Florentine

by Mazarin Stone

  Alex is caught off guard. “Oh, um. Sorry. I just honestly don’t know where to start.” Alex takes a sip to buy himself some time.

  Mahiro takes a deep breath. “I’m going to assume you’ve seen Skate America 2010.”

  Ah. Straight to the point, as always. “I have.”

  “Then you realize why I stopped skating after that.”

  “Well, I won’t deny it wasn’t the best performance you’ve given,” Alex starts, and Mahiro whips his head around to look at him. “What? Of course I’ve watched others. One skate doesn’t make a career, Mahiro. You know this.”

  “No, but I wasn’t going to make it much further. I also know that.” Mahiro takes a sip of his iced coffee and doesn’t say another word. Alex wonders if binge-watching every single video he could find on the internet of Mahiro’s skating was actually a bad idea, after all. But he couldn’t help himself, and he watched each with a professional eye. Each gorgeous step sequence, each perfectly centered spin thrilled him, and every fall made him ache. But he could see flashes of genius there, raw talent waiting for the chance to bloom.

  It’s quieter as they near the neighborhood around Mahiro’s house. Alex wonders if they’re going to talk more. If he should say more. Say less. Leave altogether. Then Mahiro stops in the middle of the sidewalk and pitches his coffee into a nearby trash can. Tension lines his shoulders, his mouth set, and Alex braces himself.

  “All I’d ever wanted to do was skate on the same ice with you,” Mahiro says and defiantly looks him in the eye. “Show you what I was made of. Impress you, maybe. And it was the worst performance I’d ever given, instead, and I never even got to introduce myself to you. I had a complete breakdown. I spent weeks after that holed up in my room until Adam dragged me out and sent me to a psychologist. And after a while and a whole lot of therapy I felt better, and I realized the reason I felt better was that I wasn’t competing anymore. That skating wasn’t controlling my life. I’d finally let go.”

  Alex’s heart aches for the beauty he’s seen in those videos, the grace with which Mahiro dances across the ice. “But, you have the talent. I’ve seen it. Maybe with better facilities or better coaching….”

  “No. I can’t go down that path. I can’t think about the what-ifs.” Mahiro approaches him and studies his face, and Alex feels pinned in place by the intensity of his gaze. “To manage my anxiety I learned to control what I could and let go of the rest, and over time I figured out I wanted to control the almost uncontrollable. Make sense of all the variables life throws at you, up to and including those I shared my body with.”

  Alex nods, and the flashes of understanding he’d had over the last few hours coalesce into a full picture of someone with drive and talent but also anxiety, someone who looked up to Alex as an ideal to reach but had to reevaluate his entire life’s work in the space of a few months. Mahiro had reinvented himself, created a life that was his alone. Alex’s life, until his retirement, was one straight line from competition to competition without deviation from that path, and he can’t imagine the strength it took to do what Mahiro has done.

  He shakes his head. “I hate that you had to go through what you did, Mahiro. I really admire you for it, but I hate that you’d felt so trapped.”

  “I used to feel sad about it sometimes. But I don’t now.” Mahiro cups a hand under Alex’s jaw. “If the entire arc of my life has led me to this moment with you, I’d never change it. Not for anything.”

  Alex’s eyes burn with unshed tears as he wraps his arms around Mahiro’s back and pulls him in for a kiss: a gentle, measured thing that flutters in Alex’s heart. He slants his mouth more deeply across Mahiro’s and tastes the dip of his upper lip, feels the heat of his breath as they fit more closely together, Mahiro’s T-shirt soft and warm under Alex’s fingertips.

  Eventually they break apart and Mahiro tucks his head under Alex’s chin. “I should probably go home,” Mahiro says. “I didn’t mean to take you from whatever you’d had planned tonight.”

  Alex kisses the top of his head. “Mahiro, I’d drop everything for just a minute with you.”

  “Stop.”

  “No. I’m serious. And I still haven’t apologized properly.” Alex steps back and tilts Mahiro’s chin up. “I was angry and afraid and I lashed out at you. I know you weren’t exploiting the situation. It was pure coincidence we found each other. You gave me every opportunity to decide what I wanted for myself, and I chose you, every time.” Alex tilts his forehead against Mahiro’s. “I still choose you,” he whispers.

  Mahiro loses his composure then, they both do, and Alex can taste tears as they kiss again and laugh and hold each other. The tension in Alex’s chest eases for the first time in a week, finally able to breathe easily and feel the warmth of Mahiro’s touch welcoming him back right where he belongs.

  MAHIRO’S FRONT door looms large in the night, a barrier between them that Alex isn’t sure they should try breaching just yet. They’re pressed together on Mahiro’s front doorstep, arms looped around each other’s waists, and the delicious heat of Mahiro’s body is seeping through Alex’s clothes and making him sweat.

  “I’m, ah. I guess I should say good night and let you go home,” Mahiro fumbles, a blush high on his cheeks. “But I’d like to go out again tomorrow?”

  Alex nods. “Yes, please. I can come back first thing in the morning for breakfast. Maybe we can go back out for pancakes?” His voice cracks a little on the last word and he winces. Desire stirs hot under his skin, but he’s not going to bring it up, not now, not when they just finally talked out all of the things they’d misunderstood before. Everything feels so delicate, so blushingly new, and Alex isn’t going to do anything to screw it up.

  But… perhaps just another kiss wouldn’t hurt. Alex leans down and presses a lingering kiss to Mahiro’s mouth, a kiss that gradually turns deeper and more heated until Mahiro’s tongue licks at his lower lip. Alex sucks in a quick breath but goes with it, gives Mahiro a teasing nip, and reluctantly pulls away before things really get out of hand.

  “Wow,” Alex says, then chuckles. “I really should probably go now, I guess. I mean. Um.” Alex’s heart skitters, because he can feel the tension building between them, the attraction that simmers behind every interaction they’ve ever had, and he swallows heavily and kisses Mahiro’s forehead. Mahiro closes his eyes and breathes out heavily through his nose.

  “Good night,” Mahiro says and steps backward, his fingers slowly dragging their way along Alex’s waist as he goes. He smiles at Alex, a sweet, somewhat reluctant thing, then climbs the stairs and unlocks the door.

  Alex’s pulse flutters. “Bye,” he says again. Mahiro opens the door and slips inside, but he keeps eye contact with Alex as the door slowly closes. Alex sighs, then turns to walk down the sidewalk. If he’s lucky he’ll find a cab, but otherwise he’ll just walk. He probably should walk, just to shake off the arousal that’s burning its way through his veins, memories of Mahiro’s fingers dragging down his spine at the front of his mind, the sweet pressure of restraint against his shoulders as Mahiro fucks him slowly.

  No.

  He stops about halfway down the block. This is insane. What on earth is he doing? He can’t leave Mahiro now; he doesn’t want to. He wants everything Mahiro can give him, and if Mahiro’s reluctance to stop touching him earlier is any indication, he’s probably thinking the same thing, but was trying to restrain himself for Alex’s sake. Just like Alex was trying to restrain himself for Mahiro’s.

  Fuck, they’re both idiots. Alex turns on his heel and runs as quickly as he can back to Mahiro’s town house, darts up the stairs, and hammers on the front door.

  The door almost immediately swings open, Mahiro’s face a picture of relief. Alex dives for him, his hands on either side of Mahiro’s face and his lips on his in a fierce kiss that he’s fairly sure is going to leave them both bruised and happy tomorrow. Mahiro drags him inside with a fist in his shirt and kicks the door closed before shoving Alex up a
gainst it, his legs bracketing Alex’s and his already hard cock digging into Alex’s hip.

  “Fuck,” Mahiro pants. “Thank fuck you came back. I was about to run after you.”

  Alex mouths his way down Mahiro’s neck, reveling in Mahiro’s gasp. “Nnngh. God, I want you. Miss you.”

  “Yeah,” Mahiro says and drops to his knees and nuzzles into Alex’s groin through his soft track pants, one arm braced across Alex’s waist and holding him fast to the door. Alex is buzzing with arousal, his entire body trembling with the anticipation of Mahiro’s touch. Mahiro lifts Alex’s shirt and presses soft kisses to his stomach before circling Alex’s belly button with his tongue. Alex gasps and throws his head back, knocking it painfully against the wood. He ignores the pain in favor of watching Mahiro’s eyes flare with heat.

  “Can I?” Mahiro asks, tracing a finger along his waistband. “God, please let me suck you off.”

  Alex’s knees go weak and he starts to slide down the door, but Mahiro holds him up. “Please,” he whimpers. He threads his hands into Mahiro’s hair as Mahiro drags his pants and underwear down, Alex’s cock almost embarrassingly hard in the cool air of the hall. Mahiro blinks up at him, and a dirty smirk is all the warning Alex gets before Mahiro slips his lips over the head of Alex’s cock and swallows him almost to the base in one move.

  “Holy fuck,” Alex gasps, because that’s the sort of thing that’s dragged right out of Alex’s fantasies and made real in front of his eyes. He throws one hand out to steady himself against a small table next to the door, but as he does, the porcelain bowl sitting on top slides across the wood and shatters on the floor.

  “Fuck, sorry, just. God. Keep doing that,” Alex moans, and Mahiro ignores it and sucks down farther. Alex pushes up to meet him and can feel Mahiro’s throat constrict as he swallows. Mahiro’s mouth is sweet, wet pressure as he bobs, and Alex can’t help but thrust up again into that welcoming heat.

  “This okay?” Alex says, and Mahiro pulls off.

  “Green,” he says with a wink before diving back down, and Alex damn near comes right on the spot.

  But then, oh, then, Mahiro slips his knuckles behind Alex’s balls and presses up, and the orgasm he’d been trying so hard to stave off hits him like an exploding star, his moans echoing off the high ceiling of the entrance hall.

  Mahiro sucks as he draws back, locking eyes with Alex as he does so, and Alex realizes with a start that Mahiro is still holding his mouthful. Alex’s jaw drops when Mahiro shoves his own pants down, cups his hand under his mouth, and pushes Alex’s come out into his hand. He reaches down and uses it to slick his own cock, the sound lewd in the quiet of the hall.

  “Turn around,” Mahiro rasps, “And keep your thighs together.” Alex nods, stunned, and does exactly that, bracing his forehead on his arm. He’s got a pretty good idea of what’s coming, but it doesn’t prepare him for the shock of Mahiro’s hot, slick cock pushing between his thighs, brushing along his perineum and nudging his balls. Alex is already sensitive from coming, and the sensation makes him shudder with aftershocks.

  “Beautiful,” Mahiro murmurs as he thrusts. “So gorgeous. So good for me.”

  The praise pours over Alex’s body like a waterfall, and he wants more. So much more. “For you, Mahiro,” he gasps and tightens his thighs as best he can, Mahiro’s cock a rhythmic push and pull along his skin that sparks down his nerves, keeping him keyed up and twitching as Mahiro moves. “I want to be so good for you.”

  “You will be. You are,” Mahiro pants, and his fingers dig almost cruelly into Alex’s hips. His skin slaps against Alex’s, and Alex can feel Mahiro’s breath, hot and humid, between his shoulder blades.

  “My beautiful Alex.”

  Alex moans, arousal starting to build. He’s fairly sure he’s not going to come again, but God this feels good. Being surrounded, overwhelmed by Mahiro’s passion. They’re not in a scene but that doesn’t matter in the least, because how they feel transcends the boundaries they’ve set in the past, the intensity of their relationship blurring the lines between play and not, each situation infusing the other with care and affection and….

  The Alex I’m in love with, he hears Mahiro say.

  Mahiro cries out and Alex can feel him shiver as he comes, Alex’s thighs catching most of it as it drips down his legs and into his pants.

  Mahiro gently pulls away from him, then turns him around with a hand on his hip before kissing him slowly, fully, his entire body pressed to Alex’s from chest to knees.

  “Please say what you said earlier,” Alex whispers when he pulls back for breath. Mahiro’s eyes are huge in the darkness of the hall, and his forehead creases with a question. “Back on the ice. When you said you’d fallen in love with me.”

  Mahiro’s eyebrows rise. “Oh yes. Yes. God yes, Alex,” he says. “I’d not really wanted to tell you that way, but God yes.” He lifts his eyes to Alex’s and smiles. “I love you. I want you. I’m so out of my mind about you I just fucked you in the hall of my house and we broke a seventeenth-century Arita bowl doing it and I don’t care in the least.”

  Alex looks at the shards of blue and white porcelain on the floor and tries to be worried about it, but he can’t bring himself to care either. He leans back but keeps his arms looped around Mahiro’s waist and tries to arrange the words he wants to say in his mind. They’re standing out in the open in the middle of Mahiro and Adam’s house, pants around their knees, and Alex’s thighs are sticky with come, but he can’t imagine a situation more perfect for the two of them.

  “Mahiro Seta, I’m so in love with you I can barely think straight,” he says and watches Mahiro’s face bloom with a gorgeous, blushing smile. “You own me, body and soul. Everything. It’s yours for as long as you want me.”

  “So always, then,” Mahiro says with a kiss to the corner of Alex’s mouth. Alex nods, and they hold each other tightly, Alex’s hands wrapped around Mahiro’s back and Mahiro’s splayed across Alex’s collarbones, his first finger and thumb circling the base of Alex’s throat.

  ALEX BLINKS awake in a cloud of blue.

  Blue sheets, blue duvet, blue pillows, and a shock of blue-black hair next to him. But if he looks more closely, there’s also the creamy curve of a bare shoulder, the sweet dip of a hip. Alex scoots closer, fitting his body into those curves until his lips graze the soft skin of Mahiro’s neck.

  They’re in Mahiro’s bed, and Alex can hear the swish of rain against the windows. It’s morning sometime, but it’s dim and cool, and Alex would stay right where he is forever if he could. But he’s also very aware that he needs to pee, and he sighs at his own body betraying him as he carefully works his way out from under the covers and pulls on his pants.

  Mahiro’s room is large, with a corner fireplace with bright green tiles and intricately carved woodwork left from the original house, but as Alex looks around, he realizes that Mahiro’s penchant for antiques and turn of the century flair has stopped in the corner of the room opposite, as the huge flat desk humming with at least three laptops and a large flat-screen monitor shows. This must be where Mahiro does his work, because there is a collection of teacups and mugs scattered all over the worktop, and there, in the corner of his desk, a half-unfolded poster with a very familiar sweep of long platinum hair. Alex pads closer and has a look.

  It’s Alex, back when he was in Juniors, so well over ten, maybe twelve years ago. The poster is old, creased and folded many times with yellowed tape stuck to the corners. Mahiro has obviously had it a long time, but it looks like it’s not really ever on display anymore.

  Alex’s heart clenches when he realizes Mahiro probably dug it out last week. He looks at the lovingly worn edges of the poster and realizes he feels nothing at all but gratitude for a life lived that brought them to where they are now, that there’s nothing but affection and respect in Mahiro’s old admiration of him as a skater, and nothing but love now in the way he holds Alex so close, teases and wants him, respects and loves the life he’s d
ecided to live now.

  Mahiro shifts in his sleep, and Alex puts the poster down immediately and slips out the door.

  The hallway is long, straight down the middle of the house, and if he has to guess, the closed door across from Mahiro is probably Adam, and maybe another bedroom farther along, and so the last door is likely the bathroom. He creeps down the hall and finds that yes, he’s correct, so he ducks inside, relieves himself, and washes his hands at the old-fashioned two-tap basin.

  The mirror shows a pile of wild sex hair and kiss-swollen lips, and if he had his phone right now, he’d take a selfie and send it straight to Chris. Maybe the New York Times, too, just because he’s so happy he can barely contain himself. Yes, he’s with Mahiro Seta; yes, it was him Alex danced with on a humid night; yes, it’s Mahiro who leaves him half-dazed, love drunk, and stupid, ready to move his life halfway across the world to stay by Mahiro’s side.

  Alex blinks at himself. Oh. Well, of course.

  You can write books anywhere, after all.

  Alex feels immeasurably lighter after that rather startling decision, so he’s absolutely unprepared to open the door to find Adam leaning against the wall opposite. He’s got his arms crossed and a thoughtful look on his face, and Alex steps back in a moment of panic. He’s either going to get the shovel talk for the ages or a punch in the face, he’s fairly sure.

  “Oh, stop, seriously. I’m not going to do anything to you,” Adam says dryly.

  “What? Oh, no, I just. Um. Hi?” Alex stutters and realizes a second too late he’s not wearing a shirt as he reaches for the hem. He shoves his hands in his pockets instead.

  “How you have everyone believing you’re some sort of suave, sexy athlete is beyond me,” Adam says. “But anyway. I’m not giving you a speech. You’re both adults. But I will say this: I’ve known Mahiro for years now, and he’s never let anyone in this deep. Not once. He’s probably an anxious wreck and he’s going to spin out worst-case scenarios and then pretend like nothing’s wrong until one day you realize he’s locked himself away out of fear. Don’t let him do that.”