Chapter 41
They eat standing up, leaning against the kitchen island, because Danny notices Sasha wincing a little when he tries to sit down, and he refuses to let Sasha be in pain.
Besides, standing up is actually perfect: he can eat a slice of pizza with one hand, easy, while the other stays curled around Sasha’s hip, stealth-cuddling him.
Sasha doesn’t complain. In fact, Sasha smiles almost the whole dinner—whenever Danny bumps against him, whenever their eyes meet, even when Buddy licks his fingers trying to taste the pizza. He looks so fucking happy, and Danny can’t stop staring at him, trying to memorize every last moment of it.
Afterwards, they walk the dogs, and then by unspoken agreement they wind up back in Sasha’s bed, lounging under the sheets, showing each other videos on their phones in between slow, open-mouthed kisses. Eventually, the kisses get more frequent, and the phones wind up tossed on the nightstand.
“Danny?”
“Hm?” Danny asks, distracted by how sexy Sasha is with his hair all messed up, his cheeks flushed.
“I want to have sex again, but I think… maybe not good idea tonight.”
Danny frowns—not because of what Sasha just said, but because of what he might not have said. “Does it still hurt? Do you want some Advil?”
Sasha shakes his head. “No, is only… how do you say? Precaution? It does not hurt now, but…”
“Yeah, no, I get it.” Danny kisses him, running his hand up Sasha’s ribcage. “That’s okay. We don’t have to.”
Honestly, he’s a little relieved—anal was kind of a rollercoaster, and even though he’ll be ready to go again another day, he’d much rather recover on the slower rides tonight.
“Maybe tomorrow?” Sasha asks hopefully, and Danny laughs.
“You really liked it, huh?”
Sasha nods, blushing, and Danny kisses him.
“I mean, we can still do other stuff,” he says, since Sasha clearly wants something, his dick hard and hot against Danny’s stomach. “You know, like, other kinds of sex.”
Sasha blinks. “Other kinds of sex?”
“Yeah, like…” Danny tugs Sasha closer, wrapping his fist around their cocks. “This.”
Sasha still looks confused, even as he shivers from Danny’s touch. “This is sex?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think it is, anyway,” Danny says quickly. “You don’t have to.”
Watching Sasha try to process this is like watching someone getting lost in the air on a full twist. “Okay, if you want,” he says eventually; Danny can tell he doesn’t really get it, though he doesn’t seem bothered by it, either. “But can we have other sex tomorrow?”
Danny laughs again, then swings his leg over Sasha’s hip and rolls them over, pinning Sasha under him. “Yeah, we can,” he answers with a kiss. “This okay for you?”
“Yes,” Sasha says breathlessly.
They get off slowly, Danny’s fist around them, Sasha’s eyes half-closed as they move together in a lazy grind.
He’s gone quiet again—no more swearing in Russian, no more calling out Danny’s name—but Danny can see him this time, can watch what his face does when Danny finds a sensitive spot or tells him how sexy he is.
And when he comes, ducking his head like he’s trying to hide in Danny’s shoulder, Danny can still hear his breath hitching with every aftershock, can feel it fanning like a flame over his own skin.
He finishes pretty quickly after that.
Knowing how Sasha can be about cleanup, he slips out of bed a few kisses later and returns with a warm washcloth. Sasha squirms away at first—“I can do this!”—but eventually he lets Danny take care of him, blushing the entire time.
“Dude, I just gave you a hand job, like, thirty seconds ago,” Danny points out, and Sasha shakes his head, mumbling something that sounds like the Russian version of “But that’s different.”
Danny laughs and kisses him again, then goes to get rid of the washcloth, tossing it into his bathroom to deal with later.
Coming back to the guest room, he lingers in the doorway for a moment.
Sasha’s rolled over on his stomach, the sheet bunched up around his thighs; it’s a mouthwatering view of his ass, like two scoops of ice cream on cheat day.
“What?” Sasha asks, his voice all grumbly and sleepy.
“Nothing,” Danny says innocently, ditching his plans for round three in favor of cuddle time. (Upgrade, in his opinion.) He climbs back into bed and pulls up the comforter, getting a confused look from Sasha.
“Are you cold?”
“Nah. I’m just, you know.” Danny smiles as he tips his hand. “Staying.”
“Okay?”
Sasha definitely isn’t getting the memo, so Danny spells it out: “For the night.”
“Oh.”
Danny watches Sasha think about it, looking nervous, his neck twisting towards the door. “When are your parents…”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Danny says quickly.
His mom’s exact words had been “Don’t expect us back for lunch,” and she’d also mentioned something about an art gallery, “If I can convince your father,” so he figures they’ve got at least until three or four, since Diane can be very persuasive. “Don’t worry, we’re good.”
Sasha drops his shoulders back onto the pillow, visibly relaxing—then he gives Danny a soft smile, his face glowing like the last golden hour before sunset. “Okay. Yes. Stay.”
Danny has no idea how much time he loses after that, grinning back at Sasha—but at some point, like, later, Sasha’s mouth twitches. “What about Buddy?”
“Hm?” Danny glances at Buddy, who’s now standing in front of the door to the guest room, tilting his head and clearly confused about why Danny isn’t in his own bed. “Oh, he’ll be fine. We’ll just leave the door open so he can see me. Sorry, Buddy, I’m staying with Sasha tonight.”
He hears a muffled snort from Sasha. “You always talk to him. Like he is human.”
“Yeah, well, he knows what I’m saying.” When Buddy drops his head and settles down on the carpet, Danny grins, then turns back to Sasha. “See? Now can we cuddle, or what?”
Sasha looks flustered, even more so after he wiggles exactly one inch closer to Danny and then lies there, awkwardly, like someone told him not to move.
Danny tries not to laugh. “Have you ever slept with anyone before? Like, in the same bed?” he asks, scooching in until all that extra space is gone.
“Yes, sometimes with my mother when I was young. And with Kirill, too, when he started staying with us. But then my mother found another… I don’t know how to say. This.” Sasha taps his hand on the mattress.
Danny has to remind himself not to be jealous of Kirill, who’s always had so much more of Sasha—more history, more memories, more time—while Danny’s going on two years of scraps, three if he’s counting their first kiss in Nanning. Which he is.
“Well, just so you know,” he says, pushing those thoughts away, “I’m gonna be the big spoon.”
“You—what?”
Danny tries to explain how spooning works, but he’s pretty sure Sasha doesn’t get it. “Why am I little spoon?” he asks, scowling, and Danny laughs.
“I mean, you can be the big spoon if you want, but then you have to hug me.”
Sasha stops arguing about his spoon size after that.
He’s fidgety as fuck, though, when Danny rolls him over, wrapping an arm and a leg around him koala-bear style.
He keeps wiggling back and forth, like he can’t decide on exactly how many inches he wants between their hips; he complains that he’s cold, and that Danny’s knee is in his knee; then he grumbles that none of this has anything to do with spoons anyway.
Danny waits him out, figuring he just needs to get used to it; but when several minutes go by and Sasha’s still trying to find the right position, his heart sinks. “Hey, Sash? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”
“No,” Sasha says, settling down immediately.
Grinning, Danny tucks his chin over Sasha’s shoulder, burying his face in those shower-soft curls and breathing them in.
This is what he’s really wanted ever since Sasha came here—not blowjobs, not even sex, but being able to actually sleep with his boyfriend.
To cuddle with him all night, no rushing, no hiding, just falling asleep and waking up together. Like they’ve never been able to before.
And won’t be able to for… Danny doesn’t know how long.
Because tomorrow night, his parents will be down the hall as usual, so no chance of convincing Sasha to sneak into his room.
And the morning after that, Sasha’s heading home, taking an early flight out of LAX.
Two weeks, over and done like the world’s quickest vault rotation—he doesn’t understand where the time went, how it disappeared on him when he wasn’t looking.
The only thing he knows is that he definitely didn’t get enough of it.
Once Sasha leaves, they won’t be able to see each other again until the World Championships in October, and that’s if they both make their teams, since there’s no guarantee.
Even then, with so many people around, it’ll be hard enough finding a few hours alone in a hotel room together; there’s no way Sasha would risk an overnight, and Danny has to admit he probably wouldn’t, either.
Which brings them to… April, maybe. When there’s a small enough gap in his competition schedule that he might be able to fly to Europe for Sasha’s birthday, if Sasha gets any time off after the Russian Championships. No guarantee on that one, either.
Fuck. Now he’s just ruining his cuddle moment.
He squeezes Sasha tighter, trying to focus on the positives. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbles into Sasha’s neck.
“Me too,” Sasha says, which is almost like shouting from the rooftops for him. Danny feels warm all over.
“I’ve had so much fun this week. And last week.”
“Me too.” Sasha’s relaxing into Danny’s arms now, his breathing slower by the second.
“I wish you could be here all the time.”
“Me too.”
Sasha sounds half asleep, so maybe he doesn’t even realize what he’s saying, but Danny’s heart does a double back flip anyway.
Could this be “the moment”? Since trying and failing last week, he hasn’t found the right time to tell Sasha that he loves him—but he’s running out of chances, and if he doesn’t say it soon, he’ll have to wait until October or freaking April.
So… fuck it, he’s going for it.
“Hey, Sash?”
“Mm?”
“I just wanted to tell you…” His pulse accelerates so quickly, he has to backtrack and take another breath before starting again. “I was actually trying to tell you this, like, a week ago, when we were having sex? Or, uh, whatever you wanna call it, but, um… wait, what was I saying?”
Fuck, how did his hands get this sweaty? Focus, Danny.
“Uh… oh, yeah, so I was like, telling you, but then you said something at the same time, so you didn’t hear me. Or, like, I don’t think you heard me, but, um… yeah, so, I just wanted to say… that… I love you. Like, a lot. And, uh… yeah. I just wanted you to know that. That I love you.”
When he finally makes himself stop talking, there’s nothing but silence and the steady sound of Sasha’s breathing. Peeking over his shoulder, Danny realizes Sasha’s fast asleep, his eyelashes feathered out over his cheeks.
All the adrenaline exits Danny’s body in a whoosh, and he can’t help but laugh. That’s what he gets for trying to rush the moment—what was it Matt had said? That he had to feel it? And instead, he’d forced it.
“That’s okay,” he says to Sasha, kissing his shoulder before reaching over him to turn off the light. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
Third time’s the charm, right?