Fic: Hearts Beat Time Out (skating RPS, Johnny/Ben, part 1 of 4)

[mosca]

Title: Hearts Beat Time Out
Fandom: figure skating RPS
Pairing/Characters: Johnny Weir/Benjamin Agosto, Tanith Belbin, Irina Slutskaya
for full headers, please see this post.



"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."
-- T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

Qualifying round. Compulsory dance.

Occasionally, in interviews, Ben had been asked about the worst part of being a world-class skater. He was in the habit of lying, because there was no point in telling his fans that there were few things more annoying than opening-night receptions at international skating competitions. This one was being held in a building adjacent to the ice arena where Worlds would start the next day, and the room was freezing. As usual, the organizers had confused figure skaters with penguins. Since half the skaters were underage, and all of them were supposed to be behaving themselves, the food was bland and Tanith was having trouble getting her hands on a Diet Coke. And because everyone's coaches were there, not to mention the entire ISU board, everyone actually was behaving themselves. Even Elena Sokolova looked like she'd been sober for at least six hours.

Ben put his head down on the table, wishing he hadn't let Tanith talk him out of bringing his iPod.

Despite the noise, Ben had almost dozed off when someone started shaking his shoulder. "Is Dick Button slipping people roofies again?"

Ben yawned and turned around. Someone had sent Johnny over to harass him. He put his head back down.

Johnny grabbed a chair and sat down backwards in it. "Seriously. People are asking Tanith if you're pregnant."

"I'm all right," Ben said, forcing a smile. "I just need a minute."

"You and everyone else," Johnny said. That explained it: he wanted an excuse to complain about his own troubles. Not that Ben had any right to expect sympathy from a bunch of high-strung divas the night before a major competition, but he'd been hopeful for a moment. As expected, Johnny launched into his own self-pity. "And FYI, if you're thinking of dumping someone? Don't send them an e-mail the day before quals."

Johnny's boyfriend was known in the skating community as The Shadow. They'd been together for two years, but no one had ever met the guy. Apparently, that was how Johnny's publicist liked things. "I'm sorry," Ben said, because he couldn't think of any better consolation for losing an invisible boyfriend.

"You'd think after two years, he would have figured out my schedule," Johnny said.

"Oh, he did," Ben said. "Thank you, goodbye, hope you lose."

Johnny studied him. Cautiously, he put a hand on Ben's shoulder. Ben made a point of not shying away. "Merrie?" Johnny said.

"Finally figured out I was never going to love her more than skating," Ben said.

Johnny looked around the room in a slow sweep. "People who've just been dumped shouldn't be required to go to these things," he said. "Wanna leave?"

"Nobody leaves," Ben said. "If you try to escape, they let loose the hounds."

"Not a problem," Johnny said. "Stole Dick's roofies. Fed them to the hounds."

Ben sighed. "I shouldn't."

"What? We made our appearances. I've got back spasms so bad I shouldn't even be standing up, and you've... got a groin injury that's been bothering you."

"Oh, that's so played out," Ben said. But he smiled. "Sprained my wrist."

"Threw out your shoulder?"

"Unspecified knee issues."

"I like it," Johnny said. "It's both original and vague."

"I'll tell Tanith," Ben said, getting up.

"Christ, are you married?" Johnny said.

"No sex," Ben said. He went over to where Tanith was being really polite to Albena Denkova. Tanith rolled her eyes and punched his arm, but that meant she understood. She tended to.

Johnny had worked out a way to sneak out of the back of the building. The door said that it would set off a fire alarm, but nothing happened. "It's not my first trip to Calgary," Johnny said with a grin. "Let's go somewhere. I think I want Chinese food. Or a Cosmo. No, not in Canada. Chinese food. Come on."

Ben was trapped in downtown Calgary with a crazy person, but the only alternative was going back to the reception, and it was pretty easy to bribe him with sesame noodles. There was a free train that ran across the center of town, and Johnny knew where to catch it. Johnny spun around on one of the poles that ran through the train car. As Johnny sat back down, Ben thought he saw Johnny wince, although he covered it up by smiling the way he smiled at the press when he knew he'd said something he was going to get in trouble for. "Sorry," he said. "Can't resist. Too much of a diva."

Ben saw a Chinese restaurant from the window of the train, and they got off at the next stop. By the time they were on foot, that restaurant had ceased to exist, but they found another one. It was pretty much empty. There was a girl sitting in the corner, maybe twelve years old, doing her homework, and she was trying not to stare at them like she knew who they were. "I should have brought sunglasses," Johnny said.

"I think the sunglasses make it worse," Ben said. "They're like, look at me, I'm wearing sunglasses in Calgary in March. This way, she just thinks you're some guy who looks like Johnny Weir."

"Yeah, well," Johnny said. "If she doesn't come over here, I'm signing a napkin."

"I'm signing it 'Michelle Kwan,'" Ben said.

"Surprise! The groin injury was a sex change! Love, Michelle Kwan." Johnny giggled loudly, and the girl looked over at them. Ben shrugged at her. She ran back into the kitchen, and someone rushed out to take their order.

"Oh, Michelle is nice," Ben said after the waitress had gone away.

"She is? To who?" Johnny said. He swished his water in his glass like he wished it were vodka. "There's going to be a huge diva shortage, though, with her and Ira gone."

"Irina?" Ben had heard rumors that her health was going south again, but nothing for certain.

"Shit," Johnny said. "Forget I said anything."

If Tanith had been there, she would have pushed for an explanation. She got a kick out of the gossip. She liked making fun of it later. But after five years of knowing that everyone was talking behind their backs about how they ought to just get married if she wanted citizenship so bad, Ben was sick of it. "Already forgotten," he said.

Johnny leaned forward on his elbows. "You know what? I actually believe you." The table was big enough that there was still a good foot between his face and Ben's, but it felt a little close, a little intrusive. Ben realized that this might be a date, and he wished someone had warned him beforehand. But he didn't think Johnny had planned it that way, either.

He tried to think of what he would do if Johnny made a move. He couldn't decide if it was worse to act immature and disgusted, or to pretend to let him down easy. It would seem fake either way -- maybe not to Johnny, but definitely to himself. And the fakeness was what they were trying to escape, wasn't it? They'd have enough time to perform once the competition started.

Just go with it, he decided. If Johnny made a move, he'd go with it. Kiss him, laugh, mention that he was still straight. Nothing was going to happen, anyway. Johnny was a drama queen, but he wasn't an asshole.

*

Ben would have gotten totally lost in Calgary if it hadn't been for Johnny. For a straight guy, he had an embarrassingly crappy sense of direction. Johnny was proud of himself for getting them both back to the skaters' lodge. People always seemed to think that he was incompetent at everything but skating. It scared people that he had actual life skills and could exist in the real world without, like, flouncing around and getting arrested. It made people question whether being normal was worth the effort.

He and Ben had rooms on the same floor. "You have your own room, right?" Johnny said in the elevator.

"No, new ISU policy, pairs and dance teams have to share a bed," Ben said. He waited a moment, looking serious, before he cracked up. Johnny was laughing, too, but self-consciously. Ben wasn't lame-funny, reception-funny; he was real-funny, things-you-don't-say-at-press-conferences funny. And when he laughed, he smiled, and when he smiled, he was cute, and when he was cute, Johnny was really, really close to melting into a puddle at his feet. One of the only straight American figure skaters in senior international competition, and that was who Johnny had to be getting a crush on. Fate could at least have had the generosity to make him fall in love with one of the Russians.

Ben walked him back to his room. Johnny told himself that there was nothing weird about that. It was a little too much, somehow, a little too nice. It was meaner to be nice if you weren't interested. But Ben had always kept his distance in the past. Johnny had been the one to make him go out, to pretend they were friends when they weren't.

They got to Johnny's room, and Johnny unlocked the door. Ben was still standing there. "Um, good night?" Johnny said, trying not to sound too bitchy. He cleared his throat. "Or. Um. You could come in. If it's -- I mean, it's still early."

"Okay," Ben said, as if that cleared up anything. He was standing in the doorway, blocking it. He looked like he was expecting to be kissed good night. Not exactly wanting it, but assuming that Johnny would make the stupid move.

Johnny thought, well, if it was what he was expecting.

It was only supposed to be a compliment. Johnny would lean in, Ben would take a step back and laugh, and the sexual tension would go away so they could be friends. Johnny had come to Calgary assuming that he was going to be spending his nights alone with his iPod. That was better for his skating, anyway. Priscilla would never get tired of yelling at him for getting drunk and laid when he was supposed to be resting.

On the other hand, tomorrow was just quals, and Johnny didn't have to skate until 11 in the morning. He could skip morning practice if he had to. It wouldn't be the first time. A couple of times, his publicist had asked him to get breakfast on his own when the other skaters were running through their programs, to avoid saying something regrettable before he'd had his coffee. And anyway, he knew better than to start making evening plans based on one kiss from a straight guy.

Johnny curved his lips into a coy smile and cocked his head to the side. Ben stood his ground. He had soft lips -- Blistex soft, not complex-grooming-regimen soft. And when Johnny tried to pull away, to explain that this had all been fun but he knew better than to let straight guys lead him on, Ben drew him forward by the hips and opened his mouth, kissed him harder and deeper. It was very Tolstoy of him, Johnny thought, and laughing at his own joke made it too hard to kiss.

"Shit," Ben said.

"Sorry," Johnny said.

"No, I -- we've got a practice slot at, like, seven."

"Me too. What a coincidence."

"No -- What I mean is --"

"No," Johnny said. "Don't apologize. Don't make excuses. I get it. Just stop talking and go."

"I don't think I want to," Ben said.

Johnny pulled him into the room and kicked the door closed behind them. Ben kissed him again, and they made out in the doorway for a while. Johnny tugged Ben's hair out of its ponytail and ran his fingers through it. He'd been wanting to do that ever since Ben had started growing it out. People had gossiped about it when Ben had first shown up to competition with hair long enough to tie back, like it was the end of civilization. It made the fans think he wasn't serious about the sport, people said. Like fans cared that much about hair. But it did matter. It was sexy.

Ben put his hands on Johnny's ass, and for a second, Johnny thought Ben was going to lift him. Instead, it was like they were glued to the doorway. Johnny sidestepped towards the bed, and Ben moved with him flawlessly. One of the first things that Johnny had learned to do in pairs was follow: girls had shorter gaits, and you had to time your spins and throws to them. It seemed like Ben was used to that, to making it look like he was leading.

They knelt facing each other on the bed, still kissing. Johnny didn't know where to take it from there. Usually, sex was like skating: he could take himself out of his head and let his body take over. But he was used to being with guys who were more experienced than he was. He was used to being with Alex -- two years since he'd been with anyone else. It was easier to be agreeable and do what the other guy wanted.

But it was obvious by now that Ben didn't have the first clue to what he wanted. Johnny was mostly afraid of scaring him away. Stick a finger in the straight boy's ass, send him running right back to heterosexuality. Johnny thought about going down on him, but he worried that Ben would want to reciprocate, and a bad blow job was sometimes worse than no blow job at all. He wished he had a choreographer.

Ben ran his hands up Johnny's sides and eased him out of his shirt. While Johnny's hands were still over his head, Ben pushed him onto his back. Johnny winced as his spasms returned. He grabbed Ben by the hair and said, "Not gonna work."

"I didn't know," Ben said.

"If I weren't skating tomorrow, then maybe," Johnny said. "But I'd have to put my legs way up over my head, and--" He couldn't get himself to admit how much pain he was in. If Ben found that out, there was no way Johnny was getting laid.

"And you'd have your back all stretched the wrong way, and it would fuck up your spiral sequence," Ben said.

"There have been nights when I've actually had to make the choice between sex and Biellmann spins."

"So you can't--"

"Just not on my back," Johnny said. He cupped Ben's face in his hand. "And who said I was bottoming, anyway?"

Way to send the nervous straight boy out of the room. Ben blinked at him.

"It's not that you were wrong," Johnny said. "I just, I hate when people assume, you know?"

"I know," Ben said. "No. Look at me. I'm serious. I know."

He was right, and Johnny almost said something about how rare and lucky that was. But it made him anxious, too. It was unsafe enough to have an unplanned one-night stand with another skater. Liking him, trusting him, was a PR nightmare too ominous to contemplate.

"I brought condoms," Johnny said, "but I didn't unpack them. Just a sec." He hopped down off the bed, hand on the small of his back, to dig them out.

"You carry condoms in your gym bag?" Ben laughed.

"I used to keep them in the Louis Vuitton, but it seemed kind of vulgar," Johnny said.

It took a minute to find the condoms; they were in with the athletic tape and a couple of Power Bars. When he turned around, Ben was naked, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting. He had a perfect skater's body, ripped through his arms and his pecs, strong legs, ugly feet. Also, a shy smile and an erection. Johnny skipped back to the bed and took his pants off. "So," Ben said. "Where do you want me?"

Johnny lay down on his stomach, rested his cheek on his hand, and kicked a foot in the air. He expected Ben to take it as a joke, as another excuse to hesitate. But Ben climbed on top of him, almost holding him down, and started kissing his neck. It was a little too something -- delicate or foreplayish or whatever -- but it was sweet, and Johnny let it happen. Ben ran his hand down Johnny's chest, making him rock back onto his knees to create a little space between his belly and the bed. Ben's fingers were certain and curious, traveling down Johnny's stomach to his cock. Like he needed to know it was there, needed to know what it felt like. Johnny bit his lip and tried not to jerk too hard into Ben's hand. "Oh, you're -- okay," Ben said. And there was some adjustment, Johnny's hips up and Ben's forward, and the rip of a condom wrapper, and Ben being way too careful at first but getting into it. It wasn't the most skillful fuck in the ass that Johnny had ever had, but it was warm and well-meant, and it was comforting to have a man's arms around him. If what he'd wanted was the orgasm, he could've gone to bed alone. He got one, though, a slow and satisfying one, and he had to fight to hold himself up on his elbows while Ben finished.

He let Ben lie on top of him for a minute, heavy and exhausted. He could feel Ben smiling into his back. "I should get some sleep," Ben said.

"You can stay here," Johnny said. "I can set my alarm for five." He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his little travel clock. "You'll make people think I'm actually responsible."

"Or that you've learned how to catch a bus in time for your practice slot," Ben teased.

Johnny stuck out his tongue. "You know, I did actually miss that bus."

"You could have lied," Ben said. "You would have saved yourself some embarrassment."

"What should I have said? That I had the flu?"

"Hey," Ben said. "Evan really had the flu."

"He also really had Marcello, one of the dancers from the Opening Ceremonies, every night from the OC dress rehearsals until he left Torino," Johnny said.

Ben chuckled like this information was not completely new to him, but there were details he had not been aware of. He could convey that much in a facial expression. It gave Johnny a melty feeling.

"I guess we all decide what part of the truth to tell," Johnny said, hoping he could get across just as much in the tone of his voice and the percussive motion with which he turned out the light.

*

Ben's morning began, like many of his mornings, while it was still dark outside, with a relentless beeping. It was not, however, the familiar relentless beeping: this was slower and higher-pitched. Also, he was naked, and someone was throwing the covers off of him and muttering, "Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck" while diving in the direction of the beep. Ben stretched and sat up. He'd forgotten to take his contacts out, and his eyes felt numb.

"Oh, you're still -- I forgot," Johnny said. "I fucking forgot. I mean, I didn't forget. But I -- never mind. I'll turn on a light so you can find your stuff."

There were a pen and a pad of paper on the nightstand, and Ben reached for it. He covered it with his hand when Johnny tried to read it. He wrote, "Thanks for the groin injury. Love, Michelle." He even dotted the "i" with a heart. He folded it up and put it in the front pocket of Johnny's gym bag. "Don't read it now," he said. Johnny looked disappointed, so he gave him a kiss before putting his clothes on and leaving.

As he shut the door, he realized he should have checked to make sure the coast was clear. But he'd already locked it behind him, and he was going to miss the shuttle to the rink if he went back to Johnny's room to hide. He was in yesterday's clothes, carrying his shoes, and Zhang Dan was standing in the hallway, talking on her cell phone. Staring at him. He smiled and waved, then widened his eyes and put his finger to his lips. She smiled back and mirrored his gesture. Either she'd gotten the message, or she thought she was being too loud on the phone.

Ben got himself showered, shaved, and dressed, repacked his gym bag, and took the stairs down to the hospitality room. Tanith intercepted him at the door and shoved a cup of orange juice into his hand. "Jesus H. Christ," she said. "Where did you go? Were you out all night?"

"We just got dinner and came back to the complex," Ben said.

"You look like hell," she said.

"Thank you."

"You really just got dinner and came home?" she said.

"Yep."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You got laid, didn't you?"

He choked on his juice.

She patted his arm. "I'm so jealous," she said. "I mean, you got dinner. Meanwhile, I was stuck listening to Carolina Kostner talk about her hair for an hour. Seriously. Over an hour."

"She's right behind you," Ben said.

Tanith turned crimson and whipped her head around.

"Kidding," Ben said.

"Bastard," she said, but she was laughing. "So. Did you catch her name?"

"Whose?"

"The girl you slept with last night."

"There's no girl," Ben said.

"Shut up."

"There's no girl," Ben said. "There's no -- I mean it. We'll talk about it later."

Tanith started to protest, but an ISU official announced that the shuttle was leaving in five minutes, and they had to run before they were trampled by dance teams. She tried to bring it up again a couple of times on the way, but he stood his ground. It wasn't that he wanted to keep secrets from her. But every skater and coach on that shuttle bus had their iPods turned down just low enough that they were sure to hear any gossip that might float their way. Most of them didn't even know that he and Merrie had broken up yet. He had to hang onto that lie for a few more days. Just until the end of Worlds. It was so much easier when people thought that he and Tanith weren't all that interesting.

They tried to practice their compulsory dance, but they were completely off step. "You're too aggressive," Igor kept yelling at Tanith. "You're rushing." He didn't ride Ben too hard for being asleep on his feet, but Igor didn't yell things that were obvious to everyone. Finally, in exasperation, Igor made them take five minutes.

Tanith dragged Ben into an empty locker room. "It's later," she said.

"I slept with Johnny," Ben said. He sorely wished he could have messed with her a little longer, but they only had five minutes.

"Yeah," she said. "I kind of figured that out." She waited for him to say something, and when he didn't, she asked, "So. Are you..."

"I don't know," he said. "It just, it sort of, it happened."

"Okay," she said. "Okay, but -- but you couldn't have waited? I mean, Merrie."

"I think this is how I'm getting over it," Ben said. "I mean, if there's a way it happened, that's kind of... it."

"So The Shadow?"

"Has blown away," Ben said. "Sent him a fucking e-mail."

"Tacky," she said. There were footsteps in the hallway, and she looked over her shoulder. "We should skate," she said.

They weren't miraculously back in sync, but it was better. "That's it," Igor shouted. "Smile like you're in love." Ben wanted to shout back that it was a little soon for that.

The organizers shooed everyone off the ice fast at the end of the practice session, and Ben waited out the mob scene before he went to take off his skates and change. When he reached into his gym bag, he found a slip of paper that he hadn't left there. He took it out and unfolded it. "Anytime, sweetheart," it said. "Love, Tinkerbelle."

*

By noon, Johnny had skated his long program and qualified for the next round of Worlds. By two in the afternoon, he was bored. Also sleepy, and his hair needed washing. He'd parked himself in one of the armchairs in the hospitality lounge until the maid service finished on his floor. He'd almost dozed off to the club remix of "Since U Been Gone" when his cell phone went off. He mumbled a hello without checking to see who was calling. "Were you sleeping?" a Russian-accented voice teased.

"I'm not sleeping," Johnny said. "I'm recharging my fabulousness." He wasn't sure if Ira would even understand that, but some things, he said purely to amuse himself.

"Come on. Get up. They don't have coffee in hospitality room?"

"We're in Canada. There's no coffee after noon in Canada."

"You're in Calgary," she said. "Calgary has Starbucks."

"I don't need coffee," Johnny said, stretching. "I'm done for the day."

"Lucky duck," she said. She'd woken him up enough to make him realize that this had nothing to do with coffee. She needed him to know what was going on with her. When she'd won bronze at the Olympics, she'd hurled the medal into a locker, and she'd been muttering about retirement during exhibitions. But when he'd called to ask if she was serious, she hadn't answered her phone.

"So," she said. "I hear you are breaking up with Alex. He could at least wait until after Worlds, don't you think?"

"I think he did it on purpose," Johnny said. "One last attempt to out-diva me."

"But you are okay?" she said.

"Terrific," Johnny said. He was about to force an ironic smile, but he remembered that she couldn't see him. He wasn't terrific, but he was all right. The relationship had been dying slowly. He knew that he was supposed to be depressed, but he felt light. Like it was suddenly easy to get off the ground. Ben had something to do with that, maybe, but he'd been feeling it before. He'd heard people say that it just wasn't a good time for them to be in a relationship, and he'd always thought it was a ploy to disguise bitterness at being alone. But now that Alex was gone, he wasn't responsible for anybody else's happiness. He could worry about his own.

"Your skating, it is okay?" she said.

"I'm having trouble with my back," he said. "I doubled a couple of jumps."

He could hear her shrugging. "Is only quals," she said.

"That's what I'm going to keep telling myself," he said.

She paused for so long that he checked his phone to make sure he hadn't lost the signal. "What you are not telling me?" she said. "There is somebody else?"

"No," he said. "No. I mean, there wasn't anybody before."

She laughed. "You are leaving opening night reception early to pick up boys?"

"Not on purpose."

"You just accidentally fall onto his khuy?"

"It happens sometimes," he said.

"This does not happen," she said. "But okay. Is he skater or civilian?"

"Ice dancer," Johnny admitted.

"Pfft, they are the worst," she said. "Okay. Promise me this thing. You will not fall in love with him."

"It was a one-night stand. Na khuya?" That whole night was stuck in his head like a song. He wished he could hum it to Ira and have her understand it.

"Promise me."

"All right," he said hollowly. "I promise."

"You promise what?"

"I promise I won't fall in love with this person, who I'm never going to bed with again, because he's straight, so it doesn't matter."

"Vanya," she said. "If he is going to bed with you, he is not straight."

"Don't say that," he said. "You're making it all complicated."

"Is not complicated," she said. "Is very simple. You do not see him again, you take time for heart to heal up, you meet someone who is not ice dancer. And then you're happy."

"And then I'll go pro, and I'll come out to the press, and there will be bunnies and flowers and rainbows..."

"All of this will happen," Ira said.

"Maybe not the bunnies," Johnny said.

"Oh, for certainly you will have the bunnies."

"Too bad they're the one thing I don't want," he said, and he had her laughing, which is what he'd wanted. Every time he'd seen her lately, he'd seen pain in her eyes. She'd limped off the ice after her Olympic long program; he'd caught her crying softly during the rehearsals for exhibitions. He'd been surprised when she'd let him hug her and tease her until she giggled. A year earlier, during the Champions on Ice tour, she'd told him that she'd watch out for him, that they had to stick together. He hadn't quite believed her, and he certainly hadn't believed that it worked both ways. But she seemed to have picked up on the fact that they both held a lot in, that they smiled extra pretty for the camera so it worked like a mask.

When she stopped laughing, he asked, "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

"Not so good," she said. "But in a few weeks, I will be skating, and then everything is okay again." She didn't have to add anything. It was true for her.

"And your mom?"

"Not so okay," she said. "But she is still here. So could be worse."

"You would tell me, right? You would--"

"Of course I would tell," Ira said. "That is deal, right?"

"Right."

"So why you are not telling me which ice dancer you have sex with last night?"

"The deal is between you and me," Johnny said. "He's not in on it. And he's a good person. Like, actually a good person."

"You said he is ice dancer, right? Russian ice dancer."

"I never said he was Russian."

"All right. If he is not Russian, I will believe you," she said. "So long as you do not fall in love."

"I promised, didn't I?" Johnny said.

*

"Got any plans for tonight?" Tanith said on the way back to the hotel from their afternoon practice. She didn't actually nudge him and wink, but she might as well have.

"I was going to finish that book," Ben said. "Maybe get in an hour on the Stairmaster."

"Is that what we're calling him in public?"

"Would you keep it down?"

"What? Nobody else on this bus speaks English. And 'Stairmaster' is a really good code word."

"What part of one night stand do you not understand?" he whispered.

"The part where you broke up with your girlfriend all of a week ago and you're walking on fucking sunshine?" she said.

"I'm not -- I am not," he said. "Also, you're very loud."

She started singing.

"You know, I'd kill you, but we skate so damn well together."

"It's too bad," she said.

"That I can't kill you?"

"That it was just the one night," she said. She didn't pause to register his shock. "You're more fun when you're happy. And I like the Stairmaster, and I think -- I think people I like should be with people I like."

"I'm not 'with'... this person." Ben hadn't considered that possibility, not really. He'd left a note, he'd left the room, he'd assumed that was the end of it. The only reason he was giving this a second thought was because he wasn't used to being single. He'd get over it and meet someone else, a girl, someone who made sense. But he couldn't help but feel like he wasn't finished. He hadn't done the best he could do. When he'd been a little kid, he'd thrown fits at his mom and his coach when they tried to explain to him that you couldn't have a do-over in a competition. Real life was more generous than skating.

They were the last ones off the bus. It wasn't like they had anywhere else to be. The exercise room back at the lodge wouldn't be crowded: there was a facility with better equipment at the skating complex, and most people were using that. But Ben wanted quiet, the privacy of an empty room where he could have an easy workout and read a little space opera. He went up to his room to get his gym shoes and his book. When he got back down to the exercise room, Johnny was there, leaning back against the door. "Tanith told me I should meet you here," Johnny said. "She said you wanted to talk to me."

"Tanith gets some crazy ideas in her head," Ben said. He didn't mean for it to sound harsh, but it did.

"I'm sorry," Johnny said. "I mean, it seemed like you were okay with it when you left this morning. I wouldn't have, you know, if I thought you were --"

"I am okay," Ben said. "It was good. It was fun. But Tanith's, like, picking out our curtains and I'm..."

"Not?"

"I mean, I -- you're a -- I like you, but --"

"Not," Johnny said.

"Really not."

"Thank God," Johnny said. "I was having these nightmare fantasies that you were going to chase me all over Canada or something."

"Really not," Ben said, too harsh again.

Johnny made a pouty face, but he couldn't sustain it, and he burst into giggles. That took class, Ben thought, to laugh at being turned down and mean it. Clearly, there were all kinds of things going on in Johnny's head that he wouldn't let Ben touch. If Ben turned him down now, he'd never see any more of it. The walls would go up forever, just when Ben was starting to like him. He wouldn't get to change his mind later, and he'd have thousands of chances to regret that. So he said, "I mean, we could. If you wanted. Just sex, no curtains."

Johnny looked away from him. "Don't."

"What?"

"Be a fucking cocktease," Johnny said.

Ben had known this was going wrong, but he hadn't realized it was going that kind of wrong. He was working so hard not to lead Johnny on, not to hurt his feelings. The harder he worked, the worse he sounded. He needed to stop thinking, and he couldn't stop. "I wasn't trying to be," he said.

"It's always easier when you aren't trying," Johnny said. He'd been keeping some distance between himself and Ben, but it only took him one step to close it. He put his hands on Ben's hips and pressed his forehead against Ben's. "Just sex," he said. "No curtains."

Ben stumbled backwards. "We're in public."

"There's no one here."

"But there could be," Ben said.

"Don't be paranoid," Johnny said. "I've spent two years putting up with paranoid, and you're supposed to be the person who puts that out of my mind."

That was why rebound sex was supposed to take place in the form of a one night stand. It was too much of a burden to put on someone more than once. But they were doing it to each other, so it was more fair. Not that fairness mattered when a few seconds pressed up against Johnny had gotten Ben half hard, his mind trying to slow things down because his body was so impatient. But Ben had never accomplished anything by working against his body. The trick was to push it harder in the direction it already wanted to go.

He pulled Johnny forward by the wrist so they were up against each other again, and he kissed Johnny, hard and deeply. "Now come on up to my room before I come in my pants," he said.

He could feel Johnny relax against him, could feel him laughing. "You come off so shy," he said. "And then you say things like that."

Ben tugged him in the general direction of the elevator. "I'm trying to forget someone who hated that about me," he said.

"How could anyone hate that?" Johnny said. "It's adorable."

"You'd have to ask her."

"We are so underappreciated," Johnny said.

"I'll appreciate you," Ben said. He wished he could stuff it back in his mouth. It sounded like a long-term offer.

The elevator came. One of the Japanese coaches got in behind them and ruined Ben's plans of shoving his tongue down Johnny's throat on the way up. It was almost enough, knowing that Johnny would have been into it. Whenever Ben tried to be a gentleman, things got weird. As soon as he acted as aggressively as he felt, Johnny was all over him. He'd learned so much self-control: he'd been a quick study. He'd channeled all his emotions into music, climbing, dancing, skating. And here was this person asking him to release everything, to release it into him.

Ben did his best to look nonchalant when they reached their floor. Even if the coach spread rumors, there wouldn't be any foundation. They were friends. They had rooms on the same floor. Still, he heard the coach harrumph when he and Johnny got off the elevator together.

They silently agreed to go to Johnny's room, because it was closer and because he had the impressive stockpile of condoms. Proving that he was stronger than he looked, he dragged Ben over to the desk in the corner of the room and pushed him back against it. Ben was wearing the black warmup pants he'd practiced in, and it was easy for Johnny to yank them down to his knees. "Jesus," Johnny said. "You weren't kidding."

"I'm very serious," Ben said.

Johnny pulled a condom out of the pocket of his jeans, ripped it open, and rolled it onto Ben's cock. "I was daydreaming about doing this during my warmups this morning," Johnny said. "I didn't think I'd actually get to."

"You were thinking about me sucking your dick?" Ben said.

"No," Johnny said. His face broadened a million-watt smile: not the one he wore on TV, but mouth closed, eyes down, shy and personal and real. "I was thinking about doing this." Ben had trouble imagining someone fantasizing about giving a blow job. Receiving, yes, obviously, but giving? And it's not that he was opposed to the idea -- he was becoming more in favor of it with every passing minute -- but it wasn't exactly where his mind was likely to stray. He wondered if that meant he was straight after all.

Johnny ran his tongue down Ben's cock, and the question instantly became irrelevant. Ben leaned back into the desk. With his eyes closed, it should have been just another blow job. Maybe it was the condom, which made things colder and a little sticky, although he could feel the warm pressure of Johnny's mouth just fine. Johnny had his tongue curved up so that it slid along Ben's cock every time Ben pushed his hips forward, a little bit of extra contact where he was most sensitive. He had a hand on each of Ben's thighs, and he was strong. Ben curled his toes in his shoes. Because he'd been holding it in, he came hard, with a groan, the power in the center of his body thrusting him forward, his knees buckling in the afterglow.

Johnny tossed the condom into the wastebasket under the desk. Ben took off his shoes and reached down to pull up his pants, which had bunched up at his ankles. "Hey, no," Johnny said when he saw what Ben was doing. "You should be naked. Like, all the time. When you're skating. Like the ancient Greeks."

"I think Tanith might have a problem with that," Ben said.

Johnny slid his hands under Ben's t-shirt and pushed it over his head. Ben felt exposed, more than a little, but Johnny had him pinned against the desk again. When he tried to say something, Johnny kissed him. He tasted like rubbery mint. Johnny brushed against Ben's leg, and Ben was surprised to feel how hard he was. It was like Johnny was making a point of not mentioning it. Ben stuck his hand down Johnny's pants. He barely brushed Johnny's cock with his fingertips, but Johnny gasped. "You don't have to," Johnny said.

"I don't have to get you off?" Ben said. "Are you joking?"

"I can be kind of a hard sell," Johnny said.

"You?" Ben said. "You came all over the bedspread last night and I didn't even touch your dick." He rubbed the tip of Johnny's cock with his thumb, trying to get another gasp out of him. "Listen, it's whatever you want."

"I don't know," Johnny said. "I'm not used to -- I don't know."

"What? Talk to me."

"Fuck," Johnny said, shaking his head. "I just got out of a really bad relationship. I didn't even realize."

"I'm sorry," Ben said.

"Do anything," Johnny said. "Just -- do anything."

Ben pushed off the desk, got down on his knees, and undid Johnny's fly.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" Johnny said.

"I take direction really well," Ben said.

Johnny sighed. "Okay. Don't try to put the whole thing in your mouth at once, and breathe through your nose. And, shit, I think that was the only flavored condom I brought."

"Is that a problem?"

"Kind of. Maybe not. Do you have any weird diseases?"

"Nope."

"Do you trust me?"

"Not really," Ben said. But when Johnny didn't laugh, he corrected himself. "Yeah. I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Then, okay, it's not a problem," Johnny said. "Just don't fucking bite me or anything."

"So you just want me to --"

"Oh, God, please," Johnny said. "I just want you to stop talking and -- yeah. That." Ben wasn't sure what he was doing right, but Johnny was speechless, clutching at his hair. It wasn't totally unlike sucking on a girl's nipples, that balance between pressure and tenderness. Johnny's skin was soft, and the taste was non-scary, and once he got used to the feeling of Johnny's cock swelling in his mouth, it was just rhythm, synchronizing his tongue to Johnny's hips.

And then Johnny came in his mouth, and the shock and the force of it made him choke and cough, but Johnny was right there with a Kleenex and merciless teasing. "You were really good up until then," Johnny said. "Seriously. You have no idea, do you?"

Ben shrugged and got up. "I might," he said.

"My ex, um, fuck. I shouldn't even say anything. You don't want to hear about it."

"I don't mind," Ben said.

"Oh, but you will."

"I've got my own set of bad relationship stories to air out," Ben said. "Believe me."

"You really want to listen to me bitch?"

"I really want to convince you that I can beat anything you come up with."

Johnny took his shirt off.

"What are you doing?" Ben said.

"If I'm going to make a list of every shitty thing Alex did to me over the past two years," he said, "I'm going to do it while lying naked in the arms of my new lover, who is a better skater than he will ever be and also has a better body. I mean, can you think of better revenge?"

The "new lover" thing was a little more than Ben could wrap his head around just yet, but he couldn't think of any better revenge.

*

Johnny was on a lot of drugs. Really, it was just muscle relaxants, but enough of them that he was completely blissed out. He couldn't walk a straight line or hold onto a thought, but he also couldn't feel his back. He'd thought about just going home the morning after his free skate, but he wasn't up to three hours in an airplane seat. Also, he felt oddly compelled to hang around for the free dance. If he couldn't pull out a half-decent program at Worlds, he could at least stick around and make sure that Ben skated well, and wow, was that a lot of emotion to be investing in a guy who he'd been fucking for all of five days and who would probably take his neck full of medals and go back to women as soon as he was back in Detroit. Johnny fell in love way too easily, and in a situation like this, it was about as fair as back spasms at the World Championships.

He might have been more likely to drop out of a fling than major international competition, but Ben had been unnecessarily, almost cruelly good to him the night before. Johnny had limped back to the hotel after the free skate, popped some muscle relaxants, and planned to sleep off the disappointment, but the numbing effect of the medication wasn't enough to stop him from reliving that triple flip, the way his ass and his chest had hit the ice. He'd put the TV on so it wouldn't be so quiet, but the noise had irritated him almost as much. It had taken excruciating effort to answer Ben's knock, but it would have been harder to turn him away. Especially since he'd shown up at the door with a hot water bottle shaped like a teddy bear. "Tanith's," he'd explained. And then he'd stayed the whole night.

Johnny stayed in bed all day, drifting in and out of sleep. He set his alarm for two hours before the free dance so he could take a shower, throw some clothes on, and limp down to the rink. The drugs made him apathetic, so he didn't spend half an hour on his hair, and the athletes' section of the bleachers was still pretty empty when he got there. Sasha, in a moment of dippy sweetness, turned down her iPod to ask him if he was all right. "Very heavily medicated," Johnny said.

"At least it's over for you," she said. "I'm so brain dead, I don't know how I'm going to skate tomorrow."

"Beautifully," Johnny said.

She smiled like she was trying to believe him. "You're so sweet," she said. "Like, when you want to be. So it means something."

"It's the muscle relaxants," he said.

"Yeah, whatever," she said, turning her iPod back up and closing her eyes.

The free dance seemed to go on forever, especially since Ben and Tanith skated second to last. Johnny slept through most of the second warmup group, and the programs that he was conscious for ran together after a while. But he woke up for Ben. Not even for Tanith, because for those four minutes he could not have shifted his gaze enough to look at her. He was far enough away to take in the whole perfect curve from the top of Ben's head to his free blade but close enough to see Ben's fighting smile when they passed close to the boards. Ben was such a good liar: he made himself weightless. He fucked up a little at the end, but it looked almost intentional, because there was a glow about him that might have been Johnny's narcotic haze but looked more like a self-possession and joy that Johnny had not seen him reach even in orgasm. Johnny wanted to be able to reach that, to lure it out of him. But wanting that showed him how unsafe he was even at this distance, and how selfish.

Johnny convinced himself to go back to his room when the skating was over, although the stalker in him wanted to hang around the rink until Ben was done with the press. He hoped Ben would be too tired and too disappointed to come around. He hoped this thing between them would just fade away, and his feelings along with it. He took an extra muscle relaxant so his mind wouldn't keep him awake.

It worked so well that the next thing he knew, there was desperate pounding on his door and Ben was shouting, "Jesus Christ, are you dead in there?"

"Practically," Johnny yelled, hoping he was loud enough to be heard, because he wasn't sure if he could stand up. He struggled out of bed, bracing himself against the wall as he made his way to the door.

"Wow," Ben said. "You have painkiller eyes."

"I couldn't sleep," Johnny said.

"How much did you take?" Ben said.

"Not that many."

"Don't do that," Ben said. "I like you."

"Stop it," Johnny said.

"Stop liking you?"

"Liking me, being nice to me, coming here instead of going out and celebrating like you're supposed to after you medal. All of it. Stop."

"I would if I could," Ben said.

"But you're a nice person," Johnny said. "You're genuinely fucking nice." He lost his footing and had to catch himself on the wall. Maybe he had taken one pill too many.

"You're going to hurt yourself," Ben said. "You're barely on your feet."

"I'm all right," Johnny said. "I'm not letting you in."

"Like hell you're not," Ben said. He moved too quickly for Johnny to stop him from lifting him off of his feet.

"Are you going to hold me over your head and spin me around?" Johnny said.

"Ceiling's too low," Ben said. "And you'd probably throw up on me." He lay Johnny down on the bed and spread the blankets over him. "What do they have you on? Vicodin?"

"No, they didn't put me on the normal stuff, it's muscle relaxants, what's it called? Ro-something. Rohypnol." Johnny kicked the covers off, which was enough vigorous physical activity to wear him out.

Ben laughed. "Did you get that from Dick Button?"

"What? He's not here."

"No. Seriously. Rohypnol is roofies. I think."

"So are you going to take advantage of me?" Johnny said.

"I'm going to get you some water," Ben said.

Johnny must have fallen asleep in the time it took Ben to get to the bathroom and back, because waking up made his head throb. Ben was sitting on the other side of the bed, listening to Johnny's iPod. He looked perplexed. He'd taken his shoes off, and Johnny thought, ugly feet. When the rest of him, hidden, was so beautiful. "How long was I out?" Johnny said.

"Like an hour," Ben said. "You have really figure skater taste in music."

"You've been here the whole time?"

"I didn't want you to, like, choke on your own vomit," Ben said.

"You should've called Priscilla," Johnny said. "You should've gone home."

"You wanted me to call your coach?"

"She's not judgmental," Johnny said. "You really. You should have gone back to your own room."

"I guess I'm a nice person," Ben said.

"That's not nice," Johnny said. "That's crazy." That was the kind of thing people did when they were falling in love with you, Johnny thought. It might have been that his head was clearing, so everything felt like an epiphany, but he thought that might make it easier, if the feeling were mutual. It was too soon for a new boyfriend; he was still falling out of love with Alex. But if he were on the market, Ben would make a really good boyfriend, so good that it was unfair that Johnny was going to have to let him go.

"I was on Vicodin for, like, three weeks last year," Ben said. "When I hurt my knee. I said all this stuff that I don't remember."

"Did you, like, go around telling everyone how much you loved them?"

"I don't know," Ben said. "Merrie wouldn't tell me."

"Oh," Johnny said. "Oh. I--"

"No, you know what the shitty part is? I probably meant it. Whatever it was."

"I don't think it counts if you're on drugs," Johnny said.

"So when you told me you were in love with me--"

Johnny's heart raced with panic. "Oh, I didn't."

Ben sat there looking smug for a very long time before he said, "No. You just fell asleep."

"You know what? I take it back. You're not a nice person."

"Did I really have you fooled?" Ben said. He smiled, his eyes cast downward, and he still had Johnny fooled. A strand of hair had come loose from his ponytail, casting a spiral shadow on his cheek. Johnny reached over to brush it away, and Ben said, "Hey. Not when you're on drugs."

"I took most of them before the free dance," Johnny said. "They're wearing off." As if to confirm this, his back twinged, and he winced.

"You went? You watched us?"

"I like watching you," Johnny said. "You're a fucking amazing skater."

"You should have stayed in bed and watched it on ESPN. I mean, we only came in third."

"Third is good," Johnny said. "Third is really good. I would have killed for third."

"Really? Who?"

"What?"

"Who would you have killed?" Ben said.

Johnny pretended to think for a moment. "Probably Evan," he said.

Ben shrugged and nodded. "That's fair."

"Not really," Johnny said. "The only fair thing is being better than everyone else."

"It occurs to me that it's a really good thing we don't skate in the same event," Ben said.

"Yeah. Tried that. Bad idea."

Ben still had Johnny's iPod in his hands. He unwound the ear buds and rewound them a few times, slowly. Johnny was trying to meditate away his back pain. He said, "You know what the worst is? I don't even get to do an exhibition program."

"Can you even stand up long enough to do an exhibition?" Ben said.

"It's my favorite thing," Johnny said. "Just skating for an audience, when there's no scoring and no judges? And I don't get to do it."

Ben furrowed his brow, like he wasn't sure how to express sympathy in the manner of earth people. Or, more likely, he was so unsure of where he was with Johnny that he didn't know whether a hug would be appropriate. Johnny understood that. A hug would have been weird. "What program were you going to do?" Ben said.

"With the week I've had? I'd probably have gone back to 'Unchained Melody.' You? I mean, which are you?"

"We're sticking with the Porn Number."

"The what?"

"Most of our programs have secret names," Ben said. He paused, then made an exaggerated gasp. "Shit, secret names. If Tanith finds out, she'll kill you."

"Can't she kill Evan instead?"

"I could buy your silence with sex," Ben said. "Stop the violence before it starts."

"I thought I was on too many drugs for sex."

"You may be okay. Let me check." He pivoted on his knee and swung his leg over so he was sitting in Johnny's lap. He held up a finger to make Johnny follow it with his eyes, then touched the finger to Johnny's lips. Johnny smiled underneath it and closed his eyes, expecting a kiss. Instead, Ben slipped his other hand down the front of Johnny's pants. Surprised, Johnny jerked up into his hand. Ben said flirtatiously, "I think you're okay." At the same time, Johnny said, "I think you threw my back out."

"Should I just forget about it?" Ben said.

"Fuck, no," Johnny said. "Just go easy."

"So you don't want me to throw your legs up over your head?"

"I can lie on my side," Johnny said. "Maybe on my stomach."

"Or you can stay where you are, and I can go down on you," Ben said.

"Since when do you like going down on me?"

"I like it when you're quiet," Ben said. He got a death glare out of Johnny before he added, "I like it when you're happy."

"Who said you made me happy?"

"You could have gotten on a plane yesterday, couldn't you?" Ben said.

Johnny ran both his hands through Ben's hair, pushing it loose. "Stop being logical and blow me already."

"You smile with your whole body," Ben said. "It's really beautiful."

Don't call me beautiful, Johnny tried to say. He tried to tell Ben not to say anything, not because he liked Ben when he was quiet, but because it was exactly the opposite, especially since Ben was a quiet guy, like he only wanted to say things if they mattered. When Ben said something funny or sweet or brilliantly dirty, Johnny started to think it wasn't too soon for a new relationship. Not that Ben would agree to it.

He closed his eyes. The drugs had worn most of the way off, but it still hurt to think. He wished Ben would hurry up and take his mind away.

"Hey," Ben said. "It doesn't matter how beautiful you are, I can't do anything to you if you have pants on."

His eyes still closed, Johnny smiled gently and took his pants off. He wondered if his whole body was smiling again, if he had happy feet and happy elbows. A happy penis, and he laughed to himself, except that while he was making a joke of it Ben was wrapping his lips around the end of his cock, his fist around the shaft and his thumb caressing Johnny's balls. Johnny thought, coordination, that was a good quality to look for in a boyfriend.

*

Ben and Tanith got on a plane to New York right after exhibitions. They'd been booked for interviews on ESPN2 and CSC that they hadn't had time for after the Olympics. They both liked doing press. They liked being the center of attention, especially when it was blocked out in brief segments and they could be left alone afterwards.

There were a bunch of skaters on their plane. A lot of people trained on the East Coast, in Connecticut or Delaware, and a lot of the Europeans were catching connections back to Moscow or Rome or Helsinki. A grim mood hung over the flight: a combination of exhaustion, competitive envy, and the deadening recognition that they had ahead of them a long, slow summer of practice and exhibition skating. All of the skaters leaned back in their seats, cocooned in the privacy of their own music.

Johnny was sitting a couple of rows up. It figured. They'd left things too open-ended the night before, parting with a sort of implied agreement that this was the end, but not talking about it. Ben had suffered two or three rough patches with Merrie as the results of things he'd assumed were "implied agreements," and he wasn't looking forward to going through that again.

When the seat belt light went off, Ben came over to Johnny's seat. Johnny beckoned for him to lean close. "Bathroom in the back of the plane in fifteen minutes," Johnny said, the tone of his voice not leaving any room for negotiation. It was distantly possible that Johnny only wanted a private conversation, but it looked more likely that he'd assumed a very different kind of implied agreement.

Ben went back to his seat and got out the book he still hadn't finished reading. Ten minutes later, Johnny passed by him, heading towards the back of the plane, not pausing to say hi. Ben waited a few more minutes, then went back and knocked on the bathroom door. Johnny reached out a slender arm and pulled him in.

Johnny locked the door and pushed Ben back against the sink cabinet, kissing him roughly and tugging at his belt. Ben abandoned all hope of conversation. He lifted Johnny up by his ass, and Johnny wrapped his legs around Ben's knees, wedging himself into the cramped space and making it clear that any back pain was far overshadowed by his desire to have sex in an airplane bathroom. He ground against Ben and almost fell, but Ben grabbed him by the hips and dipped him slowly backward so he was lying across the toilet. Johnny pushed his pants down to his ankles and clasped his hands under his knees. He rolled back and braced his shoulders against the wall so he was almost sitting upright. Ben had to kneel on the damp floor to get the angle right. But it was a rush to know that half of the international figure skating community was sitting on the other side of a thin wall. The people in the back rows could have heard them if they were listening carefully.

"You finally got me with my legs over my head," Johnny said, struggling to pull his pants up with one leg on either side of the toilet bowl.

Ben tried to laugh, but he couldn't get started. He was having too many thoughts. Conflicting thoughts. And the situation should have been simple: they couldn't keep doing this. They couldn't date. A long-distance relationship that they'd have to keep secret, with both of them in the public eye? It wasn't worth it. If it didn't kill them both, it would kill their careers. But he couldn't get the words out.

"Are you, um, staying in New York?" he said instead.

"We have a whole week until rehearsals start for Champs on Ice," Johnny said. "I'm not allowed to skate until my back heals, so I thought if I'm going to spend a week doing nothing, I should do it where there's good healing energy, you know?"

Ben didn't know. When he was nursing an injury, he let his mom take care of him. "Sure," Ben said.

"Are you? I mean -- are you getting a connection somewhere, or --"

"We're doing some press," Ben said. "We'll be there, like, two days."

"Will you have time to sneak out? Because we could--" Johnny cut himself off, and his face exploded into a wide grin. He clasped Ben's hands. Ben got the impression if there had been more space in the bathroom, he would have jumped up and down. "You should stay the whole week," he said.

"I really can't," Ben said. "I have to be back in Detroit on Wednesday."

"For what? The season's over."

"We have plane tickets. And Tanith will flip out. And our coaches. And--"

"And I have this gorgeous hotel room with a king-size bed in this gorgeous hotel, kind of between Times Square and Hell's Kitchen, I swear, it's all glass and dark wood, very postmodern. And I have friends I want you to meet, and we could go skating in Central Park, and -- and --"

"I don't know," Ben said. "I don't know if it's the best thing."

"Fine," Johnny said. "Never mind." His mouth was a thin line, and his eyes were cast down. But there was nowhere for him to look that wasn't at Ben.

"It's -- I had a good time this week. I, um, I like you a lot and, and everything. But I have a career to worry about. I can't just --"

"All right. If that's all it was to you, then I guess -- just, just stop talking." Johnny reached over Ben's shoulder and unlocked the bathroom door.

Ben re-locked the door. He took a deep breath. "It's not," he said. "All it was. That's the fucking problem."

"Then make it not the problem," Johnny said. "If that's the only thing keeping you from -- from being with me, or whatever, then -- I've been doing this since I was sixteen, for fuck's sake. I don't have a choice. You can go back to Detroit if you want and find some girl who'll reaffirm your masculinity, or whatever. But some of us don't get that option. I -- I'd forgotten what it was like to spend my whole day looking forward to just being near someone, and you -- you made me remember that. And if you felt anything even close to that, then -- I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying anymore."

Ben knew exactly what he was saying. He was saying that he was falling in love, and it scared the crap out of him. Which made two of them. He tried to say that, but it didn't work. "I... yeah," was what came out.

"Okay," Johnny said.

"I'll, um, I'll see if I can change my plane ticket," Ben said.

"Only do it if you mean it," Johnny said.

"I do," Ben said. "I want to." He thought about kissing Johnny, and he could have. But kissing him would have made it look like he was lying. "I'm gonna go ask. Like, right now."

"Just -- just let me know," Johnny said. "Call me. Or text me, or whatever."

"I'll put a note in your bag."

"Just don't send me an e-mail."

Now was a much better time to kiss Johnny, and to have it be true.

*

Click here for part two.