Finn raised an amused eyebrow. “On all the crazy stuff that’s happened to us since we saw each other like nineteen hours ago?”
Robbie poked him. “Don’t be a brat. I can’t go another round yet.”
They showered together, too slow and lazy to be efficient, and Robbie got distracted washing Finn’s ass and ended upplaying with the edges of his hole while jerking him to another orgasm. Eventually Robbie left him to finish drying off and went to the door to get the room service cart. By the time Finn came out of the bathroom, Robbie had set the table for two and lit the candles, and their entrees were steaming on their plates.
Finn paused in the doorway, towel still held to his head, and took in the scene. After a second he tossed the towel back into the bathroom and sat down across from Robbie. “I was going to make a snarky remark about leaving me in the bathroom to swoon to death, but I guess I forgive you.”
“I appreciate it.” Robbie lifted a bottle from the ice chiller. “Wine?”
Finn sat and nodded. “Feels like we’re doing this in the wrong order.”
“Yeah.” Robbie poured two glasses, then sat across from him. “We can’t do it in public, but we can still have a nice meal. I hope that’s okay.”
“I’m not complaining. I like this dress code better anyway.”
“It suits you.” Robbie pressed his knee against Finn’s under the table. “So. You had a meeting with your coaching boss?”
Nodding, Finn pulled the cover off his plate and picked up his fork. “Yeah, uh, it’s kind of… embarrassing? I don’t know.”
Their knees knocked under the little table. That wasn’tsex, but the intimacy of a bare hairy calf against his own made his skin tingle. “What did he want?”
Finn poked at his pilaf. “Cone of silence?”
Something confidential, then. “Scout’s honour.”
Finn snorted in amusement. “Don’t put your fingers up like that and give me the Scout’s honour bullshit. I know where they’ve been.”
“Maybe I was wrong about what the Boy Scouts should always be prepared for.” Robbie nudged his foot. “Come on. Tell me.”
Finn rolled his lips. “So there’s an upcoming ice-dancing pair with real potential. I’ve seen them skate—they’re a lot of fun to watch. But they need a new coach.”
“And they want you to do it?”
“They wanted to interview me, I guess,” Finn corrected. “They’re probably talking to a lot of people.”
“That’s still awesome.” Why wasn’t Finn excited about it? Hadn’t he said that high-level coaching was his dream? “You don’t want to do it?”
He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know. I mean… it’d be a big change. I’m used to staying in one place now.”
“Not all change is bad. I bet you’d be great at it.” Finn was a great partner—a great coach too. On the ice, he motivated Robbie to try things outside his comfort zone without pushing boundaries too hard. He knew how to dissect a move into its component parts and could point out exactly where Robbie was going wrong. He could spot Robbie’s frustration and when a move just wasn’t going to work and could change tack before anything boiled over. “You definitely seem to enjoy the competition.”
“Yeah. I didn’t actually realize I missed that aspect until Stef got hurt.” He shook his head and finally took another bite. “What about you, though? You’ve got more serious shit going on than I do.”
“The atmosphere here is too nice to talk about my parents.” Robbie sighed, suddenly less hungry, but he had yearsof muscle memory to condition him to keep eating anyway. Besides, Finn needed to know what was happening. “Due to the ‘unique circumstances’ involved in adopting your nephew, the family court judge is adding their request for custody to the adoption hearing.” He did his best not to grit his teeth.
“So what does that mean for you and Sawyer? Your lawyer doesn’t think it will be a problem, right?”
“Eugene doesn’t really think so. But he’s recommending that until things are sorted out, I don’t do anything that might constitute disrupting Sawyer’s routine or make the courts doubt that my first commitment is to him.”
“So you’re not supposed to like… run off to Vegas for a long weekend and leave him alone?”
Robbie snorted and gave a wry smile. “Yeah. Something like that. Or,” he hesitated, because saying it out loud would hurt, because it moved their timeline from eight weeks max to who knew how long, “very publicly come out as bisexual.”
“Oh. Shit. Do they not…?”
“Know? Nope. Approve? Very much nope. My brother is a disaster but not actually homophobic. He won’t care as long as I’m taking care of Sawyer. But my parents…” He blew out a breath. “They’re more… in denial about how far I’ve ‘strayed’ and will definitely see it as an issue.”
“Shit. Does Eugene?”
