Chapter Ten #2
Being observed as he put together ingredients and mixed up the dough sent prickles of self-awareness down the back of Damir’s neck.
Cooking was how he decompressed from stressful interviews or talked himself into letting go of bad reffing calls.
But with Kilian watching, he couldn’t enter his usual meditative state.
This was largely because Kilian was incapable of shutting up.
“Oh my God, you’re making your own dough? How did you learn?”
“Did your parents never cook?”
Kilian shrugged. “My mom was too busy, and my dad was kind of shit at it. There was a lot of meat and even more vegetables since we lived on a farm, but they pretty much stuck to putting those in the broiler for every meal.”
“You lived on a farm and didn’t learn to cook?” Damir shook his head. Unacceptable.
Kilian laughed. “This may come as a shock to you, but not all of us are naturally good at everything. Most of us kinda suck.”
Damir paused mid-knead. Was that how Kilian saw himself?
He remembered their conversations about hockey and Kilian’s skating skills specifically.
He’d taken Kilian’s self-effacing statements as modesty and humor with a hint of low self-esteem.
But if he truly believed he “sucked,” perhaps Damir ought to take him more seriously.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a skating coach,” Damir said when enough time had passed that it could feasibly count as a subject change.
“The team has four.”
Damir tipped the dough out onto the floured counter and began separating it into balls. “The team has skill and strategy coaches for all of us,” he corrected. “But my defensive game needs improvement, and the coaches don’t have time to work with me alone and in as much depth as I need.”
Kilian didn’t respond beyond a hum. They both knew the coaches didn’t have time for detailed solo training with one of the few good players on the team.
Not when the second, third, and fourth lines all needed improvement on their offensive game, and the D-core needed drilling on their defensive game, and the special teams needed practice on their specialness.
Damir actually did fairly well for himself, but he didn’t get to be a first-line winger by being satisfied with “fairly.”
“Your skating’s fine though,” Kilian said.
“Eh.” Damir pulled the meat from the refrigerator and put it next to his dough balls.
He got out parsley and cilantro from the crisper and set them on his cutting board alongside two onions and a few cloves of garlic, and then went for the big knife.
“I could do with some improvement on my edgework. Might make me quicker in reverse.”
“You and me both, buddy.”
Buddy. They weren’t buddies. They were—perfectly normal and platonic roommates.
“What kind of coach do you think I should look into?” Damir asked.
A long pause followed as he minced the onions and got started on the garlic before peeking over at Kilian, who was looking down at the granite countertop, tracing lines on it with his fingers.
“I always wanted to work with a figure skater.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Kilian shrugged and laughed. “I’m a shitty skater even for a hockey player. If I can’t improve with our training programs, why would it be different with a figure skater? They’d laugh me out of the rink.”
“Hm.” Damir chopped up the herbs roughly. He got a bowl out from the corner cupboard and dumped the meat, a couple eggs, and his chopped-up aromatics into it. Then he rolled up his sleeves and began to knead. “If I found a figure skater who knows how to work with hockey players, would you join me?”
“You want to split the costs?”
“I’m not hard up for cash,” Damir said derisively.
“We’re friends, remember? I thought it would be a fun way to hang out.
” And a fun way to show Kilian he was better than his father had led him to believe—better than the stupid internet hockey fans pretending they were experts told him, and better than the fucking San Francisco Sea Lions had let him see.
Damir didn’t look over again in case his expression revealed how badly he wanted Kilian to believe in himself.
“I could give it a try,” Kilian said at last. “Probably won’t work, but it might be fun. I’d love to learn those pirouettes.”
“All right, I’ll look into it and let you know.”
“So tell me about the che—chi—whatever’s for dinner.”
“Chebureki. It’s a fried dough pocket filled with meat. I added some eggs, too, which isn’t strictly traditional, but it makes the meat hold together better, and it gives us more protein.”
“Is it a Tatar thing?” Kilian leaned forward on his elbows, looking more invested now than the entire time they’d been discussing his skating.
“Yes.” Damir got the rolling pin out of the drawer under the stove and began rolling out the first dough ball.
If he were really good, he could stretch it with his fingers the way his grandmother used to before the arthritis and the nursing home and, eventually, her death.
He wasn’t great at pastry since he made it so rarely.
“You can find similar foods all around Russia, Turkey, Georgia, and so on, but my family taught it to me as a Tatar dish.”
“It’s awesome you have stuff like that.”
“Don’t you?”
“Again, broiler, vegetables, meat.”
“Aren’t you Canadian? Canada has a decent national cuisine, doesn’t it?”
Kilian snorted. “Oh yeah. Let’s see, we’ve got poutine, which is a heart attack on a plate. We’ve got bannock, which is deep-fried bread. And where I come from, we’ve got a whole bunch of fish. Guess how many of those my hockey-coach dad let me eat growing up.”
“Fish is good for you.”
“Fish is also expensive. Running a farm and putting three kids through college and one through hockey dev doesn’t leave a ton for fresh seafood. And canned clam chowder makes me gag.”
Damir wrinkled his nose. “I can’t blame you. Fair warning, this also isn’t on the meal plan. But I thought…well, I thought you might enjoy something special.”
He snuck another glance over at Kilian, whose pink lips parted in surprise.
“Me?” Kilian asked.
“Yes.” Damir wondered when his voice had gotten so hoarse. “You.”
Kilian licked his lips, and Damir had to look away.
If he didn’t, the urge to toss all his hand-prepared food in the trash and offer to take Kilian out for a three-star meal might overpower him.
Thoughts of sitting opposite Kilian by candlelight—of buying him roses and delicate jewelry and any fucking thing he could think of to convince Kilian he was special—spun around Damir’s mind, tempting him.
Which would be insane.
They’d had sex twice. Otherwise, they had nothing in common.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” Kilian asked.
Damir forced himself to take a deep breath. “How are you at making salad?”
“I can cut things and put them in a bowl.”
“My hero.”
Kilian snickered. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The sight of his pale skin and the corded muscle of his arms made Damir envision biting until he left a mark. The impulse came on so suddenly that he had to stare down at the rolling pin until it passed.
What was wrong with him?
Was this some delayed wanting-what-he-couldn’t-have reaction?
Under normal circumstances, Damir was fairly good at ignoring the sting of longing.
As a closeted athlete, he had to be. From the corner of his eye, he observed as Kilian got iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers from the fridge.
Damir dug out the second cutting board (the plastic one he never used since no one ever helped him cook), as well as the second-best knife, and handed them both to Kilian.
He couldn’t keep watching as Kilian began to chop.
For one, his fingers were so long and elegant that Damir ached to feel them on his skin.
Kilian had barely touched him the two times they’d fucked.
For another, Kilian was terrible at cutting vegetables, too slow and with the knife at an awkward angle.
So, Damir busied himself filling and shaping the chebureki. The edges came out sloppy, nowhere near as neatly crimped as his mother’s. His fingers were too big, and he always had more important things to do than practice this skill.
Kilian stared at him all the same, eyes wide and wondering. “You’re so good at that.”
Damir shrugged. “I’m slow.”
In the most hypocritical move since the NHL’s commitment to inclusivity, Kilian advised, “Learn to take a compliment, bro.”
Damir couldn’t let it stand. He could handle being platonic roommates. He could handle being friends. He could handle Kilian’s pouty lips and elegant fingers and honest interest in Damir’s heritage. But he couldn’t handle bro.
“I am not your bro,” he said too intensely by far.
“Oh? What are you, then?”
Your teammate, he ought to say. Your friend. Your roommate. But he opted for nothing, caught in the crossfire of Kilian’s wide blue eyes.
“Want me to call you ‘sir’ after all, eh?” Kilian teased.
Heat shot through Damir, a raging burst of it, leaving him leaning against the counter with his heart in his throat. “I don’t want you to call me ‘sir.’ I want you to call me by my name, and I want you to say it like you’re dying of hunger and I’m the only thing that can sate you.”
Kilian stared at him, wide-eyed. The knife in his hand thunked down against the board, scraping along the skin of his middle finger.
“Oh, fuck!”
Damir propelled into action. He gripped Kilian roughly by the wrist, elevating the affected finger and pulling Kilian toward the sink at the same time. He turned the water on hot and thrust Kilian’s hand beneath it.
His hand tingled where he touched Kilian.
He didn’t dwell.
He pulled a fresh rag from the cupboard that held cleaning supplies and dumped it by the blood pooling across the cutting board. Then, Damir made for the bathroom with long strides, hoping his first aid kit was up to date.