Chapter Four #2
Smiling, Finn came to a graceful stop in front of Robbie—show-off—and clapped his gloved hands enthusiastically. “Right, so today is basics. Which means I’m gonna make sure you know ’em. Let’s see your crossovers.”
Robbie couldn’t help it; he pulled a face.
“Not a fan?” Finn asked.
“More like they don’t like me.” Somehow, he could never manage fluidity or grace when passing one foot over the other.
“The skating move doesn’t like you…”
Sighing mightily, Robbie figured the best way forward was visual demonstration. He kicked off and performed a few fumbling crossovers. Robbie might’ve fooled an amateur into thinking he was competent, but he couldn’t put one past Finn.
“Wow,” Finn said.
Robbie scowled. “Look. Crossovers are not really a thing for goalies.” Gaining momentum during wide turns wasn’t a skill required of players who spent most of their time in an eight-by-four-foot zone.
Finn blinked innocent eyes. “Don’t all kids learn crossovers in like Timbits-era hockey?”
“Yes,” Robbie admitted. “But I was always a goalie, and look, you try doing crossovers in goalie pads and then come at me.”
“Goalie pads are big, then?”
Robbie stared. Finn couldn’t actually be this na?ve about hockey, surely. The guy grew up in Canada. “You know about Timbits but not goalie pads?”
Finn nodded solemnly. “Imogen was a Timbit. Also, they’re adorable. And tasty.”
Only in Canada, Robbie thought wryly. He wasn’t sure when the branded Tims’ donut holes became the name for the youngest house-league hockey level, but it was pretty inescapable. He continued to eye Finn’s innocent face and decided to leave the point, for now.
“Right, so we’ve established my crossovers are terrible—can we move on?”
“Um, no? Because we have to fix them.” Finn proceeded to move Robbie through his paces.
Twenty minutes later, Robbie had to admit Finn was a good teacher.
He’d walked Robbie back to the beginning, worked him through each building block so he could assess Robbie’s technique and correct as needed.
Robbie wouldn’t be winning any awards for his crossovers, but they were currently the best they’d ever been.
“Okay, you”—Finn pointed a no-nonsense finger in Robbie’s face. Robbie fought the urge to bite it—“need to keep practicing those. Crossovers are integral to ice dancing and also a basic move when skating in tandem.”
Robbie saluted and drawled, “Sir, yes, sir.” Finn narrowed his eyes.
It was adorable. Robbie wanted to flick his nose.
He really needed to get over these childish urges to touch Finn.
Unfortunately, something about him made Robbie feel like a kid.
Maybe it was the being back in basic skating lessons.
“Time to show me what else you got. Let’s try a few gliding poses.”
First up, standing on one leg and holding the other straight out behind him. Robbie suspected that wasn’t, in fact, a beginner move, but he shrugged and complied. Finn watched with his head cocked to the side.
“Huh. You’re actually good at that.”
“Were you expecting failure?”
“Honestly? Yeah. Hockey players usually suck at it. Must be the yoga.”
Finn and Robbie had taken to warming up together with a series of yoga poses of varying degrees of torment for Robbie’s libido. “I knew it would come in handy someday.”
Finn waggled his eyebrows but didn’t otherwise comment.
Instead, he walked back to the actual basics and made sure Robbie knew the proper form for a one-foot glide and stroking.
Then he tested Robbie’s swizzle skills—which sounded so much dirtier than the actual move of gliding while separating and reuniting his feet.
Of course, Robbie was well familiar with the move, but the arm movements that Finn added were much less hockey-like.
Robbie had to admit, though, that the ballet-like flourishes were not only fun but actually helpful with balance and momentum.
After a water break, Finn ran him through side pushes with arm movements—another familiar skill with an unfamiliar motion of lifting his arm up in graceful arc—and then made him do backward side pushes with his arm to the side.
“Okay, so, daily practice on all of that.” Finn sipped from his water bottle.
He was much less breathless than Robbie was.
Robbie needed to talk to his trainer. He’d only been retired for a couple weeks, and he didn’t exactly feel like he’d “let himself go,” but if he was already feeling this workout this much, clearly his endurance had lagged.
“I’m thinking we talk spins and then give you a cool down and lunch break,” Finn mused.
“Spins.” Robbie’s stomach fluttered at the thought.
“Yeah, spins. You any good?”
Not surprisingly, Robbie had significantly more fun spinning around in circles than he had with any of the more basic drills.
He’d always done his best work under pressure.
Finn was teaching him to count rotations along with the beat of a song when someone whistled, and Robbie startled and caught a stupid toe pick.
He went down in a heap, cursing and laughing.
Finn helped him up with surprising ease and a wry grin. “Think a friend of yours has a point to make.”
“Quit hogging all the ice time,” a familiar voice shouted from the bench. “The rest of us need a turn too.”
Robbie glanced over and met eyes with Emily, a former women’s Team Canada skater he remembered from the Olympics. “Trying to sabotage the competition, Em? Not very sporting.”
“No way. I’m gonna beat you fair and square.”
They bumped fists as Finn and Robbie left the ice. Robbie needed a hot shower for his sweaty body, some arnica gel for his bruised ass, and a donut for his wounded ego.
But instead of mocking him, Finn offered encouragement. “Not bad, rookie. We’ll make a skater of you yet.”
That was hockey talk. Oh, that asshole. Robbie knew he’d been faking ignorance the whole time. He narrowed his eyes. “You are a tricky, sneaky man.”
“Aw, geez.” Finn fanned his hand in front of his face. “Don’t make me blush.”
Unfortunately he did this just as Chad was walking down the hall toward them, and he made a point of crossing to the far side and standing with his ass against the wall.
Finn’s jaw tensed as they walked past him, but he didn’t say anything, so Robbie did. “As if anyone wants to touch his nasty asshole,” he muttered just loud enough for Finn to hear him. “He’s probably one of those straight guys who thinks it’s gay to wash it.”
Next to him, Finn wheezed. “Oh my God.”
“Just the facts,” Robbie said innocently.
They walked a few more steps before Finn ventured, almost cautiously, “Know a lot of straight guys like that in the NHL?”
Robbie wasn’t sure what he was getting at, at first. “Not as many as you’d think. You can usually smell ’em coming even over the hockey gear, though.”
They filed into the locker room. Farther down the hallway, there were a handful of private individual showers, but Robbie wasn’t spending any more time in his sweaty clothes than he had to. He plopped onto the bench and bent down to unlace.
“But you’re not one of them,” Finn said after a moment.
Robbie looked up without unbending. “People who think it’s gay to wash your own asshole?”
If he’d been a little quicker on the uptake, he might’ve read into the way Finn turned his back when he took his shirt off.
But he was hungry and all his blood was currently in his extremities, trying to make them feel better after the exertion, so he just catalogued it and went back to the laces. “I meant just… homophobic. I guess.”
Robbie stabbed the underside of his thumbnail with one of the lace hooks. “Fuck! Uh.” Wait, did that question even make sense? “You know about my kid, right? And which charity I’m skating for?”
“Right, yeah, right.” Was he having a stroke?
Robbie looked up again, skate only halfway undone.
Jesus, these things were tight. “I mean. It’s different for some people, being like, theoretically okay with having a queer kid and like…
being around people their own gender who are into that gender while in a public shower. For example.”
Robbie opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then he said, “Are you going for a record?”
Finn whipped his head over to stare at him. “What?”
What the hell else could this be? “For most awkward coming out ever? Like, you waited until we were both gonna get naked?” Obviously Finn didn’t really believe Robbie was the type to bash his head in, if that was the case.
Groaning, Finn slumped onto the bench and buried his face in his hands. “Never mind,” he said into his palms.
Finally Robbie clocked the redness of his ears and connected the dots.
“Ohhhh.” Now he was feeling warmer than necessary too.
Maybe he should make that a cold shower.
If he ever got his skates off, anyway. “I mean, uh. Even if washing your own asshole was a little gay, I’d still do it.
” He still felt vulnerable saying that out loud, especially given the setting, which sucked.
He hoped Sawyer wasn’t going to feel this way into late adulthood.
Probably it was like any other skill, and it got easier with practice.
Robbie hadn’t had much practice. Maybe that was something he should work on, for Sawyer’s sake if not his own.
But like… he wasn’t coming out on reality TV.
“Sorry,” Finn said after a moment. He’d pulled his hands away from his face, but he wasn’t any less red.
He’d been hiding a built body under his T-shirt, which didn’t surprise Robbie—he’d spent too much of the past week pressed up against Finn for that—but seemed more relevant now. “That was actually super awkward.”
For his own sanity, Robbie returned to unlacing.
He needed that shower. “Eh,” he said to his knee.
Finally he’d unlaced the stupid boot far enough to free his foot.
God, yes. Freedom. He shifted to the other leg.
“I feel like I probably would’ve picked up what you were throwing down in other circumstances. ”
“It’s rude to ask anyway.”
Robbie wrinkled his nose. This skate was loosening easier than the first, at least. “How’s anyone supposed to fuck, then?
” He heaved out a breath as the boot released him and figured he should probably add, “Uh, I’m not out publicly.
Obviously. Like, my kid knows, but it was never worth the publicity to be the first one out in the locker room. ”
“Oh.” Finn’s voice was small, and Robbie realized maybe he needed to be a bit more forthright.
He yanked his second foot out of its skate and turned to face Finn head-on.
Then he held out his hand. “Let’s start over.
I’m Robbie Zeiger, former NHL player and currently semi-closeted bisexual.
I’m into yoga, Baba Is You, and podcasts about weird-but-true history.
I’m basically a single father to a lunatic kid who’s also a sweetheart who wants me to get over my ‘internalized toxic masculinity and compulsory-heterosexual impulses’ so that I can ‘live free without fear of the closet.’ That’s a direct quote. ”
Finn’s lingering tension and embarrassment melted under Robbie’s ridiculous if honest introduction.
He took Robbie’s hand and shook it. “Hi, Robbie. I’m Finn Graham, former competitive figure skater turned reality TV choreographer.
I live with my soul sibling who also happens to be a producer and very persuasive.
I’m bisexual, which most people only accept after seeing footage of me skating with my female ex-partner, since they assume the dick sucking is a given.
I’m into home reno DIY, This Old House, and movie nights with my roommate and/or baby sister.
Who sometimes likes to drag your kid along. ”
“Nice to meet you, Finn,” Robbie said formally, then huffed a laugh. “Does my kid really crash your movie nights?”
Finn waffled a hand in the air. “If Imogen shows up, fifty-fifty she’s got Sawyer with her.”
Robbie considered this. Sawyer wasn’t big into movies, preferring instead the shortform or online-based content typical of his generation. Well, semi-typical. Sawyer was vocal in his rejection of anything Gen Z or Gen Alpha that he thought perpetuated antiquated social norms. His words. Again.
“You have snacks at these movie nights, don’t you.”
“So many snacks,” Finn agreed cheerfully. “Popcorn for me and Holly, peanut M&M’s for Imogen, chocolate pretzels for Sawyer. Then of course there’s the drinks.”
“Oh good. I was worried that wasn’t enough salt and sugar.”
“Don’t worry,” Finn said solemnly. He patted Robbie’s shoulder. “Sawyer and Imogen prefer flavored bubbly water, so no calories there. They make up for it by eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s each.”
“So what you’re telling me is that my teen has been doing his best to eat you out of house and home without even so much as an introduction between us? I am so sorry.”
Finn laughed and shook his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Seriously. Holly owns the house, mortgage-free, so we can feed a couple of kids snacks once or twice a month. Also, Sawyer and Imogen are a riot, and their commentary on films is worth the price of admission.”
Huh. That sounded—okay, that sounded like fun, and Robbie wanted to join. “Trying to make me jealous, Graham?”
Finn turned pink, but he stubbornly lifted his chin. Robbie wanted to pinch his cheeks. “Not my fault if your Friday nights are boring. Just because some of us know how to throw a party….”
Somehow, it felt right that this charismatic man spent his Friday evenings entertaining his baby stepsister instead of picking up fellow beautiful people in clubs. Of course Finn would rather stay in on a Friday night with his loved ones, engaging in a boring and predictable routine.
For most of his life, various coaches and hockey organizations had conditioned Robbie to follow routines. Superstition told him routine meant safety. He could empathize.
“Thanks. Next time I throw a party, I’ll remember you’re too busy to join,” Robbie laughed and peeled off his shirt. “Okay, seriously, though, time for a shower.”
Finn waved him off, and Robbie went in search of hot water. He hoped this place had at least semi-decent water pressure.