“I know. Me neither. But it happened. This will be great for making the Ice Queen believe what we have is real.”
Right. Because that’s what’s important—selling the lie.
He isn’t interested in me the way I am in him. To Jackson, this was a momentary lapse, a blip in his heterosexuality. Biology at work.
“Got any brilliant ideas for this?” He gestures to the large wet spot on the front of his spandex pants. The dark purple does wonders at hiding the evidence, but it won’t be enough under the rink’s bright lights.
I grab a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and wet them in the sink. “We clean up the best we can and hope no one looks too close.”
We work in silence, dabbing at the evidence of our mutual loss of control. It’s weirdly intimate, taking care of each other this way, and I have to focus on the task at hand to keep from doing something stupid like humping him again.
When we’re as presentable as we’re going to get, Jackson checks his reflection in the grimy mirror. “Do I still look like I just got dry humped in a roller rink bathroom?”
“Little bit,” I admit. His hair is a mess, his lips are still swollen, and there’s a mark on his neck that might be from my mouth. “But in a hot way.”
He rolls his eyes, but I catch the pleased flush on his cheeks. “Come on. They’re probably thinking we died in here.”
We exit the bathroom to find Gerard and Elliot waiting by the skate rental counter.
“There you are!” Gerard exclaims. “We thought you’d—” He stops, eyes narrowing as he takes in our disheveled appearance. “Oh, snickers. You totally banged in the bathroom, didn’t you?”
“We did not,” I say automatically. “It was just heavy making out.”
“How sweet,” Gerard says, ignoring Elliot’s eye roll. “Young love expressing itself through bathroom hookups. Tale as old as time.”
“Can we maybe discuss this later?” Jackson asks, taking his hand in mine and making my dick twitch, despite what it just went through. “It looks like the rest of the guys performed, and the judges are about to announce the winners.”
Glancing at the clock, I realize that Jackson and I were in there for way longer than it felt.
“Alright, party people! Our judges have deliberated, and it’s time to announce the winner,” says the DJ.
The crowd leans in closer, and I spot Sarah Piper with her phone out. Nathan appears on my other side, still shell-shocked from his performance with Gerard.
“The winners of the roller disco competition are…Oliver and Mason!”
No surprise there. The crowd goes wild as Oliver accepts the trophy with his typical captain’s grace. Mason stands besidehim, grinning as though he’s won the Stanley Cup. They deserve it—their performance was a masterclass in how to have public sex without having public sex.
And then, the temperature in the rink drops about twenty degrees as Elliot turns on the judges with the slow, deliberate movements of a predator who’s spotted wounded prey. “Do you haveanyconcept of technical difficulty? Of musicality? Of basic fucking competence?”
“Oh, shit,” I mutter to Jackson. “He’s going full Elliot.”
The college kids shrink back in their folding chairs. One even scoots backward with a screech that echoes through the suddenly silent rink.
“We based our scores on—” the middle judge starts, but Elliot cuts them off with a gesture so sharp it could slice bread.
“On what? Your three collective brain cells?” He advances on the table.
“The criteria clearly stated—” another judge tries.
“Don’t youdarespout criteria at me!” Elliot’s vibrating with rage now. “I’ve read every judging handbook from the International Roller Sports Federation.”
That’s when Gerard finally glides across the rink like some kind of pink spandex-clad superhero to the table where Elliot’s mid-rant about the history of competitive roller skating.
“—and the mere fact that you would prioritize cheap theatrics over genuine artistic expression shows a fundamental misunderstanding of—Gerard, put me down!”
Gerard, in one smooth motion, bends down and tosses Elliot over his shoulder. Elliot’s hands flail for purchase.
“Time to go, baby,” Gerard says cheerfully, heading for the exit.
