Florentine

  Mahiro chokes on his own breath at this admission. “But you think so little of my principles that you think I’d somehow make you do things you didn’t really want to do.”

  Alex flinches at the last, and Mahiro wonders if this is the end of them, because now his anger at himself is tinged with the searing pain of betrayal. In all of his years as a Dominant, he never abused the trust placed in his hands by his submissives. What they do together is consensual, it must be, and Mahiro is crushed that Alex would believe otherwise. And yet, isn’t this exactly the outcome he was afraid of?

  “I don’t… I don’t think that you’d do anything on purpose…,” Alex starts.

  “But my crazy obsession might be clouding my judgment, is that it?” If you’d only told him at the start, this all could have been avoided, his mind singsongs at him.

  “Maybe! How would I know, since you never gave me the chance to figure it out for myself?”

  And there it is. Mahiro clenches his eyes closed, fists at his sides. “Okay. That’s fair.” Mahiro can see right through the living room to the dining room and the small black velvet box mocking him from the corner of the table. The tears finally well up and spill over his cheeks.

  Alex just stares, chest heaving like he’s trying not to completely break down, face flushed. He swipes at his eyes again, and Mahiro does the same.

  “I don’t know what else to say,” Mahiro says slowly, because this feels like the smoldering end of a flash fire and it would only take a wrong breath to send it back into a conflagration. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I’d told you right away, like Adam told me to do. I wish I’d never skated in the first place to make this a problem, but everything I’ve ever done has led me to you, and I wouldn’t ever change that. But can I please have another chance? Please, my beauty.” Mahiro tries once more to reach out, to take Alex into his arms and soothe away the hurt he’s caused. To drown himself in Alex’s embrace and find a way to make amends for ever hurting someone he… he loves so very much. He’ll let go of everything Alex has said to him if he gets that chance, will talk through it and figure out what he truly wants, but he can’t do that if Alex gives up on this, on them. If he vanishes back into the life he had before, where Mahiro knew nothing whatsoever about him but his name. Because now he does. Now he knows and it will haunt him, waking and sleeping.

  Alex shakes his head, jaw set, the tracks of tears sparkling again on his cheeks. “No,” he says. “You don’t get to call me that. I need some time. Goodbye, Mahiro,” he says and steps past Mahiro to pull the door open and walk through, closing it carefully behind him.

  Mahiro stands there, stunned, then abruptly strides to the playroom door and makes his way downstairs on shaky legs. He sinks onto the lounge and covers his face with his hands. His heart is cracking apart, love and loss pouring out in a torrent of tears. “I love you, Alex,” he says, and the first time he’s given voice to the words they echo in the dark, silent playroom. “I love you,” he sobs, and curls onto his side on the lounge and lets the pain take him.

  HE’S NOT sure how long he’s there, but he’s stiff and cold when he feels another body sit down next to him on the lounge.

  It’s Adam.

  Mahiro turns over and buries his face against his friend’s leg, “Oh, sweetheart,” Adam says and gathers him into his arms. He rocks him gently and presses his cheek to the top of Mahiro’s head. “Chris texted. God, I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “I’m so stupid,” Mahiro says. “I can’t believe how fucking stupid I am.”

  “You’re not stupid. You worry. You were afraid. Sometimes we’re all afraid. It’s okay. It will be okay. Just give him some time to process and you can try again. He loves you, Mahiro. I know he does.”

  “He’s going to hate me forever, Adam.” Mahiro sniffles and sits up, fighting off a wave of dizziness as he does so. “I wish I knew what to do.”

  “Well,” Adam says and brushes Mahiro’s hair back from his forehead. “You’re going to come up and have some ice cream with me and we’re going to watch Army of Darkness, then you’re going to sleep. You’re going to get your head together, and we’re going to figure out how to get you back your man. Okay?”

  Mahiro chuckles, weary. He knows Adam is trying to cheer him up, but he’s not going to get his man back. He knows that.

  Alex wasn’t really his in the first place.

  Interlude—Alex

  “NO, YOU’RE not going to sit around and stuff your face with donuts and listen to George Michael on repeat while crying. I forbid it.”

  Alex flops back onto the bed and stares at the ceiling. It’s been two days since he and Mahiro argued at his house, and Alex is torn—part of him is still longing for Mahiro, and the other is still completely, utterly, and vehemently pissed off. “Fuck you, Chris. He’s a lying jerk, and you know it.”

  “No, prima donna, I don’t know it. Because I know Mahiro, and he’s not like that. He never has been. So quit acting like a goddamn child and listen to what the man actually had to say, which was, oh, I don’t know, something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry, Alex, I fucked up because I was scared of you acting exactly like you are right now,’ you absolute twat. I can’t believe you accused him of tricking you into being a sub. Fuck, you really are a shithead when you want to be.” Chris yanks on the duvet and pulls Alex off the bed and onto floor with a thump.

  “God, fuck, what are you doing?” Alex rubs his elbow. Why does everyone hate him so much?

  “Saving your disgusting ass from marinating in your own stench any longer. You’re getting in the shower, and then you’re coming with me to Boston for a few days.”

  “Chrisss, noooooooo.”

  Chris thumps him in the face with a pile of clothes. “Chris, yessssss, so go get in the shower before I drag you there. Come on. Stop dwelling on it and let it go for a bit. I can almost guarantee that you’ll have a better perspective in a day or two, and then you guys can make up.”

  Alex digs his heels in and looks up at his friend, his best friend who is really only trying to cheer him up and make him feel better, though he’s sort of bad at it. “It’s not that simple. I wish it were, but it’s not. He lied to me. He lied, and he knew he lied, and he let me fall in love with him knowing he lied, and….” Alex trails off, considering. Even after only six or so weeks, he knows. He’s in love with a man he likely won’t ever have again, because he could get past the hiding part, sure, eventually. But the look on Mahiro’s face when Alex said that he was the one who made Alex want to submit, who basically manipulated him into their relationship… that’s the sort of thing that leaves scars too.

  Fuck fuck fuck goddammit fuck. He’s too old to be this clueless about relationships.

  Alex grabs the pile of clothes and stalks off to the bathroom. “Okay,” he yells over the running shower. “I’ll go to Boston. But you’d better not drag me out to some stupid club.”

  “Okay, sure,” Chris yells.

  Which is, of course, exactly what Chris does. Over the pulse and thrum of deep, heart-thudding music and the buzz of hundreds of voices, Alex’s nodding along to something Chris’s friend Max’s friend Alexi said, while at the same time trying to keep Alexi’s hand off his thigh in the corner booth of a dance club at 1:00 a.m. on Friday.

  “Having fun?” Chris says as he comes back from the dance floor and swipes the last of Alex’s mojito.

  “Not really,” Alex replies, a rictus grin on his face. “I can’t do this, Chris, really. Ugh, God, will you stop that?” Alexi snuck his hand up the back of Alex’s shirt, fingers trailing along Alex’s waistband. It’s just too much, too close to the feel of Mahiro’s fingers as they’d make their way down his spine and he’d just melt, sink into himself, and let Mahiro take care of him for the night. He aches for that touch now, for the quiet assurance of Mahiro’s voice and hands, for the elegant and beautiful line of his body. For his bright laugh and sweet smile.

  No, he knows Mahiro didn’t force these feeli
ngs on him. He saw in Alex a reflection of himself; he knew what Alex needed and helped him find his way there. Alex had never felt so utterly satisfied, so craved, so wanted. So cared about. And instead of thinking about what Mahiro meant by saying he was scared, was afraid of telling Alex something he found embarrassing, Alex just thought of himself and what that meant for him.

  He’s honestly a fucking awful boyfriend.

  “We need to go back to New York,” he yells in Chris’s ear.

  Chris smirks and nods and shoves the random guy who was hanging over his back off with a “Sorry, we’re out,” and follows Alex toward the door. “I knew you’d eventually see it my way,” Chris says and shepherds them both to a taxi. “We’ve got tickets for a train back later this morning.”

  Alex huffs a laugh. Seems like he’s not so bad at cheering Alex up after all.

  MAHIRO SWEEPS into an elegant spread eagle at Sky Rink, letting sorrow draw his limbs into effortless long lines, the quiet shush of his blades against the ice almost lulling his heart to quietude.

  The ice has ever been this way, both a comfort and a terror, the source of his great joys and biggest disappointments. But he returns to it like a lover, lets it embrace him and welcome him home, even if the last thing he thought he wanted was to be reminded of an ice rink ever again.

  Alex. Five days on, the thought of him beats at Mahiro’s mind like a refrain, until as the clock crept closer and closer to seven on Friday Mahiro couldn’t stand it any longer, couldn’t wait for the moment that wouldn’t come, where he’d descend to the playroom and find Alex stripped and waiting for him, for his touch.

  He knows Alex wanted it as much as he did. He knows that whatever else passed between them, that whatever else Mahiro did or didn’t say, Alex’s body never lied, and that body wanted him.

  Even from across the empty ice, practically abandoned in the summer, he can hear the quiet click of a skate meeting surface, and when he looks up to see what other poor soul had to spend their Friday night alone skating, he almost trips on his toe pick.

  It’s Alex.

  Mahiro stops dead on the far side of the rink. He can’t move, can’t breathe. It’s Alex, and he pushes off to glide along the edge, toward Mahiro. But he doesn’t call out. Doesn’t greet him. Only stares, intent, as Mahiro pushes off as well, keeping a rink’s worth of distance between them as they circle. Mahiro isn’t sure of his reasons for being here, but given the utter silence on the phone this week, it might be best to let him come to Mahiro in his own time.

  If he ever does.

  So Mahiro carefully breathes through his nose and keeps his eye on Alex, keeps the distance between them. He’s too terrified to do much other than skate straight forward, simple laps around the rink as Alex does the same. It’s slow, measured, a feeling out of boundaries—but then Alex slips ever so slightly closer in orbit, his long, long legs executing a quick bracket turn that leaves him just that bit closer to the center of the ice.

  Mahiro mirrors him, edges just that slight bit inward, and like twin suns they orbit each other, gravity drawing them closer. Mahiro does a few twizzles as he crosses Alex’s gaze, trying to show him that yes, this is part of him too. That as much as he regrets what he failed to say, he understands why it is so important Alex knows this, knows about their shared love.

  There’s a moment when Alex’s eyes meet his, as they both cross over and come within just a few meters of each other, a flash of recognition in Alex’s eyes that says yes. Yes, I see you. Like recognizes like, not just in this, but in all things.

  Mahiro swallows down his nervousness and waits until they swirl ever closer and Mahiro drops all pretense, all fear, and pushes into as elegant a scratch spin as he can manage, tightly rotated, not too fast but not sloppy, and when he finally pulls out of the spin and stops, Alex has stopped, too, and is watching him intently.

  “You know, I was sort of hoping it wasn’t true,” Alex says.

  Mahiro swallows. “You knew it was.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’d left that sort of thing behind, became someone who, amazingly, has something you wanted. Something I thought I could offer you and you would respect. Can you blame me for not wanting you to look down on me?”

  Alex shakes his head. “Never. I never have, Mahiro. Not once. And I wouldn’t have back then, either.”

  “But you still thought I’d somehow… made you feel those things. Made you submit to me.” Mahiro says this in a whisper, something so quiet only they can hear, as close as they are.

  “I didn’t— I was wrong to say that. I know I was wrong. I was just unsure, and… upset. I’m so very sorry, Mahiro. I’m sure you must have felt everything you had been worried about had come true.” Alex looks down and commits the unforgivable sin of digging his toe pick into the ice. His fingers are twisted up in the bottom of his jacket, and Mahiro fights the urge to bat them away. “I’m sure you probably hate me now. I should have listened more carefully to you. But I was afraid too.”

  Silence descends around them for a moment, then: “I just wasn’t sure who I fell in love with.”

  Mahiro can feel trembling start in his shoulders, his arms, his fingers. “I am who I am now. Not who I was then.” Mahiro shakes his head. This isn’t coming out clearly at all. “I’m Mahiro. I’m an app developer. I’m a choreographer for very young juniors sometimes. I still skate a few times a week. I nailed a triple axel the other week but totally failed a lutz and bruised the shit out of my hip. I am who I’ve always been.”

  Mahiro skates closer and slowly, carefully, raises one gloved and trembling hand to Alex’s face. Alex doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shy away, and when Mahiro cups his jaw, he closes his eyes.

  “I’m also a Dominant, someone who wants the control to take you apart and put you back together.” Alex shivers slightly, but Mahiro can feel the slightest relaxation against his palm. “And the Alex I’m in love with is… is the Alex I met now. Not the legend. Alex Breschi, the novelist. The goofball with a ridiculous sense of humor. The one who never lets me get away with taking myself too seriously. Alex, who is sometimes rather happy to be told what to do, who likes to please, who needs a rest once in a while.”

  Alex nods against his palm, and Mahiro’s heart is racing, throbbing in his chest. He needs to be sure, needs everything as completely clear as he can make it.

  He slides to his knees on the ice and bows his head.

  “Please forgive me, Alex. I’m begging you.”

  To his utter shock, Alex kneels as well, fits a hand under Mahiro’s chin, and lifts it until they’re gazing into each other’s eyes. Alex smiles gently. “Only if you forgive me too.”

  Mahiro can feel his chin waver and tears course down his cheeks as Alex lowers his mouth to Mahiro’s and kisses him, right there in the center of the rink. Mahiro can’t help it; his crying turns into a relieved bubble of laughter as they kiss each other’s tears away with gentle touches, the ice a welcoming, familiar comfort under their bodies.

  Chapter 12

  ALEX’S HEART soars when Mahiro’s lips touch his, brushing delicately against his cheeks, kissing away tears. He hears Mahiro take a hiccupping breath, followed by an aborted and shaky laugh, and Alex wraps his arms around Mahiro’s body and holds him tighter.

  “I’ve missed you,” he says.

  Mahiro nods against his chest. “It’s only been a week, though. I feel so stupid for missing you so much.”

  “I never want to have a week like that again. Not ever.” Alex shifts on his protesting knees. “But we should probably get up, my lovely Mahiro. I’m getting too old to kneel like this.”

  He realizes what he’s said too late, and Mahiro lifts an eyebrow. “Oh, I beg to differ,” he says dryly.

  Alex barks out a laugh, helps Mahiro to his feet, and holds his hand as they skate to the boards and step off the ice. He watches as Mahiro wipes down his blades and puts on his guards, movements quick and sure and practiced.

&
nbsp; Mahiro catches him watching and glances down, cheeks pink.

  “I’m still sorry,” he says quietly.

  Alex immediately takes that warm face in his hands and kisses Mahiro softly. “I know. I know. We should talk about it more. But watching you skate… honestly, I’m so happy I can share this with you. You can understand so much more about my life and my experiences. And it makes me feel like I understand you too.”

  “We should go find somewhere to talk,” Mahiro says. “I don’t think… ah. I mean, maybe we could go get coffees and take a walk and we could just. Talk. If you want.”

  Yes, neutral ground is probably best for the sorts of conversations they need to have, somewhere, Alex realizes with a strange hit of clarity, where Mahiro won’t feel hemmed in or cornered or trapped by Alex into talking to him.

  Somewhere he can be in control.

  So Alex steers them to a local hipster coffee shop he found on one of his many walks to and from Sky Rink, and they sip their drinks as they wander slowly in the direction of Mahiro and Adam’s townhouse.

  It’s a beautiful night, breezy and warm, and the sidewalks are crowded with people going out on Friday after a long week, dressed up or not, in groups or alone. The city hums around him, energetic and electric, and Alex thinks, not for the first time, he could live here permanently.

  Alex watches Mahiro out of the corner of his eye. If anything, he looks even more beautiful than the last time Alex saw him, disheveled and warm with smudged eyeliner and the dark bruise of a love bite on his shoulder. He’s poised and graceful, the streetlights bright on his cheeks, his dark eyes in shadow and almost unfathomable. There’s so much they should probably say, so much they’ve done and said between then and now, but all Alex can see is the crease at the corner of Mahiro’s eye when he smiles.

  “What?” Mahiro says. “You’ve been staring for the last five minutes.”