While they wandered the concourse, looking at the different options for food, Bash carried Adonis’s bag and wouldn’t let Adonis take it back. “It’s not heavy,” he said when Adonis protested. So Adonis let him carry it, stopped complaining, and enjoyed himself.
They talked quietly while Adonis bought himself a cup of hot cinnamon sugar pretzel bites, and Bash bought an overpriced burrito.
“A burrito at an airport? Crazy,” Adonis commented, and Bash huffed something about calories.
Adonis learned that Bash didn’t like to talk about himself, and it was nearly impossible to pry personal details out of him. He learned that Bash had grown up in Amsterdam, and his family was wealthy, though Bash didn’t like to talk about their money. He had a younger sister still living in the Netherlands, where she studied finance at the University of Groningen.
“I’m studying business, not finance,” Bash commented when they were back at their seats. He wiped salsa from the corner of his mouth. “That was part of my agreement with my parents.”
He told Adonis about the agreement he had made: he could play hockey if he studied business at Bellford, one of the world's best business schools.
“They want me to go back and work for our company,” he said, “but I don’t want that. That is not why I’m really studying business.”
“Why’s that?” Adonis asked. Their plane would board soon, but he'd like to stay there talking to Bash.
“I want to be my own business,” Bash said. “I will play for the NHL, and I will be my own business. I don’t want to rely on managers and agents. I will have them, but I want to understand how I am being used in the business of…” He waved a hand. “Of hockey. And then when I retire, or maybe before that, I want to open a foundation to support queer teenagers who are athletes.”
Adonis looked at Bash with newfound respect. The hockey player had more depth than he'd first thought. Hot and driven. A dangerous combination.
“I really admire that,” he said.
“And you?” Bash asked. “What do you want to do when you are done with figure skating?”
The gate agent called their boarding group, and they stood. Bash took Adonis’s suitcase again.
“I think I’ll go back to school,” Adonis said. “Law school.”
“Law school? Really.”
“Really.”
“Hm,” Bash said, nodding. “I think you will be a good lawyer.”
——
During the second flight, aboard a smaller plane, Adonis sat next to Clarisse. He was in the window seat. Bash was three rows ahead. His dark hair stuck up above the top of the headrest, and he eventually leaned his head against the window. Adonis also tried to sleep, but he couldn’t.
When they landed in Minneapolis, they had to hurry to meet their bus, which drove them fifteen minutes to the conference center. Adonis’s knee bounced. They had tonight to themselves, and tomorrow the conference would begin.
His phone buzzed with messages from Byron. First, a picture of his cock. Then a message reminding Adonis of Byron’s room number. Then, a third message insisting on how horny he was.
Adonis angled his phone away from Hugo, who sat next to him, and sent back several pictures of himself in various positions, his ass bare in all of them.
Byron’s response was immediate and straightforward:
Fuck, baby.
Adonis suppressed a grin.
The conference center was drab, and the parking lot outside was already full of other buses dropping off teams of athletes from around the country.
As Adonis got off the bus, he found Bash kneeling on the pavement, adjusting a strap on his backpack. When he saw Adonis, he stood up and fell into step with him.
“I have an idea,” he said. His voice was so low that no one around them could hear. His tone was very casual. “I am in room 837. Robbie is my roommate. After dinner, he won’t be coming back to the room because he has plans with Clarisse. You should come over. I brought lube and condoms, and I would like to fuck you, if you’d like that.”
Adonis’s mouth went dry, and he almost stumbled over a curb. Bash’s tone had remained completely even and unbothered the entire time he propositioned Adonis.
“If that is too forward or you are not interested, let me know,” Bash said, pausing to make sure Adonis had found his footing again.
