by A. E. Wasp
Alex ignored them both as he opened the oven door to get a better look at the thermometer stabbed deep into the center of the rack of lamb.
Hot air blasted from the oven, instantly fogging up his glasses and burning his lungs. The lamb looked delicious. Since he couldn’t afford to go home for the holiday, he was determined to make tonight’s dinner with Charles as festive and special as possible.
The sound of glass shattering and dishes crashing to the floor was followed by the wild scrabble of claws on tile as two hairless Sphynx cats came tearing into the kitchen. Taking the corner at high speed, they skidded across the floor.
“Calisse, Torvill!” Alex yelled as the white cat slammed into his ankles. On reflex, he grabbed the oven door to keep his balance. Yanking his burnt fingers away with a curse, Alex hopped gracefully over the black cat twining itself around his feet. “Dang it, Dean. What did you monsters do now?”
Bracing himself for the worst, Alex walked cautiously to the dining area of the small condo. The cats followed behind him, stopping in the doorway, tails twitching as if they were as surprised as Alex by the destruction.
What had a few seconds ago been a picture-perfect table set for a romantic dinner for two was now a jumbled mess of tableware and scattered Christmas balls. It looked like the cats had finally succumbed to the lure of the tassels dangling from the edge of the table runner. He’d known it was a bad idea even as he had been setting the table. But it was his favorite one.
Alex sighed, put his hands on his hips, and turned to glare at the cats. Torvill shrank down, face wrinkling even more than usual, skinny tail wrapping around her legs. Dean pretended to be unconcerned, focusing his attention on grooming his non-existent hair.
“Yeah, I know it was you,” Alex said, scooping up Dean with one hand. “Bad kitty.” He grabbed Torvill with his other arm, kissing them both on the head. He tossed them gently on the bed in his bedroom, shutting the door before they could race back out. “It’s for your own good, idiots,” he said when they scratched and mewed piteously. “You want to get glass in your paws? I don’t think so.”
Smoothing down his Kiss the Cook apron—the classics never went out of style—he grabbed the broom and dustpan and headed for the table.
On closer inspection, the damage was minimal. Two wine glasses that he’d gotten at Crate and Barrel and some broken ornaments. The only real casualty was one of the dinner plates; it had broken cleanly in half.
“Aw, man.” He picked up the pieces, laying them gently on the table. The Furnival Maple pattern china had belonged to his great-grandmother. As a kid, he had adored the beaver and maple leaf patterned plates. His mother had surprised him by giving him the entire set to take with him when he moved to his first apartment after he’d retired from competitive figure-skating.
With this latest disaster, he was down to only three plates and no way to afford more, even if he could find some. The service was over a hundred years old. He probably shouldn’t even be using it. And he definitely shouldn’t be wasting it on Charles. But it wouldn’t be Christmas without his beavers.
It couldn’t be that hard to fix; maybe he could glue it.
At least he hadn’t lit the candles yet, so nothing was on fire. But if that were the case, what was that burning smell?
“Shit.” Alex ran back into the kitchen and yanked open the bottom oven door. The bread he’d spent all day making had a black crust.
Grabbing a potholder, he yanked the bread pan out of the oven and dropped it on the counter with a bang. “Sacrement. At least we tried, eh?” He looked to the cats for confirmation that he deserved at least an A for effort before remembering he had shut them in the bedroom.
After seeing how late it was, he checked the temperature of the lamb, gave the pots on the stove one last stir, and walked to the bedroom to get dressed.
Torvill and Dean slept on the bed. Curled up head to tail, they looked like a yin-yang symbol in a knitted Christmas sweater. Seattle wasn’t that cold even in mid-December, but it was damp and the hairless cats got cold easily.
Alex wished he could climb up next to them, slide under the covers, and watch Christmas movies instead of going through with this dinner. Making Christmas dinner for two wasn’t as much fun as making it for ten. He wished they could host a real dinner party, but Charles wasn’t out to his friends yet. Soon, he promised.
They’d met on a Disney cruise over the summer. Alex had been in the ice show. It wasn’t glamorous by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d had a fairly important role, the pay was decent, and he got free housing and meals for the length of his employment. Plus, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Alex needed a job. It wasn’t as if being a top-ranked figure skater prepared you for much in the real world.
Those cruises were often packed with part-time fathers with more money than ideas on how to entertain small children over a long summer break. At first, Charles had been simply one more divorced dad hitting on him. It happened every cruise, though Charles was much better-looking than most of them.
Alex wouldn’t say he had a fixation for daddy types, but he wasn’t immune to their charms. Plus the closer he got to thirty, the less he found he had in common with the perky early twenty-something crowd. He got tired just listening to them talk.
The more time he spent with Charles the more he liked him.
He’d been impressed that Charles was there alone with his two kids. A lot of the divorced dads with money brought a nanny or companion for the kids, usually one they were already boinking. Charles said he wanted to spend as much time with the children as he could. Allison, his ex-wife, didn’t let him have them very often.
Charles said he had divorced her because he couldn’t hide who he was anymore. He wasn’t ready to come out publicly yet because he was worried it would cost him some of his wealthier clients.
When Alex’s cruise line job had ended, he’d called Charles. Charles had been thrilled to hear from Alex, and before he knew it, Alex was settling down in Seattle.
When they had gotten together, Charles had begged Alex not to mention anything to Allie. She didn’t know he liked men, and she came from a super conservative family who would try to take his children away from him if they found out. He’d figure out the best way to handle it soon. He was talking to his lawyers.
Alex hadn’t understood why Charles was telling him this until the day Allie had shown up at the rink with her kids in tow. They were excited to see Alex again and to learn how to skate. Apparently, the kids had begged for skating lessons after the cruise, and insisted on using Alex.
Alex was thrilled to have an excuse to see the kids again, so he squeezed them in between his other lessons and his part-time gig as a figure-skating coach for the Seattle Thunder pro-hockey team.
So, every week, he had to look Allie in the face and pretend he didn’t know secrets about her ex-husband. The hard thing was that she didn’t seem like a homophobe. She was nice to Alex, who was openly gay. Actually, she was great: funny, smart, and loving. Cute as a button, too, with her white blonde hair, wide blue eyes, and adorable Texas accent. She looked a lot like Alex, actually. Apparently Charles had a type.
And Alex adored the kids.
Seven-year-old Zane had an endless collection of fart jokes that made him laugh so hard, he’d fall down on the ice.
Five-year-old Daisy kept a kitten purse full of rocks, bottle caps, ribbons, and whatever else captured her fancy. Every class, she would explain to Alex where each bit had come from and what significance it held for her. He loved the little frown she got when sorting through them, and the excitement in her eyes as she share her latest treasure with him.
They’d formed as much of a friendship over the last two months as the weight of the secrets Alex carried would allow. At twenty-six, Allie was almost twenty-years younger than Charles, and only one year younger than Alex. (Alex had told Charles he was twenty-three, it wasn’t like he was going to check Alex’s ID.)
In the meantime,
Alex lived in the condo Charles had rented for him. It was much nicer than anything he he could have afforded, even with a roommate. Charles had been adamant that he didn’t want to spend time anyplace that wasn’t luxurious and private, and that it was his right, as Alex’s boyfriend, to spoil him.
Too bad living off of someone else’s money made Alex feel like a kept man. Especially since Charles didn’t spend much time there, claiming it was too far from his work, too inconvenient, and obviously he couldn’t stay over when he had custody of the kids. So mostly they spent their time in the condo together eating and having sex.
Alex always refused to take the cash Charles tried to leave him, but would usually cave in and accept whatever recent item of clothing Charles had bought for Alex. Honestly, he thought Charles had kind of skanky tastes in clothes, but he liked seeing Alex wearing clothing he had picked out. Alex didn’t particularly mind, but the clothes were rarely the most comfortable.
Lately, though, his relationship with Charles was starting to feel more like a business arrangement than the start of something real. And it had felt so good at first. For the tenth time that day, Alex thought about breaking it off with Charles. Of course, when he did, he would be homeless. There was no way he could come up with first and last month’s rent and a security deposit for anything in this town.
“Time to get dressed, lazybones,” he said to the cats. He gave himself thirty seconds to sit on the bed and give the kitties some loving, and get some in return. He’d had the cats for longer than he’d known Charles, and got more love from them. Not that Charles was cold, he was just not around as much as Alex had hoped he would be.
As he stood in the walk-in closet that was bigger than his entire childhood bedroom and flipped desultorily through various skin-tight shirts and pants, he wondered how he had gone from Olympic gold to barely making a living.
He scooped Torvill up. “We really need to find a new job.” He rubbed his face against her wrinkled forehead. She wouldn’t care if they moved; she just wanted love and food. Maybe he should go to college. Maybe he should hustle for more coaching jobs.
Alex had a half hour before Charles was due for their early Christmas dinner. That gave him just enough time to set the table again, finish cleaning the kitchen, take a quick shower, and figure out what to wear.
“No problem,” he said to the cats who had come into the closet with him and were currently exploring his shoes. “If I can do a triple axel dressed as a talking candlestick, I can do this.”
Flicking through the selection of clothes Charles had bought him, he settled on a pair of black leather pants and some designer silk shirt that probably cost more than the rent on his last apartment. Baby blue wasn’t his favorite shade—he preferred a darker teal blue—but Charles liked this the best. Said it matched his eyes perfectly. Wearing the shirt was least he could do to pay Charles back for his generosity.
Clean first, then shower.
He turned the television on before he went back to the kitchen. The giant monstrosity took up half the wall in the living room and was visible from almost every room in the condo.
It would not have been Alex’s first choice for the focal point of any room. But you didn’t look a gift condo in the mouth, and Charles had bought the model unit, saying he didn’t want to have to shop for furniture.
He pulled up the Thunder game, checking the score as he caught up to the live broadcast. The Thunder were ahead three-two over the Tampa Bay Lightning in a home game.
He loaded up the dishwasher while he listened with half an ear.
“Oh my God,” the announcer yelled. “What a save! That’s one we’re going to be seeing on highlight reels for years.” The crowd roared and banged on the plexiglass.
Alex hurried into the living room to catch the replay just in time to see Sergei Pergov, Thunder starting goalie, and Alex’s best friend, dive backward from a butterfly position, his stick arm outstretched. Flipping onto his stomach, he scooped the puck out of the net a hair’s breadth before it crossed the goal line, and then leaped back to his skates in time to stop the rebound.
“Hell, yes!” Alex shouted with a whoop. “That’s what I’m talking about.” He turned to the cats, who were prowling across the back of the couch. “Do you see that kids? See what Uncle Sergei did?” He picked up the remote and pointed it at the screen. “Let’s watch it again.”
2
Sergei
“I could watch this all night,” Thunder defenseman Robbie Rhodes said, looping his arm around fellow d-man Paul Dyson’s neck and peering over his shoulder. “Just for the look on Ollie’s face.”
On the tiny screen, Sergei’s highlight-reel-worthy save played over and over in a loop ending with the thwarted attacker letting loose a string of curses and smacking the pipes with his stick.
“Could have been better. There was rebound,” Sergei said, coming up behind his defensemen and checking out the video. “No rebounds.” Born in Russia, Sergei had moved to Chicoutimi, Quebec, when he was sixteen. He’d learned Quebecois French first and then English. Fifteen years later, he still spoke both with a heavy Russian accent that he couldn’t shake.
“That is secret with someone quick like Ollie,” he continued. “You stop the puck dead. Like bam!” He clapped his hands on Robbie’s shoulders for emphasis, and the kid staggered, grabbing on to Paul for stability.
“Hey, Pergs,” Daniel Lipe yelled from across the room. “We’re going to hit the Puck for a round or two. You in?” Lipe was the assistant captain, a winger, a pain in the ass, and Sergei’s best friend on the team.
The Pucker Up bar was the unofficial team hang out, and after a win like this one, Sergei normally would go to celebrate. But he wasn’t feeling it tonight, despite the great save and a near shutout. He didn’t feel like walking through the chilly drizzle and fighting the Saturday night bar crowd. His ears still rang from the blaring music and screaming crowd in the arena.
“No, thank you. I am very tired tonight. I think I will go home to my bed. Maybe read a book. Why don’t you take the boys instead?” he asked, indicating Paul and Robbie.
“Are they old enough to drink?” someone asked with a laugh.
“Yes, Dad,” Robbie said with a grimace. “I’m twenty-one.”
“How about you, Alabama?” Lipe asked with a chin nod to Paul. “You a grown-up?”
“Yes sir,” Paul said with a Southern drawl. “I’m twenty-two years of age as of two months ago.”
Lipe clapped his hands once sharply. “Then put some damn clothes on and let’s go.”
The usual handful of fans waited at the arena doors for signatures and handshakes. Sergei signed anything handed to him with a kind word for the fan. It was the least he could do for the people that supported them and let him play the sport he loved for a living.
He couldn’t help smiling as he saw his car in the underground parking lot. The shiny black Mercedes SLS AMG was his baby. Expensive, impractical, and ridiculously overpowered for everyday use, Sergei loved everything about it from the gullwing doors to the seven-speed transmission. Opening up the doors made him feel like James Bond.
Leaning his head back against the headrest, he let the purr of the engine seep into his bones. He rubbed his palm across the steering wheel while he decided what to do. Should he go home, go to a hotel, or change his mind and join his teammates at the bar?
What he really wanted to do was see Alex. He wanted someone to talk to, to replay the game with. Alex didn’t play hockey, but he had been a competitive figure skater, and now coached several of the Thunder players in skating. Sergei was impressed by how much he had learned from Alex, even though he had been skating his whole life.
More importantly, he had been Sergei’s best friend since he’d been billeted with the Stantons up in Saguenay when he was playing juniors in the Quebec MJHL.
Alex had been twelve and already training to reach his goal of earning a gold medal in figure skating. His father had been a professional hockey pla
yer for a few years, bouncing between the ECHL, AHL, and for a few games, the NHL. Alex understood the demands of training and competing. He’d taught Sergei French and English, and Sergei taught him Russian. That had come in handy when Alex moved to Russia at fourteen to work with a renowned skating coach.
Though they’d often lived on different continents, Alex and Sergei had always kept in touch over the years, texting or messaging almost daily, and meeting together in Saguenay during the off-season.
Sergei never went back to Russia, and Alex never asked why.
He had been thrilled when Alex moved to Seattle after his run with a touring ice show ended. He’d assumed Alex would move in with him, and they’d see each other a lot more.
Instead, Alex had let Charles—his asshole, new lover—move him into some condo. And tonight, Alex was cooking a special Christmas dinner for a jerk who didn’t deserve his food, let alone his company.
The leather creaked under his hands as Sergei’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he pictured the cozy scene. They’d eat, and maybe talk a little, though Sergei had never heard Chuckles say an intelligent sentence the few times they’d met. And then they would have sex.
Pain flared in Sergei’s lower back. Damn, that hurt. With a deep exhale, he made an effort to deliberately relax his muscles. He shook his head back and forth to loosen his neck. He rested a hand on the stick shift, but didn’t put it in gear. He still wasn’t sure where he wanted to go.
Maybe he should drive to Chuckles’s condo. Pretend he’d forgotten about the dinner just to mess with him. He really hated that guy.
Chuck didn’t even appreciate what he had. As far as Sergei could tell, he treated Alex like a toy he could pick up and put down at will. Alex needed someone who understood how amazing he was.
Did Chuck know that Alex had finished all his work for high school by fifteen? Doubtful. Did he know Alex had been in such demand as a pairs skating partner that there had practically been a bidding war amongst the female skaters?