36. Adrian
I took second at the final. Eked out by fractions of a point by Shimizu. Normally it would bother me—silver when gold was right there, the podium but not the top of it—but I was too wrapped up in Nicky to care.
The fall had followed him into the free skate.
Another underrotation, another hand down, the kind of cascading errors that happened when you were stuck inside your own head.
He'd finished fifth. Not catastrophic for Olympic qualification but not the statement he'd needed to make either.
Renaud's scowl in the kiss and cry had been brutal.
No encouragement. No acknowledgment that Nicky had pulled himself together for the second half of the program.
Just that cold, disappointed silence that I was beginning to understand was worse than yelling.
We landed back in Toronto after midnight.
Multiple delays. A fitting end to a trip that had been equal parts breakthrough and torture.
Nicky was mine now—officially, undeniably mine—but I still wasn’t allowed to touch him in public.
Not even in front of Sabrina, who had caught him sneaking out of my room that very morning and hadn’t said a word, just shook her head and walked toward the elevators.
We were too recognizable. Pink hair and a golden prince weren’t exactly inconspicuous.
All I wanted was to hold him, kiss him, pull him against me and let the rest of the airport blur into nothing.
Instead I sat next to him on the plane and held his hand under the blanket while we watched Avatar, which was as close to romance as we were allowed in public.
Renaud was staying a few extra days to visit friends, which meant at least we didn’t have to dodge him. Nicky’s car was waiting for us in the extended stay lot. Ever the gentleman, he dropped Sabrina off first, then glanced at me.
When she disappeared into her building, he turned to me. “Home or my place?”
Like it was even a question.
We stumbled into his apartment, luggage toppling over in the living room as we collided into each other.
I was shoving his snug wool coat off his shoulders while he wrestled my parka down my arms. He shoved his hands down the waistband of my sweats and I yelped as his too cold skin gripped my bare ass.
“Your hands are fucking freezing!”
“Mmm. Another jock?”
“Yes, I’m a normal human who dresses for comfort.”
“How convenient.” His hands were already tugging the strap aside.
Meanwhile I was fighting with his jeans. Who the fuck flew international in rigid denim? I finally got them open and wrapped my hand around him. He groaned against my mouth and reached into my sweats, pulling my erection free, pressing us together in his fist. At least his hands were warmer now.
He started stroking us both in tandem—slow at first, the friction almost too much. I grabbed his wrist and he looked at me, confused, until I held his palm up and spat into it. His eyes went wide—not with disgust but with something darker, hungrier.
“More,” he said, voice wrecked.
I spat into his palm again and he wrapped his slicked hand around us both without hesitation—tightening his grip, finding a rhythm, and then we were sliding against each other properly. Hot and wet, precum beading between us, making everything filthy and perfect.
We didn’t make it past the hallway. Just pressed against the wall, foreheads together, panting into each other’s mouths, his hand working us with a rhythm that made my knees threaten to give out.
Desperate and overeager and laughing between kisses because we’d spent an entire flight pretending we were just training partners and now we couldn’t last thirty seconds without touching each other.
I came first—embarrassingly fast, face buried in his neck, fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
He followed seconds later with a sound that I was going to replay in my head for the rest of my natural life, his whole body shuddering against mine, his forehead dropping to my shoulder as his knees finally gave out and we slid down the wall together.
We sat on his hallway floor in a tangle of limbs and ruined clothes, breathing hard, his head tipped back against the wall and a lazy, wrecked grin spreading across his face.
“We made it four steps into the apartment,” he said.
“New record.”
He laughed and pulled me to my feet and we stumbled to the bathroom to clean up, bumping into each other in the narrow doorway, his hand on my hip like it belonged there.
We made it to the bed eventually. He lent me a pair of sweats that were a size too small and a t-shirt that smelled like him and I crawled under the covers while he plugged in both our phones.
He climbed in beside me and I curled into him without thinking—head on his chest, arm across his waist, one leg hooked over his.
He pulled the duvet up around my shoulders and pressed his mouth against the top of my head.
“Goodnight, Adrian,” he said quietly.
“Goodnight, Nicky.”
His arm tightened around me. His breathing slowed. His heartbeat settled into something steady and even beneath my ear.
I matched my breath to his and let the sound carry me under.
◆◆◆
We set rules the next morning. Or rather, Nicky set rules while I sat on the kitchen counter eating cereal and pretending this was a normal thing to do three days into a relationship.
No touching at the rink. No pet names within earshot.
Separate arrivals. Separate departures. The whole thing had the energy of a military briefing and I hadn’t even finished my cereal.
We'd barely made it past okay, let's try and we were already a secret. Great start.
“This sounds familiar,” I muttered petulantly.
“It’s not the same.”
“Same rink. Same coach. Same rule—hide it or lose everything.”
“It's different because we're going in with open eyes.” His jaw tightened.
“Théo and I were kids. We were eighteen when we got together and we had no idea what we were doing.
If we fought the night before a competition, I'd make a careless error in my short program.
If he beat me, I'd convince myself he didn't respect me.
If I beat him, he'd go silent for days. Our relationship was on the ice whether we wanted it there or not—the judges could practically score the state of our love life based on how we skated.” He exhaled.
“This is a strategic decision between two adults who know exactly what's at stake.”
“A strategic decision. And they say romance is dead.”
“It’s not about hiding. It’s about boundaries.
Renaud doesn’t get a say in my personal life—not anymore.
But if he finds out before we’re ready, he’ll make it about skating.
He’ll make it about focus and distraction and everything he made it about with Théo at the end.
And I won’t let him turn this into something ugly.
Please, Adrian. You said you wanted to try. ”
“You’re right. I do want to try. And if this is how we have to do it, I can be patient. We deal with the rest after the Olympics.”
He exhaled—relief loosening the tension in his shoulders—and I pulled him toward me by the front of his shirt.
Kissed him slow and deep. His hands came up to my chest and he melted into me the way he only did when we were alone.
When I finally pulled back, his lips were swollen and his eyes were half closed and I had to physically stop myself from carrying him to the bedroom.
I didn’t push back on his rules after that morning but they fucked with my head.
Every morning I walked into that rink thirty minutes after the man I’d spent the night with, pretended I didn’t know the taste of his mouth, and acted like we were just two skaters who happened to train under the same coach, the stone in my chest got a little heavier.
We were careful at the rink. Had to be—Renaud was always watching and whatever fragile truce existed between us after Paris wouldn't survive him finding out I was sleeping with his nephew. But careful didn't mean dead.
I'd find excuses to walk past during his practice sessions.
Forgot my water bottle. Needed to check the schedule.
He'd spot me on the bench press with hands that stayed on my elbows longer than necessary.
We'd end up in the same corner of the athletes' lounge, knees pressed together under the table while we reviewed playbacks.
Sabrina caught us once in the weight room.
I was helping Nicky deepen a straddle stretch—legs spread wide on the mat, torso folded forward, my hands pressing gently on his lower back while he breathed through it.
Perfectly innocent. Standard training partner stuff.
Except my thumbs were tracing slow circles on the strip of bare skin where his shirt had ridden up and his face was flushed in a way that had nothing to do with flexibility.
She appeared in the doorway, took in the scene for exactly three seconds—my hands on him, his flushed cheeks, the loaded silence—raised a single eyebrow, and walked past us to the treadmill without a word.
I removed my hands. The foam roller suddenly became fascinating. Nicky dropped his forehead to the mat and sighed.
But after hours? Different rules entirely. We were supposed to take it slow but ended up spending almost every night together.
Some nights he'd try to teach me to cook—emphasis on try.
I'd chop vegetables while he handled anything involving fire because I was a legitimate danger near a stove.
He'd press up behind me at the counter, lips against my ear, correcting my knife technique, which inevitably turned into him bending me over the kitchen island with the vegetables completely forgotten.
Some nights we'd order takeout and spend thirty minutes arguing about what to watch before inevitably putting on Avatar again anyway.
Some nights we didn't talk at all—just existed in the same space, learning the shape of each other's silence.
I learned that he couldn't sleep without the white noise of city and organized his closet by colour. That he called his mother every few days. That he went home once a week to spend time with his family.
He learned that I couldn't function before coffee. That I snacked too much when I was bored. That my best friend and brother FaceTimed me at odd hours—and that I would absolutely answer those calls even when wandering around the apartment in just my boxer briefs.
He nagged me about my diet and my mess. I argued with him about his rigidity and stubbornness.
It wasn't perfect. We were both too fucked up for perfect. But it was real, and it was ours, and every morning I woke up with him beside me—warm and sleep soft and sometimes already reaching for me under the sheets—I thought maybe I'm not as broken as I thought.
Two weeks of sneaking between apartments. Two weeks of stolen kisses and shared meals and falling asleep tangled together. Two weeks of something that felt terrifyingly like the beginning of something good.
But my grandmother's voice was always in the back of my head: you don't get to keep the beautiful things.
Yeah, well. Maybe not. Maybe this had an expiration date like sakura in the spring. Part of me kept waiting for whatever was blossoming between us to disappear.
But my grandmother's lesson wasn't about losing something beautiful. It was about paying attention while it was here. Enjoying it. Not wasting the bloom by dreading the fall.
So I tried. For once in my life, I tried.