Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

“WHEN YOUtell everyone else about this,” Vic bit out tensely, clutching the wall and willing his feet to stop disobeying him, “lie and say that I didn’t look like a newborn deer in a hurricane.”

Kyle grinned. Vic could tell Kyle was fighting back a laugh for his sake. He was tempted to tell him to go ahead, even if he wasn’t sure his pride could take it, just to hear his laughter. “I’ll tell everyone you tore up the ice like an up-and-coming figure skater.”

“Yeah, sure, play into the stereotypes. Everyone will buy it.” The trouble was that the surface of the ice, after hosting a day of skaters, wasn’t especially smooth. The most minuscule divot felt like a mountain under his narrow blades.

Kyle, meanwhile, was gliding over the ice as if he’d been born on it. He seemed to float backward, keeping to a snail’s pace for Vic’s sake. “ Let the ice hold you. If you’ve ever gone roller-skating, it’s the same thing. Or even skateboarding. Just use one foot to push off and the other to stay steady.”

Vic nodded, though truthfully he’d hardly done either. His parents had encouraged him to take part in the standard rotation of sports before giving up on dreams of their boy becoming an Olympian. Following Kyle’s advice, Vic pushed off. For a harrowing moment, he needed to coax his feet parallel again. That proved so shaky that he ended up pitching forward, then overcorrecting, slipping, and falling backward.

Kyle was ready.

He hooked his arms under Vic’s, letting him lean against his powerful chest for a moment before hoisting him back to his feet. No, no, let me savor that a bit more. “Careful.” Kyle warned as Vic regained a semblance of balance.

“This may come as a surprise,” Vic began, out of breath. “But I may be somewhat inexperienced at this.”

“It must be those warmer climates you got used to,” Kyle said. “Is that part of why you keep moving? Aside from chasing the muse?”

Vic rolled his lips between his teeth to bite back a reflexive comment. He’d wondered when Kyle would connect those dots. Vic had raised his nomadic past as a possible out; an alibi in case things got too close too fast. No, no, I don’t have a fear of commitment. You know me, just a rolling stone, a bird on the breeze, a roving sunbeam. But he’d seen the questions in Kyle’s beautiful eyes. He’d taken the comment in, mentally writing it down word for word, to be examined by archaeologists and psychologists at a later date. “Well. Kind of.”

They started skating again, very slowly. Vic found that while he focused on something other than skating, his legs moved more naturally, finding balance on their own. “What did you do?” Kyle pressed. The usual ease in his voice sounded a bit frayed. “You needed to get out of Ohio. So you, what, threw a dart at a map and went from there? You said it was Charleston first, wasn’t it?”

Of course he’d remember that. The man held on to facts and details like a bear trap. It’d be unsettling if he wasn’t also adorable.

“Yep! Charleston, then Austin, then Denver, then San Francisco. I moved to Charleston…,” Vic started, choosing his words carefully. “Because the guy I was dating at the time, Nick, was moving there for college, and didn’t want to do a long-distance relationship.”

Kyle reached for Vic’s gloved hands. Vic grasped back, as naturally as reaching for the wall around the rink when he’d felt himself falling. “How, uh… how’d that work out?”

“It didn’t.” Vic laughed. “We were fighting all the time when we lived together. He ended up really controlling and I ended up sick of it. After a couple of years, I moved to Austin.”

The evening slowly took on the bluish cast that Kyle said made everything look like they were viewing it through a Tim Burton filter. The fluorescent yellow lights shone in direct contrast, distorted and wavering as they reflected off the ice. “Why Austin?”

Vic smiled without much humor. “Ah…. Long-distance relationship.”

“Uh-oh.”

“You would’ve agreed with my sister at the time, apparently. But yeah, this guy, James, invited me to move in with him, just a nice little one-bedroom deal. Turns out that was his second apartment. The other one was where he lived with his wife.”

“Are you serious?” Still skating backward, Kyle pulled Vic along at a steady pace.

Somehow his legs felt less shaky with Kyle’s hands to hold on to. “Dead serious. The day I found out he was married was the same day I came home to all my things on the lawn. It was unkind.”

“I can’t even imagine doing that to someone,” Kyle said, clearly horrified. “Especially someone who had uprooted themselves for me.”

Vic appreciated Kyle’s reaction. No judgment, no “you should’ve known better,” no pity—just his honest emotions. “And then, Denver….”

“Oh, don’t tell me—”

Vic raised an index finger to pause for effect. “Not a relationship. Some friends, hearing about my situation, invited me to come crash. It sounded great, just the five of us sharing an entire house, with a couple dogs, even a garden. They were trying for an ‘off-the-grid’ sort of thing. That somehow translated to ‘No one cleans and we think jobs are lame.’ We got evicted within six months.”

Kyle glanced around the rink, exhaling in a visible puff of breath. “And… San Francisco?”

Vic didn’t know someone could wince and laugh at the same time, but he did. “I was venting to this guy in a coffee shop about it… Gil. He was into fashion merchandising, and into me, and wanted us to move to San Fran together.”

“Vic!” Kyle’s laugh was pained.

“I am a really slow learner.”

Kyle shook his head. “I mean, not that. Did you have a phase where you just dated guys with one-syllable names?”

“That’s what you took from that story? That’s the pattern you’re focusing on?” Vic teased, feigning indignation.

“Fine. Name one guy you’ve dated whose name had more than one syllable.”

Vic thought for a moment. He was actually getting a bit better at keeping his balance. As long as he maintained a reasonable speed, the blades strapped to his feet had no problem carrying on. He just needed to trust a little. Imagine that. “Um… well, Nick, Gil, James, Jay, Chris, Hans….” He frowned, then looked up at Kyle. “Okay, so a lot of guys have one-syllable names. Laws of probability.”

Kyle was ready. “Really? Bryan? Tanner? Kevin? Vincent? Emmanuel? Joey? Derrick—?”

Kyle?

“Stop.” Vic said, letting one of Kyle’s hands go briefly enough to give him a playful slap on the arm.

The rink’s lights flashed, the signal it was shutting down for the night. Kyle guided Vic toward a gap in the wall that marked the exit. “Anyway, Gil’s mom was conservative and rich.”

Kyle winced. They both seated themselves on a bench to wrench their skates off their strained feet. Unfortunately, to do this Kyle had to let go of Vic’s hand. Vic wondered if he could find a reasonable excuse to take it back again later. “Astounding how often those two traits coincide, right?”

“And I don’t know if you’ve seen the rent prices in San Francisco lately, but—” Vic whistled. “We were barely scraping by, but it was nice, in a way. We had this ‘us against the world’ mentality to get us through it. Then his mom was like, ‘Hey, if you stop dating that boy or at least stop living with him, I’ll pay for your apartment.’”

Kyle frowned. “Geez. It sounds like something she’d say to an eighteen-year-old.”

“The guy was twenty-nine last year.” Vic exclaimed. Then he paused, frowning as he pulled on his shoes. He looked down, resting his hands on each of his knees, suddenly feeling sheepish. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to go David Copperfield on you with my dating history.”

“Don’t be,” Kyle said brightly. “I love listening to you talk. I’m sorry you were treated that way, but… I’m glad you ended up here, Vic. At least for the time being.”

Kyle’s gloved hand slowly found a perch on top of Vic’s own, holding on the same way he had on the ice.

Only this time, Vic was in no danger of falling.

Or was he?

Vic looked up. The warm tone of Kyle’s voice was surprising enough, but he was equally astonished at the look in Kyle’s eyes—at once both steady and smoldering. As their gazes met, Vic felt as if Kyle could reach all the way inside him. “But I told you the truth, though. In a way, I was chasing a muse. If I hadn’t chased my heart all over the country, I wouldn’t have had the experiences I’ve had. Wouldn’t have seen the places I’ve seen, y’know?” On a whim, he leaned into Kyle’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, savoring the warmth through Kyle’s coat.

It had begun snowing. Light, twirling flakes floated down from the heavens, incandescent in the Christmas lights around them.

“You probably wouldn’t have come here if things had worked out.” Kyle frowned as he spoke. “Not to say that I’m glad things didn’t work out for you.”

“I get that.” Vic smiled. He could never imagine Kyle saying something so self-serving.

Kyle glanced around at the crowd as if suddenly recognizing the tide of bodies slowly trickling past them. “Oh. The market’s closing soon, isn’t it?” Some people might have used that line as an out—an excuse to get moving. But Kyle sounded mournful. “I don’t suppose you’d want to walk to a coffee shop? A lot of them close early, but….”

“Oh, you think the magic of the Snow Circus ends when the customers leave?” Vic stood, using their linked hands to pull Kyle to his feet. “You have an ‘in’ now, my friend. Welcome to the after-hours.”