Chapter 20
When Dmitrii woke up, sunlight was trying to make its way between the curtains.
He could hear the sounds of the buffet breakfast the hotel served in the distance.
One thing made today completely different from any other day.
He wasn’t alone. There was a messy pile of dark brown hair just barely peeking out from the blanket next to him and a very warm solid weight against his side.
Oh, this was bad. Or maybe it wasn’t? He slipped out of Tyler’s arms to lean over and look at the clock. “Fuck!”
Even as Tyler woke up, Dmitrii scrambled to get untangled from the blankets. His swearing had switched to Russian as he darted into the bathroom to grab his phone – his dead phone. “Shit.” He ran back into the main room, quickly plugging it in as his newly awakened brain tried to do math.
Tyler had managed to sit up, looking groggy with his hair smooshed to one side. Under any other circumstances, Dmitrii would have commented on how adorable he looked. “I need a ride.”
“Okay. I can do that.” Tyler lifted a hand, still looking very much not fully awake, but trying to indicate he needed at least a minute to be a functional person.
Dmitrii grabbed Tyler’s T-shirt and tossed it to him before he ran to his suitcase and stripped as fast as possible before pulling on clean clothes.
He didn’t care right now that he was wearing Team Russia gear, or that it was from two different seasons.
He just needed to get dressed. “I have to be at the doctor’s office in less than thirty minutes.
” He was shoving clothes into his skate bag, clearly just planning on figuring things out later.
“I can. Where is your doctor?”
“About two kilometers further down the road than the ice rink.” He couldn’t remember the address offhand, but he knew the way. It was exactly the same road as the ice rink. That had to be enough directions for Tyler.
“Okay. I got this.” Tyler tossed on his shirt and his shoes. He tried to make sure he had everything. Once he knew he had his phone and his wallet, he nodded. “I’m good.”
Somehow, Dmitrii had gotten his bag thrown together and did the fastest brushing of teeth possible before grabbing his dead phone and its charger to shove them into the bag. They were on their way to the car as soon as Dmitrii shoved his feet into his sneakers.
Still trying to wake up, Tyler started driving. There were so many thoughts tumbling through his head as he asked, “About last night?”
“Tyler, I don’t have time or thoughts right now.
I am so sorry, but can we talk about this later?
I will text you as soon as this appointment is over, but it’s a full hour.
After this, I have nothing else aside from training, so that’s four hours we can talk.
I promise. I just can not be late for this appointment.
” He made no effort to hide the desperation in his voice.
As Tyler nodded, Dmitrii knew he hadn’t handled that as well as he could have. “I swear I want to talk about last night. I really do, but not while I’m staring at the clock and trying to use some sort of magical mind power to turn lights green instead of red so I am not late.”
“I understand.” The little smile showed maybe Tyler did understand.
Dmitrii reached over to take Tyler’s hand for a second. “I am not really awake right now. I’m running on adrenaline and no caffeine, and I just… I really don’t want to fuck anything up?” He knew he had to be sounding a little crazy right now.
Tyler was trying so hard to sound calm. “I get that. You said it was an hour?”
“Yeah. It’ll just be an hour. She has an extra thirty-minute block after me that she uses for paperwork and to return calls, but we haven’t gone over into that since like day three.
I mean, maybe this one will do that, but it should just be an hour.
” He was still holding onto Tyler’s hand, not wanting to let go.
“How about if it looks like you’re going to go over, you text me, and if not, I’ll be waiting in the parking lot with coffee for you?”
“You’d wait for me?” Dmitrii hadn’t been expecting that. He didn’t even notice that the last light had even been green. He was too intent on paying attention to Tyler.
“Of course. If that’s okay with you.” He turned off into the parking lot of the office building that Dmitrii pointed to.
It was eight floors and completely typical.
A dental office on the bottom, a real estate office in the middle, and a few other businesses listed; but the biggest tenant seemed to be a psychiatry practice. “I’ll be here?”
Dmitrii only had five minutes to reach the office, but he took a moment to lean over and press a kiss to Tyler’s lips.
“Thank you.” He hoped the softness of that kiss conveyed some of what he felt about last night.
There was no time for anything else as he grabbed his things to go running into the building.
He didn’t even gamble on the elevator, instead running up three flights of stairs.