Chapter 18
Once Dmitrii stepped into the bathroom, Tyler tried to process that he had said that he was falling.
He had only known Dmitrii for a little less than a week.
They hadn’t even had a proper date yet, and here he was talking about falling in love.
His only hope that he hadn’t completely embarrassed himself was the chance that Dmitrii hadn’t picked up on the innuendo.
The only thing that could be worse than Dmitrii figuring out what he had meant by ‘falling’ was the sobering realization that he had actually meant it when he said it.
Emma always told him that he fell in love too fast and that’s why he got his heart hurt so much…
but he couldn’t help it, especially this time.
After watching Dmitrii fall apart on the ice after realizing that he had attempted a triple Axel jump, Tyler couldn’t deny how that had pulled at every last bit of his heart as worry for Dmitrii had flooded over him.
He had been frozen as his every thought became fear that if Dmitrii fell, he might never recover.
Oh, but before that moment, he had felt pure exhilaration at seeing the man skate.
Even though it was barely a shadow of what Dmitrii had been doing before the accident, that shadow still was enough to take Tyler’s breath away in all the deepest ways.
He knew exactly why he had gravitated to watching the man on sketchy live streams and bad camera phone coverage.
Tyler let out a shaky breath, leaning against the hotel wall to let his head thump back.
He knew better than this. He knew better than to let his heart get tangled up with someone so fast. It had been one night of kissing.
Well, months and months of admiration bordering on fan obsession followed by one night of kissing and a few days of occasional texts.
He couldn’t be in love yet. He tried to convince himself that he was only starting to fall.
In truth, he had fallen and fallen hard.
Tyler straightened up, trying to at least give some sort of appearance that he had his life together for this date.
He walked over to a mirror to straighten up his hair a bit.
He was just wearing some jeans he had changed into and a T-shirt.
They weren’t going anyplace fancy, but now he was thinking that maybe he should have thought this through and looked a little more put together.
Before he could overthink it more, the door to the bathroom opened, and Tyler found it impossible to breathe for a moment.
Tonight was a date. There was no doubt that this was a date.
Tyler swallowed before saying anything. “You look really nice.” It was the biggest understatement he had made this week. Dmitrii looked stunning.
“I threw on a shirt with buttons.” Dmitrii didn’t hide the lopsided smile as he said it. He was wearing jeans that showed off every muscle in his thighs and a pale green T-shirt, but then he had a white button-up thrown over that with the sleeves pushed up and the front hanging open.
“Yeah, but that shirt with buttons is on you.” He almost hadn’t taken the moment to flirt, but there was no reason not to. This was a date, and he’d already spent hours kissing this man.
Dmitrii walked across the room, his hand resting on Tyler’s shoulder as he leaned in to press their lips together, for once being the one to initiate the intimacy.
Tyler’s hands fell to the waist of Dmitrii’s jeans as he smiled into the kiss.
“Just telling you the truth, handsome.” And he was.
For all the grace in Dmitrii’s frame, the strength was undeniable.
He let his hands run up along the other man’s back, feeling that play of muscles as he moved to grip those deceptively strong shoulders.
“We should …” He didn’t really want to leave this room.
“Go and eat? I kind of skipped most of lunch.” Dmitrii pulled back as he said it, but the smile was still there.
Tyler laughed at that, leaning in for another kiss.
“You will love where I am taking you. It is the one place I know that has something everyone in the entire universe will eat. The menu is literally a book.” He wrapped his arm around Tyler as he walked to the door.
This was nice. It had been a while since he had been on a proper date with someone, let alone someone who looked like Dmitrii.
He had never been on a date with anyone that made him feel like Dmitrii did either.
As soon as they stepped through the door to the hallway, Dmitrii took a step away from Tyler, no longer letting his arm rest around Tyler’s waist.
“Are you okay?” Tyler had to ask as he felt Dmitrii pull away from him.
“I just have to be careful in public.” A frown had replaced the smile, but it wasn’t as if Tyler could argue with him about this. He understood some of the situation Dmitrii was in due to where he was from and who was financing his treatment here in America.
Tyler still felt concerned about the change in behavior when they got to the car, but soon he was driving out of the parking lot and heading towards downtown Herndon.
It was still daylight. The days were getting longer and longer as summer drew nearer, and it was still two or so hours to sunset.
He reached his hand out, just a little bit, in a tentative gesture towards Dmitrii.
The bright sun didn’t give them as much privacy as they would have after dark, even with the tint on the car windows.
“I’m sorry.” The regret in Dmitrii’s voice was clear.
He moved his hand to rest gently on Tyler’s before he took hold of Tyler’s fingers.
“I just have to be careful. People aren’t as accepting where I’m from, and I’m already on unsteady ground with how my skating is.
If the skating federation found out that I was on a date with a man, they would be very unhappy. ”
“Could they actually do anything to you?” Tyler wasn’t certain exactly how bad it would be, but he had absolute faith that Dmitrii was not being this hesitant and careful for no reason.
“Not like criminally, but they could stop paying for my training, and right now my training expenses are a lot more than typical, and any payout for them is a gamble.” Dmitrii leaned back in his seat as his grip on Tyler’s fingers tightened.
“But I mean, it is what it is. They’ve ignored things from others, and if I were skating like I used to, I wouldn’t be as worried. ”
“You’re skating has improved so much while you’ve been out here.
” He wanted to ask how long Dmitrii thought he’d be here.
No, he really wanted to ask Dmitrii if he really had to go back to Russia.
Maybe he couldn’t stay forever, but Tyler really wished that he could.
The temporary nature of Dmitrii’s stay in Virginia fed that constant little voice in the back of his head telling him how stupid he was being.
Infatuated was fine. Fun was fine. Tyler knew that already this was a lot more than just fun. Well, at least for him.
“I have, but it’s nowhere near enough. Physically, I’m fine. The only thing keeping me from what I need to do is my mind.” Hopelessness leaked into Dmitrii’s words.
“It’s only been a week, handsome.” Oh, his heart flipped at calling Dmitrii a little pet name.
He barely caught the flash of a smile on Dmitrii’s lips at hearing it.
Maybe he wasn’t the most imaginative with pet names, but it was something.
There was no way anyone could look at Dmitrii and not think that man was handsome.
“I know it’s only been a week. It’s just that I need to do better. I need to put more work in, but …” He trailed off, not saying what he was going to.
“But?” Tyler pulled into the parking lot of a diner. It was one of those bright aluminum classic-looking diners with neon glowing even while the sun was still up.
“I don’t think I want to talk about my nightmares right before dinner. Maybe later?” Dmitrii looked over at Tyler, leaning a little closer as he still held onto his hand. “I don’t want to mess this up. I really want to enjoy this. Please?”
“Of course.” Tyler leaned in, stealing just the quickest of kisses before pulling back. No one would be able to see, not with the car’s window tint. He knew how nervous Dmitrii was about someone seeing them, but he had so desperately needed to kiss him in that moment.
Without thinking, Dmitrii leaned into the kiss, but then he pulled away, eyes wide.
Tyler was positive he would never tire of looking at those eyes.
That perfect shade of sea-glass green. It reminded him of the trips his family took every summer down to Virginia Beach to walk along the sandbar.
He loved that color. He was left blinking though when Dmitrii pulled away. “Are you okay?”
“I just – we’re in public.” The soft flush across Dmitrii’s cheeks couldn’t lie.
“I made sure no one could see. Let’s get dinner though.
I know you’ll love this place. Back when I was in high school, we’d end up here at like 3AM on the weekends.
” He slipped out of the car and then walked with Dmitrii up the front steps to the heavy glass doors.
As soon as they were inside, a woman in a white shirt and black vest led them to a booth.
Dmitrii had barely had time to look at the display case full of desserts before they were in a room where everything seemed to be from the 1950s.
They were sitting at opposite ends of a booth, but their feet touched under the table.
This place felt like it was out of a different era, more like something you’d see on TV or in a movie than an actual place.
Tyler smiled and thanked the waiter as they were both given a multi paged book of a menu. Tyler opened his book as soon as their waiter left to get their drinks. “This has everything. Breakfast to dinner. Greek, American, things you didn’t even know you might want.”
“You like this place?” The smile was back, but Dmitrii seemed like he couldn’t not smile when Tyler was this happy about something.
“Yeah. Anytime we were getting back from a swim meet or a skating event in the early hours of the morning, my parents would bring us here. My mom even did one of those wine and paint events here like two summers ago.” He hadn’t really opened his menu. He already knew what he was getting.
“So what is your favorite thing here?” Dmitrii was leaning forward as he flipped through the pages of the menu.
“Sometimes a burger, sometimes pasta, but the very best are their insane grilled cheese sandwiches. Like the one with roast beef and mushrooms and onions, so probably not a great thing to get on a date. So I’m going with steak.”
That got Dmitrii to laugh. “I see. Well, since this is a date and we are avoiding onions evidently, I am going to go with lamb kabobs. Is this place actually run by people from Greece or are they just acting?”
“Actually from Greece. I promise.” Tyler was smiling back at Dmitrii when their waiter brought their drinks and took their orders.
“This is nice.”
Tyler didn’t say how nice it was that Dmitrii wasn’t worrying about his skating right now. Instead, he leaned in a little more. “And I can not wait until dessert.”
“That is decidedly not on my meal plan.” Dmitrii paused for just a second before saying, “But everything in that display case looked amazing.”
“We could share? If we share, then it doesn’t count, right?” The mischievousness of his answer was clear.
Dmitrii laughed. “It does too count, but I could make an exception if we shared. Half a dessert is a lot less bad than a whole dessert, right?”
“So only misbehaving by half. Besides, you said you didn’t really have lunch, and Coach Truskel is upping your off-ice training tomorrow, so you clearly need more calories.” He snaked his leg over to Dmitrii’s side of the booth, running his ankle over the other man’s ankle.
“We’ll see how I feel about dessert after dinner. If what I am seeing on everyone else’s plate is any indication …”
“I still have faith in you having room for dessert.” Tyler was near positive his face hurt from smiling this much, but it was so worth it.
There was just something about spending time with Dmitrii that made him happy.
The other man’s presence just made whatever they were doing feel more complete.
Tyler was trying so hard not to worry about how fast he had fallen for Dmitrii.
“Fine.” Dmitrii’s little smile seemed to change a bit, maybe to something a little more hesitant as he added, “Besides, if there are leftovers, I have a little refrigerator in my hotel room.” He paused for half a second before lowering his voice to a whisper.
“If there are leftovers, we’d have to go straight back to my hotel after all. ”
As the waiter brought a tray with their plates on it, Tyler’s eyes widened. He very much knew that was a hint, and he was very willing to take that hint. “We would have to. Wouldn’t want to waste food after all.”
Once the waiter left, the conversation changed to how delicious everything was.
Tyler tried some of what Dmitrii had ordered, and Dmitrii tried a piece of Tyler’s steak.
Everything was cooked to perfection. When it came time for ordering dessert, Dmitrii left it up to Tyler, since he had more experience here.
It took only a few minutes for a decadent piece of blueberry pie to be delivered to the table. As Dmitrii stabbed at it with a fork, he smiled, “Want to learn a word of Russian?”
“Sure?” Tyler didn’t know any Russian beyond yes and no. Well, and that for some reason whatever word was used in Russian to describe a Toe-Loop jump was often auto-translated to English as ‘Sheepskin coat’, but he had no idea why that was a thing.
“Chernika. It means blueberry.” He took a bite of the pie after saying that, his eyes closing with how good it was.
“Chernika? That isn’t that hard.” He had expected something much harder to say, but that word was actually easy. All the sounds in it were relatively familiar to him.
“Mmm hmm, and this is delicious.” Dmitrii leaned in a little more. “I don’t think we’re going to have any leftovers.”
“We could get something to go? Then we’d still need to put it in your refrigerator for safekeeping.
” He had his leg wrapped around Dmitrii’s.
They weren’t touching above the table, but they hadn’t stopped touching this whole time under it.
If keeping a secret meant this, Tyler could handle that.
He didn’t want to cause any trouble for Dmitrii, but he wanted so desperately to be near the man.
“That sounds like a perfect idea.”