On and Off Page 3

  Chapter Three

  Mitchell stroked around the rink in small arcs, hoping to find answers in the familiar kish-kish sound of his blades gliding across the ice. Only a handful of other skaters wove around each other, leaving plenty of room for Mitchell and his thoughts. The coach in him should be upset that the two pre-juvenile and intermediate skaters he’d worked with this morning hadn’t stuck around to practice. The man who needed to work off some of his restless energy before the start of group lessons could only be grateful for the relative privacy.

  A couple hours of conversation and a kiss shouldn’t result in seven days of distraction. He fell asleep each night chuckling about their disagreement over the best iteration of Doctor Who and their mutual affinity for jazz. He woke every morning hard and heated from dreams of Jackson’s firm lips pressed against his and the way his hair curled around Mitchell’s fingers when he’d pulled him close to dance. Mitchell could’ve pulled some random and ended the night with a lot more than a kiss, but he doubted he’d still be thinking of them a week, or even a day, later.

  He’d worried that he’d fucked up, asking Jackson to dance. He’d only been thinking about getting the guy in his arms, not the limp he noticed when Jackson got up to use the men’s room nor the cane he rolled between his hands while they talked. Instead of bringing the evening to a screeching halt, Jackson had beamed at him as if Mitchell handed him the sun and accepted the challenge.

  Nope, he hadn’t fucked up until he ran away from a simple kiss. One that he initiated, no less.

  He could apologize, convince Jackson to give him another chance. Jackson was friends with Marcus, so it’d be simple enough to get his number after Lillie’s lesson today.

  He skated to an open corner of ice and set up for a triple lutz.

  At the first clap of applause, he figured one of the other skaters had landed a challenging jump. He didn’t even look up, having long years of experience tuning out everyone around him. As he transitioned from the lutz right into a triple loop, however, the clapping continued.

  He almost lost his edge when he saw the subject of his thoughts standing rink-side wearing a tentative smile.

  Jackson started speaking in a rush before Mitchell reached the boards. “I know this is where you work and coming here is wrong on several levels, but I didn’t have your number.” He rested his hands on the boards, lowered them to his sides, then brought them back up to the boards. Despite the bold move of confronting Mitchell after last weekend’s rejection, Jackson was nervous. Good, because Mitchell was terrified.

  “If I misread last weekend, tell me to leave, and I’m gone.” Jackson looked up into Mitchell’s eyes. “But I keep thinking the interest was mutual.”

  Mitchell grabbed his skate guards and stretched them over his blades as he stepped off the ice, buying himself time. He looked over at the large clock on the wall. Time he didn’t have. He gazed down at Jackson. The skates gave him a considerable height advantage.

  If they were going to discuss this, he wanted them to be at eye level.

  “I’ve got twenty minutes until group lessons begin. Marcus or Tyler, possibly both, will be here in five.” Five minutes to put aside his fears about trust—trusting Jackson, trusting himself to be reading this guy better than the last. Just having the guy here, in his space, reminded him of the last time his personal life intruded on his professional aspirations.

  Get real; the decision was made before I landed the loop. He’d connected with Jackson from the moment he’d asked what Mitchell liked about coaching. Not how it compared to competing, not if he felt he’d settled or was trying to live vicariously through his skaters, not how he thought he was in any way qualified to prepare young skaters for cutthroat competition when his own psyche was so colossally fucked up. Jackson had known who he was—Mitchell had seen the recognition in his eyes the minute Marcus mentioned his name—but he’d wanted to get to know the man he was now, not who he’d been three years ago.

  He led Jackson out the West Rink doors into the lobby. The room was already filling up. Kids sat on the bright orange tables chattering away at each other. The parents took the chairs and tied their children’s skates while they shared rink gossip, some of which wouldn’t have been appropriate for young ears if the kids had been paying them any attention whatsoever.

  They found an empty table in the corner.

  “The other night,” Jackson began, rolling his cane between his palms. He stopped the motion and looked straight into Mitchell’s eyes. “Did you run because I invited you to my place or because Marcus caught us leaving together?”

  “Both. I don’t date. I hook up.” Mitchell let out a huff. “No apartments or clued-in friends required.”

  “Then I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’m over all that. I like you, and I’d like to see you again. I want to see if this connection could become a relationship.”

  “Holy shit, you’re direct.” And it was hitting all the right notes.

  “Don’t tell me you have a problem with someone who knows what they want.” He tilted his chin pointedly in the direction of a poster in the lobby bearing Mitchell’s likeness, smirk on his face and finger pointed to indicate he was number one.

  Problem was, Mitchell had already been in a relationship with someone who knew exactly what they wanted. And it hadn’t been Mitchell.

  “You didn’t let me finish,” he said. “I recognize the attraction. I was going to get your number from Marcus today.”

  “We can exchange numbers and wait to see which one of us breaks first and reaches out,” Jackson said. “We can hook up when we’re both free and tell ourselves we’re keeping it casual.” Jackson paused. “But I don’t want to play those games. It just seems like a convoluted way to get right back to where we were Saturday night.”

  “I can’t jump all-in like that.” He had too much baggage for that, and it wasn’t all filled with sequined skating costumes.

  “All I’m asking is that you don’t start with one foot already out the door.”

  This man could hurt him in so many ways. Or he could heal me.

  He looked at the man sitting across from him. He seemed so sure of this, of them. In the bright light of the lobby, however, Mitchell noticed Jackson’s rapid blinks and held breaths. His blue eyes were also tinged by pain and exhaustion. Jackson, too, had been hurt in the past.

  “Well, you do owe me a drunken limerick.”

  God, that smile. Their hands met in the middle of the table. “So where do we go from here?” Mitchell asked.

  “You thank me for dragging you to the club last week,” Marcus’s voice shattered their little bubble. “And then you go teach my kid how to bunny hop or whatever. You’re going to be late for class, coach.”

  Marcus’s laughter followed Mitchell all the way back into West Rink.

  * * *

  Mitchell finished typing a long screed about the importance of sports programs in high schools on Topical. Doc1984 was getting on his every nerve tonight. And he couldn’t stop looking over at his phone, willing it to buzz. Much as he and Jackson had agreed not to play games, he didn’t want to be the first to reach out. If Jackson thought Mitchell needed this relationship too much, he could use it against him later.

  When his phone did buzz, he jumped. He swiped to open his messages.

  It wasn’t Jackson.

  Barton. Last time Mitchell had seen him, it had been on a television screen. Barton offered to let the interviewer, a leggy blonde with obviously fake tits who spoke in a flirty near-whisper, take a bite of his gold medal. Bite this, asshole. He deleted the message unread. Anything Barton had to say to him had been said over three years ago.

  His phone buzzed again in his hand, and Mitchell almost threw the device against the wall.

  Jackson’s name appeared on the screen.

  You free?

  Yeah.

  As soon as the message sent, his phone rang.

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Hi.”r />
  “I decided to circumvent all efforts on your part to play the call-don’t-call game.”

  Mitchell racked his brain, trying to figure out what to say. He was usually never at a loss for words, but Jackson made him excited and uncertain at the same time.

  “Hi.” He rolled his eyes at himself.

  “You said that already.” Jackson sounded amused. “This is turning into the sort of phone call I have with my three-year-old niece.

  More silence. “Taking a break?” Mitchell finally asked.

  “A break?”

  “From grading papers. You mentioned them earlier.” Jackson had hung around with Marcus during Lillie’s skate. Only decades of training and discipline kept Mitchell from looking over at the spectator stands throughout the class. They’d exchanged numbers and a quick goodbye peck on the cheek before Mitchell’s next group arrived.

  “Will you tattle to my students if I admit I haven’t started yet?”

  “Only if you tell Aly Simmons that I’m procrastinating on listening to the music she wants to use for her regionals program.” He’d been too busy picking fights with Doc and trying to convince himself that his conversation with Jackson at the rink hadn’t really had the import he’d felt at the time.

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Do we need to seal it in blood?”

  “I can think of other bodily fluids I’d rather share.”

  “I thought you didn’t put out until the third date.” Funny how he’d heard the same joke from both Doc and Jackson last week. On those occasions when he’d wondered what Doc looked like, his mental image was similar to Jackson. Hair just this side of uncontrollable, long fingers for pointing out everyone’s mistakes, intense eyes that reflected his impatience with the stupidity of the world.

  “If last weekend and this afternoon count, we’re more than halfway there,” Jackson teased. “Besides, I’m much easier over the phone.”

  “If this afternoon had been a date, I’d have pulled you onto the ice to skate with me.” He had a sudden mental picture of them gliding across the ice holding hands.

  “I’d have had to take a pass on that. I shattered my leg doing a quad axel, and my skating hasn’t been the same since.”

  Mitchell laughed. “First a baseball player, now an elite figure skater. Is there no end to your talent?”

  “I’m trying to show you my best talent, but you keep changing the subject.”

  “Oh?” Mitchell walked into the bedroom and reached behind his neck to pull off his t-shirt.

  “It suddenly sounds like I’m in an echo chamber. What are you doing? And what is that horrible noise?”

  “Sorry, I put you on speaker.” He tapped the button to turn it off. “I was getting comfortable.” He stretched out on the bed, propping his head up on the hand not holding the phone. If he started touching himself now, this would be over far too soon. “And that horrible noise is one of the only two redeeming qualities of this apartment. Air conditioning.”

  “We’ll get back to you getting comfortable in a moment. First, I need to know more about this air conditioning of which you speak. Sounds like a unicorn to me.” Jackson sounded wistful, and it was all Mitchell could do not to issue an invitation. “A very loud unicorn.”

  “What it lacks in quiet, it makes up for in chill factor.”

  Jackson groaned, and Mitchell’s cock, which had already been filling, stood at full attention. If the guy made those noises fantasizing about air conditioning, he couldn’t wait to hear how he sounded when he came.

  “So how comfortable did you get?” Jackson asked, quickly shifting gears back to the task at hand. Or soon to be at hand if he was reading Jackson’s intentions correctly.

  “Black boxer briefs, gray sheets. And a cool breeze.”

  “Braggart. Let’s see what we can do to heat things up for you. Put me back on speaker and lose the briefs. You’re going to need two hands for this.”

  “Where are your hands?” Mitchell slid one hand down his chest. His nipples were hard points, and the air temperature had very little to do with it.

  “I almost blew just thinking about your air conditioning.” The groan that followed definitely indicated much more was happening on the other end of the call. “Your hands are cupping my balls while the other circles my tip.” His breath caught and Mitchell felt it deep in his own balls. “My hands are stroking you from base to tip, hand-over-hand, hoping you go over before I embarrass myself by coming first.”

  The combination of sex talk and humor was getting Mitchell all kinds of worked up, mind and body turned on in equal measure. He grabbed his shaft just as Jackson had described. He consigned his noisy room to the rings of hell; he’d have loved to hear more of Jackson’s soft pants, to pace his strokes to Jackson’s. He had to use his imagination, instead, picturing his thumb brushing over a drop of precum from the tip of Jackson’s dick.

  And just like that, he exploded, shaking from the force of his orgasm. Just as he started to come down, another shock coursed from his balls to his head as Jackson groaned loudly into the phone.

  The a/c finally cycled down, allowing Mitchell to hear Jackson catching his breath.

  “So what’s the second?” Jackson asked after a time.

  “The second?” Mitchell’s brain was still offline.

  “You said your apartment had two redeeming qualities.”

  Mitchell laughed. “I have a bathtub. Big enough for two.”

  Chapter Four

  Jackson rubbed his hand down his aching thigh. While the air conditioning did, indeed, live up to its promise, Mitchell had neglected to let him know the elevator had gone out of order earlier in the day.

  “Dishes done.” Mitchell entered the room still drying his hands on a dish towel. He threw it towards the counter but turned away when it slid to the floor. Someone was a bit of a slob. The apartment wasn’t a sty or anything, but skating paraphernalia intermingled haphazardly with music CDs on multiple surfaces.

  “I’ve got strawberry frozen yogurt.”

  Jackson had told him his favorite flavor during one of what had turned into nightly phone calls. A flush of warmth settled in his chest. Mitchell preferred chocolate. “Not yet, thanks. I’m stuffed from dinner. In all our conversations, you didn’t mention you’re a gourmet chef.”

  “Lemon-thyme chicken is hardly gourmet.” Was that a blush on Mitchell’s face?

  “It is to someone who lives on Seamless deliveries and pretzels.”

  “After the Games, I took a break to, um, figure things out. I wasn’t sure if I’d continue skating, so I needed to eat right and stay in shape, and I had time on my hands, so…” Mitchell hunched his shoulders and seemed to cave in on himself.

  It was the closest he’d come to letting Jackson in. With Mitchell busy attending a series of coaching seminars out of state and Jackson committed to several campus activities, they’d been unable to carve out time to do more than catch a few quick dinners in person. Their phone conversations had been far-reaching, however, and he’d learned a lot about Mitchell’s likes and dislikes. He loved to read and listened to audiobooks on the way to and from the rink. He had strong opinions on politics and social issues, most of which aligned with Jackson’s. He was an only child and confessed to being jealous that Jackson grew up with three brothers and sisters.

  Jackson had avoided asking anything about Mitchell’s skating at first, assuming it would be a sore subject. But Mitchell hadn’t hesitated to share horror stories of missed flights and lost luggage before competitions. Jackson heard a glimpse of his former arrogance when he talked about his climb through the ranks to skate on an international level, making the Olympic team twice.

  But he shut down when it came to anything beyond the superficial. He told Jackson he was no longer close to his parents but didn’t say why. And he never, ever, mentioned Barton Fisk.

  The more Jackson got to know Mitchell, the more he craved his trust.

  Just as Jackson decided to probe a b
it, Mitchell straightened and put on a forced smile. “Did you pick a movie?”

  “You know you can talk to me, right?”

  “About your taste in movies?” Mitchell teased, but Jackson saw the plea in his eyes. “I told you, anything but horror.”

  Jackson couldn’t get too butt-hurt at Mitchell’s refusal to open up. He hadn’t exactly been completely forthcoming himself. What was that about trust issues? He’d already resolved to tell him everything tonight, especially if the evening was going to end the way he wanted it to. After weeks of nothing more than phone sex, he was itching to feel Mitchell’s touch, but he deserved to know the risks before they got in any deeper. And maybe once he shared his story, Mitchell would do the same.

  He absentmindedly dug his fingers back into the knot of nerves in his leg but pulled away when he caught Mitchell staring.

  “I didn’t think anything of it.” Mitchell pawed his hand through his hair. “I usually take the stairs.” He was on at least his fifth apology. Jackson had lost count.

  He pointed at Mitchell. “Elite athlete.” He pointed at himself. “College professor. Climbing six flights of stairs, I’d have been flagging even on two good legs. And it was worth it for that dinner, even if the chef is being an ass.”

  He reached for Mitchell’s hand and pulled him onto the sofa. “Now stop it. You haven’t treated me with kid gloves before. Don’t start now.”

  “So tell me again how you hurt your leg?” It had become a running joke, each story becoming more outlandish than the last. But tonight, he’d have to go back to the truth.

  “I’ve told you, I was hit by a baseball, and it broke my leg in two places.”

  Mitchell laughed. “I still think you’re pulling my leg.”

  Now that Mitchell was laughing again, Jackson didn’t want to ruin the moment. Nope, not avoiding anything here at all.

  “Fine. You’re right. I was on a mission for the government, securing a miscreant from another world. Highly secret, can’t talk about it.”