which drove them fifteen minutes to the conference center. Adonis’s knee bounced. They had tonight to themselves, and tomorrow the conference would begin.
His phone buzzed with messages from Byron. First, a picture of his cock. Then a message reminding Adonis of Byron’s room number. Then, a third message insisting on how horny he was.
Adonis angled his phone away from Hugo, who sat next to him, and sent back several pictures of himself in various positions, his ass bare in all of them.
Byron’s response was immediate and straightforward:
Fuck, baby.
Adonis suppressed a grin.
The conference center was drab, and the parking lot outside was already full of other buses dropping off teams of athletes from around the country.
As Adonis got off the bus, he found Bash kneeling on the pavement, adjusting a strap on his backpack. When he saw Adonis, he stood up and fell into step with him.
“I have an idea,” he said. His voice was so low that no one around them could hear.
His tone was very casual. “I am in room 837. Robbie is my roommate. After dinner, he won’t be coming back to the room because he has plans with Clarisse.
You should come over. I brought lube and condoms, and I would like to fuck you, if you’d like that. ”
Adonis’s mouth went dry, and he almost stumbled over a curb. Bash’s tone had remained completely even and unbothered the entire time he propositioned Adonis.
“If that is too forward or you are not interested, let me know,” Bash said, pausing to make sure Adonis had found his footing again.
Adonis swallowed.
“I will not be offended,” Bash said. When Adonis still didn’t answer, Bash patted his shoulder. “I’ll be in my room at 8:00 p.m. Robbie won’t be there. You are welcome to stop by. If you don’t, it is okay.”
And then he walked into the conference center, joining Weston and Robbie, who were waiting for him at the doors.
Clarisse came up beside Adonis. “What did Bash say?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Adonis said. Clarisse shrugged and led the way into the conference center. While he walked, Adonis dug his phone out of his pocket and fired off a text to Byron.
Hey, I’m so sorry, but I can’t meet tonight. Something came up with the team xx.