Page 14 of Script
“We all start here. Up we go.” I tugged him to his skates. His feet went in two different directions. He fell into me, his arms thumping down on my shoulders as his legs turned to rubber yet again. “Whoa, okay.” I cinched him tight then lifted a bit to get his feet under him. He was a solid man, lots of power in his well-conditioned frame, but with not an iota of skating skill anywhere in his muscular form. We’d find that though. Hopefully. Maybe in time for him to make his movie.Maybe.“Right, we might have to leave the skating aide for a bit.”
He smelled good. Cologne and perspiration. A little sweaty from the past half hour of exertion but that was a smell I didn’t mind at all. It made me think of other things that might make him sweat, and my dick started to swell in my briefs. Which was uncool because the guy was as straight as a ruler. With a gentle motion I got some space between his groin and mine. “Let’s start with the basics. Standing. Balancing on skates is not like standing in sneakers.”
“Yeah, my ass has already figured that out,” he said with a sizeable amount of humor. That would serve him well. He had a lot to learn and limited time.
“It’s one of the first lessons we learn. Next time when you fall get your hands in front of you, bend your knees, and direct your body to the side. That will save your ass from the pounding it’s been taking.”
Bright blue eyes met mine. I saw some shock in his gaze but also something more…
“Ass poundings,” he mumbled then wobbled.
“Get your arms up into a T position.” I lifted his arms as he huffed in concentration. “Good. See now, that’s better. Good. So, I’m going to let go.”
“Can you not do that?” He glanced down at his skates then at me.
“I’ll be right here,” I assured him as I released his biceps—nice thick ones I had noted—and moved away a few inches. His jaw clenched as he swung his arms back and forth to find his center of gravity. “Nice. You’re getting it. Try to stay in proper alignment.” His sleek eyebrow quirked. “I know it’s a lot, but you need to know all of this. So, knees over the toes, shoulders back, chest out, eyes forward.” His sight flew from his skates to me. I gave him my best smile, the one that generally got me a bed partner, and he returned it with a nervous twitch of his lips before falling down. At least this time he did get his knees bent, saving his ass from another meet-and-greet with the ice. “You’ll get there.”
He nodded as we got him back to his feet, but I did see a bit of doubt in his pretty sapphire eyes.
By the end of our ninety minutes Finn had mastered standing. I congratulated him then gave him a sticker of a smiling puck that I slapped onto his sweater above his heart. He was not amused.
“Do you give those to the kids in your club?” he asked as I helped him over the edge. In pure Hollywood fashion he draped himself dramatically over the home bench then kissed it. “Oh, this bench is amazing. I love this bench.”
“I’d not be pressing my lips to it,” I tossed out then realized that I’d put my lips directly to assholes numerous times so maybe I should shut up with the sarcasm. “But I get the sentiment.”
Finn was utterly beaten when he righted himself. He was sweaty—still smelling of that unique Finn aroma plus expensive sandalwood cologne—but all the excitement for this adventure had faded fast.
“It looks so much easier than it is,” he confessed while I untied my skates.
“That’s what most people say,” I commented, sitting back to gaze at the movie star.
His golden locks were lank and wet, his cheeks flushed from exertion, making his freckles more pronounced, and his lips were chapped from the cold air. Overall, he was fucking edible. And straight. Straight as Sister Evangelina’s spine. I shuddered at the memory of elementary school. Man, those sisters were strict. “You’ll get there. You know how to stand now.”
“And fall. Don’t forget that. I should have a doctorate in falling by the end of this first week,” he muttered. I laughed. His downcast expression lifted as he glanced at me. “You have a really nice laugh.”
“Thanks. My mom says I laugh just like my dad.” His gaze held mine for a long, long time. “Are you doing anything after we’re done here?” I asked before my brain could pull it back. “Like, we could do lunch or something. I don’t have anything pressing until after our practice tomorrow when we have locker clean-out and that sucks so…”
He pulled off one of his brand-new Bauer skates then sat back, leaving the other still tied.
“Why do you have to clean out your lockers when you’ll just be using them again in a few months?”
I shrugged. “It’s kind of a thing in hockey. We clean out our stuff, do exit interviews, hang out for a bit at the arena. You know. The one you followed me from.” He blushed—it was hella cute. “Anyway, it signals the end of the season. Like when you were in high school, and you emptied your locker out because you were moving onto a higher grade.”
“Oh, okay. I never went to public schools. I had tutors on the set.”
Oh right. He had been a child star growing up on a soap. “That must have been…” I was going to say cool but all the stories I’d read from other child stars had made it sound anything but cool.
“It was terrible, to be honest, but thankfully there were some kids my age in the cast so at least I had someone to play with. I’d have rather gone to a real school though. I bet you were one of the most popular kids in school being a jock and so handsome and all.”
My brain skidded into the boards.Handsome? Did this supposedly straight guy just call me handsome? That was not the kind of thing a straight dude said out loud. I chose to let it drift by as a Finn thing. He seemed to be the kind to say cute but wholly unconventional shit. Maybe he was trained to see beauty in other people being in Hollywood for so long. Not that I was saying I was beautiful but… you know, I was okay to look at. I wasn’t a troll. My bed wasn’t empty often.
“Well, yeah, I was pretty popular. I was a jock though, so that helped. As for school itself I wasn’t a fan until I went to college. My siblings and I went to Catholic school so there were lots of rules to follow, things that didn’t sit right with me when I began to figure out that I liked guys as much as girls. I got a good education and all, but my mother was always being called in to speak to Mother Superior about my attitude and unholy diatribes.”
“Wow, I’ve never really had a nun mad at me. Did you get in trouble?”
“Nah, nothing like that. Unless you count the shit that I got from my parents when I got into it with the sisters. To be honest, I think a lightning bolt from heaven would be less painful than the chewing out that my folks laid on me.” His laugh was soft. A sound I found to be pleasant to the nth. What was also pleasant was that he didn’t bat a lash when I told him I was bisexual. “If you’re not running off to be a star maybe we could do lunch? I know a great hot dog stand a few blocks over where they make the best Buffalo dogs.”
His gaze warmed. Then his phone pinged with an incoming message. He gave me a shy sort of shrug as he rummaged around in the small incidental bag he’d brought.
