Car-sharing had seemed like a good idea at the time, only ending up with Stan and Arvy in the same car was excruciatingly loud this early in the morning.

Arvy was attempting to teach Stan some English, and the poor Russian seemed to think the louder he said a word the better. It didn’t help that Arvy was driving and I was in the passenger seat, with Stan poking his head between the two of us so his shouting was right in my ear.

“I scored a goal,” Arvy encouraged.

“I. Score. Goal!” Stan shouted, and raised his hands above his head in triumph. “Is good learn.”

“It’s a good thing to learn,” Arvy corrected.

“Is good, I say,” Stan said, and raised his hands again. “Score!”

By the time I arrived at the Rainbow Skate Arena, with its brightly painted welcome sign, my headache had grown exponentially, but I swallowed some meds and hoped it would be gone before I had to face Trent again.

Trent with his attitude, his smile, his dark eyes, and the makeup. I’d caught him staring at me a couple of times, but only because I’d been staring back. He was the absolute opposite of me; that was all I could think. He was a good six inches shorter, he was color and life where I was jeans and a Railers hoodie, he was a smile and I was a frown. I’d listened to what he hoped we’d learn from him, but I’d been compelled to ask him about what he’d learn from us. What could a bunch of loud, unfocused, post-season hockey players teach the tiny dancer?

“Think he’ll teach us to pirouette?” Arvy asked, in all seriousness, as he laced up his skates.

“Pin ooh lette?” Stan said, latching onto the single word that was the hardest of all of them.

“Pi-roo-ett,” Arvy corrected.

“Pi-roo-nayet.” Stan repeated.

“Pirouette” was such a dainty word to be butchered so badly by our goalie that I had to laugh.

“Not laugh at me,” Stan said with a frown, and poked me in the thigh. Which hurt, because shit, Stan was strong.

I held up both hands, protesting innocence. “I wasn’t laughing at you, it’s just that it’s a really weird word,” I began to explain, but saw Stan’s bewildered look at my words. “Never mind.”

Skates laced, I put on my under-armor, pulled the tapes nice and firm, then slipped on my jersey. Normally we’d be in practice jerseys for something like this, but the cameras wanted to see our names and numbers to build brand recognition. When I glanced around the room, at big Stan, at our very tall captain Hurleigh, at the slim but sturdy Ten, I could see we were all different, but maybe there was a theme here. Maybe we were all too similar for non-hockey fans to pick us apart.

I looked up as the door opened and Trent walked in, this time without his orange-clothed grandma at his side. There was no way anyone wouldn’t know who he was. He was in what I guessed was his version of a practice jersey – form-fitting black pants and a dark gray shirt that was snug and had a hint of diamante on the V-neck. His hair was darker today, but his makeup was more flamboyant, his lip gloss scarlet, his eyes darkly lined. Cameras followed him in, and he was smiling at us.

Did anyone else in the room notice that the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes? I tracked my gaze down his body, pausing momentarily at his groin. I pretended I was checking if he wore a cup, but mostly I knew exactly what I was doing. I carried on checking him out completely, from his strong thighs, to the muscles that showed in the pants, right down to his skates.

Not figure skates.

Hockey skates.

“You’re wearing our gear,” I blurted, because fuck if I have any control over my idiot mouth.

The cameraman moved and zoomed in on my face, and I tried my best to look neutral.

Trent glanced at me, then struck a pose in time for the camera to pan to him. “I need to feel what you do if I’m going to do this right,” he answered, and ended with a nod and a seriously fine pout of his soft lips. He had this flamboyant thing down pat.

“Don’t want you falling over,” I said.

Why did I say that? Why didn’t I just accept his answer and move on? Because it was all my fault what happened next.

He extended a hand. “Come with me.”

I didn’t really have a choice, because every eye was on me, and the cameraman had focused right back on my idiot face.

So I took his hand, and he led me out of the locker room and through a small corridor and out to the ice. This was obviously my first time on the ice at this rink, but it didn’t matter – as soon as my blades were on the hard, cold stuff, I was at home. There were the markings of a hockey rink there, but no Plexiglas, just the oval.

And I was still holding his hand, which he was gripping hard. He pushed into a glide, and I followed his action, and soon we were skating smoothly in figure eights on the ice. He was wearing thin gloves, so I couldn’t feel the warmth of his skin directly, but his hold was firm and sure, and he apparently wasn’t scared of me falling on my heavy ass and taking him down with me.

“Don’t even think of lifting me,” I murmured when we were at the apex of the eight furthest from the camera.

He side-eyed me. “Likewise,” he said, and there was a hint of a smile there, and this time it did reach his eyes. “Pick up some speed in the crossovers and then come to a fast stop in the middle.”

“At center ice?” I asked for confirmation.

He nodded and let go of my hand, and I put on the speed that I knew I had, throwing in some accurate crossovers, then scraping the flat part of my blade on the ice and snowing to a dead stop right in the middle of the center ice circle.

I realized the camera had moved to Trent, who was repeating what I’d just done. Fancy footwork into the corner, and then he did this thing with his body – kind of a twist and a jump – and then he landed and snowed to a stop, his blades losing forward momentum literally an inch from mine. He’d just done the same as me, with added dancing, and he hadn’t fallen on his ass without the toe picks he’d have on his usual skates.

“So I’m guessing you won’t be falling over then,” I deadpanned.

He put his hands on his slim hips and looked up at me. “Probably will,” he said, “but I’ll do it with style.”

“No crashing into the boards, then,” I said.

I didn’t want the conversation to end, but by this time the rest of the team had joined me, and Trent slipped from being a cocky know-it-all with a teasing smile into professional mode. He waited until everyone was ranged around him, his only reaction when we all took a knee a slight raise of his eyebrow. I could tell he wanted to say something – likely an off-color comment about men on their knees – but he didn’t. I thought about saying something to get a reaction, but it wasn’t me who said inappropriate shit on this team – that was Adler Lockhart, with his ability to run his mouth without direction.

Anyway, my knee hurt.

“We’re going back to basics,” Trent announced. “I want film of all of you doing drills. Balance, glides, jumps, lunges, strides, crossovers, so I can do some prep work on where you need help.”

I saw a couple of the players exchange pointed looks. I had this insane urge to poke them to listen to what he was saying, but I held myself back. One quelling look from the captain, and they stopped with the rolled eyes, but I felt the uneasy shit in Trent’s audience. I guess none of us had expected we’d be faced with going back to peewee.

“Who wants to go first?”

Ten put up his hand, and dropped it immediately when his teammates, me included, shouted out things like “Suck-up!” and “We’re not in school!” I’d known it would be Ten who went first; the man was so damn eager to learn and improve all the time.

And he needs to improve. He’s only here because of his name. He’s not a fucking superstar.

I blinked away my thoughts and skated to the goal to join the line. I wasn’t at the front, I wasn’t at the back; I was comfortably in the middle, right behind Stan. Being a goalie, Stan wasn’t the greatest skater, but he could still move, and damn if we hadn’t caught him doing a cartwheel in the corridor before one of the playoff games. He was certainly agile.

Ten did all he was asked, pushing off, skating the figure eight, with deliberation at first, and then with raw speed. He glided, jumped, and did everything that was asked of him. He skated to a stop at the back of the queue like a kid who’d just done a water slide and was eager to go again. Freaking Boy Scout.

When it came to Stan’s turn, he was a lot less graceful than Ten, but boy was he strong, an enormous presence on the ice. Only he didn’t stop quite as well as he should have, and I saw the inevitable even as it was happening.

Contact between him and Trent, the smaller man flailing a little before Stan caught him and bodily lifted him off the ground like Scarlett in Gone with the Wind.

Stan looked hopelessly apologetic and Trent, small in his huge arms, looked a bit panicked before he replaced the shock with a fake laugh.

“We’ll make a figure skater of you yet,” Trent said for the cameras; a perfect soundbite.

Stan set him down, and he was grinning. “I help,” he announced, and nodded like that was vitally important. Show-off.

I was up next, following exactly what everyone else had done, with my usual flair on the crossovers, confidence in the small jumps, building up speed and stopping dead one inch from Trent’s skates. He didn’t flinch, and I didn’t apologize, and something passed between us. A flare of something – attraction, defiance, arousal? Fuck knew what it was, but this man was getting under my skin, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his lips.

I should pick him up like Stan had. I could do that; he’s light as air, and I probably bench-pressed his weight. And he’d look all kinds of pretty in my arms.

And in my bed, sprawled on the covers waiting for me to—

“Earth to Dieter… Move out the way, dude, it’s my turn.” Arvy was shoving at me, but I was staring, my fingers itching with the need to pick Trent up.

Then the shoving broke through the weirdness, and I joined the line at the back, waiting for my next turn.

Every so often, Trent looked over at me; sly, careful looks when he had his back to the camera. But I could see him, and I didn’t look away.

He knew I wanted to pick him up. He had to know I wanted him in bed, his makeup smudged, his gloss smeared on my cock.

The session finished, and I wasn’t winded or aching from too much work. I was just warmed up, and despite my aching knee I felt like we’d just done a leisurely family skate instead of a workout. The camera was in the room with us again, and part of me hoped that Trent was going to be sharing our space. No such luck – today was all about one-on-one talks to camera with the skaters about what they wanted from the training, and no sign of Trent at all.

I massaged my knee as I talked.

“I want to work on my speed,” I announced. “I’ve seen other skaters work with guys like Trent, and I’ve seen how the way they hold themselves adds to their speed.”

Not soon enough, they moved on to Stan, who tried to convey his enthusiasm and ended up relying on a thumbs-up. At least he couldn’t butcher that one.

I excused myself and, back in my street clothes, I left the locker room. I wasn’t looking for Trent. I didn’t want to see Trent. I had nothing to say to him. Or at least that was what I told myself.

I found him, though. In an office at the end of a long corridor, after following signs for the manager. I knocked on the open door, and he looked up in surprise. His makeup was still flawless, but he’d changed into this loose, flowing T-shirt that did nothing to hide the slim, toned man beneath.

He was wide-eyed for a second, then he relaxed back in his chair.

“Can I help?” he asked. “Is there something you need?”

You, I thought to myself, but didn’t say that out loud.

“Do you do private lessons?” I asked, in a panicked moment of what-the-fuck-do-I-say.

He stood up from the desk, came around to the front, and sat on the edge of it.

“I have a contract. I’m not allowed to privately train anyone on the show.”

Damn. That had been my way of getting some alone time with the sexy Trent. I moved closer to his desk, picking up a photo of him from the Sochi games.

“Silver,” I summarized, and placed the picture back on the desk.

“You’ve never been called to play for…Germany, is it?”

“I can’t imagine that happening,” I said, with a huge dose of self-deprecation. I was dual nationality, German/Canadian, with a heavy bias on the Canadian. Still, it was Germany I would want to play for.

Come to think of it, the German national team would be my most likely option; Canada was kind of full.

“So,” Trent started. I expected him to add something like “This is awkward”, or something else that would fill the conversational emptiness. Then he went and shocked the hell out of me. “I was staring at you, and I want to feel like I can trust you enough that I could kiss you, but I don’t. Sorry.”

I blinked at him, lost for words. “What?”

He tilted his head and looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re gay, right? Or bi? Or was I wrong?” He tensed a little, like he was expecting me to beat him up for the question.

“Bi,” I answered, and I was staring back.

“I knew you were – I can tell when a man is assessing the size of my dick.”

“Your ass,” I corrected. “I was judging your ass.”

Trent patted himself on the rear. “It’s a good ass,” he commented, like this was an everyday conversation.

“You have a high opinion of yourself,” I said, not nastily, more to tease.

Sadness flittered across his face. “Someone has to have,” he said.

We were at an impasse. I didn’t know what to say, and he looked like he was a million miles away, lost in thoughts I had no access to.

Which was why, when he reached up and carded his fingers into my hair, went on tiptoes and kissed me gently on the lips, I went into a weird shock. I didn’t move back in horror; equally I didn’t deepen the kiss, and we parted with Trent looking up at me thoughtfully.

“So, we did that,” he murmured.

“We did,” was all I could think to say.

“It’s done. It was okay. Nothing with sparks or anything.”

He sounded like he was marking the kiss out of ten, or six, or however ice skating scoring worked. Full marks for confidence, only half for the kiss.

In a strong, determined move, I pulled him close and kissed him for real. Lips, tongues, and an inability to breathe. When we parted he was wide-eyed, his lip gloss smeared and his hands loose at his sides.

“That…” he began, but stopped.

I wiped away the stickiness of gloss from my lips and stepped back. Then my own kind of confidence came to the fore.

“Yeah,” I said. “That was good.”

And then I turned and left before someone walked in on us and saw me fucking Trent over the desk.

Because shit, that had been one hell of an explosive kiss.