Page 41 of Back Outside Edge

"Fine, I'll be downstairs. Enjoy your shower. Towels are in the bathroom."

I watch his retreating form for a moment. Have I seen him in casual daywear before today? I don’t think so; I’d have remembered that ass outlined by jeans. He's too appealing for words. "Stefan."

He turns, eyebrows raised in question, hair fluttering around him with the movement before settling against his neck. I want to move it out of the way, kiss everywhere it touched. "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm glad you're here." One last flicker of that special smile, and then he's gone.

Chapter 17

Stefan

Evan goes to bed shortly after dinner. Alone. I can't even be all that disappointed about it. He looks exhausted. We have a few days, leaving plenty of time for me to do my best to seduce him.

Because I am absolutely going to try to seduce him while he's here. The more time I spend with him, the more I want him.

He's so easy to be with, too. We fell back into our old rhythm so quickly, and it's—nice. Dangerously nice.

And when he comes down the stairs in the morning wearing leggings and a loose white t-shirt, I'm ready to drool. His thighs. His ass. His package. Evan should only ever wear leggings. Even when he adds a hoodie to go outside, leading the way to my car, I can’t stop staring at the half of his ass left uncovered.

I've seen him in tight joggers before. Costume pants that are just as tight. I've even gotten brief glimpses of him in nothing but boxers. But the fabric of these leggings shows him off so much better, hugging his curves like they're second skin. And that is far too appealing.

For the most part, I manage to keep my eyes off him as he does his warm-ups and stretches. It's hard, though—almost impossible. I could watch Evan warm up forever. The way his body moves when he stretches. I thought I was flexible. I've had to fight a constant hard-on since the moment I saw him at the airport. Impressive yoga positions are not helping.

I catch myself staring yet again. Fuck, Evan's going to kill me if he keeps bending like that. I have to look away for my own self-preservation.

To top off his streak of perfection, he's a joy to skate with. From time to time, my parents pop in, exchanging a few words, introducing themselves properly, but for the most part, it’s just us on the ice. It's amazing. For the first hour or so we just fool around, learning to skate around each other, talking, showing off. We spend almost as much time laughing as we do actually skating, the sound echoing off the walls.

I stop when Evan flows through a step sequence like he’s sunlight on water. He’s focused on what he's doing, so as soon as he's finished I raise my voice, pointing at him from halfway across the rink. "That. I want you to teach me that."

He glides around the arena, coming to a stop in front of me. "That step sequence? It's nothing special. It doesn't pull a grade four on its best day."

"No. I mean, not really. I want you to teach me how to move the way you do."

Evan's brow creases. After a moment he shrugs and says, "Honestly, I'm not positive how to do that. I guess a lot of it is transitions and edges and we could learn those, but actual movement on the skates? I don't skate like everybody else."

"That's the whole point."

Evan's dark eyes light up in amusement. The crease in his brow doesn't let up, though. "No, I mean, I genuinely don't skate like anybody else. I wasn't trained by a coach. I'm self-taught, at least when it comes to the basics."

"You're what? How?" I can't begin to understand. Not with parents who had me in skates before I could walk. My first memories are on this rink, them patiently teaching me the basics. The fall that sprained my wrist. The time I crashed into another kid hard enough that both of us had to go to the hospital. The pride in my parents' eyes at my first successful single toe loop. Then the double and the triple. Even years later, long after she quit coaching me herself, Mom had stopped what she was doing to cheer me through my first quad.

She hadn't wanted me to try the quints. Too dangerous, but I didn’t let that stop me. I'd never let danger get in my way. If I could do it, I would. It was the first jump she wasn't with me when I first succeeded, and I think both of us regret that.

"About how every kid learns to skate, I guess. I just started skating."

"But you said you went to a rink. Weren't there instructors? Something?" No way someone can get as good as he is without training.

His smile is almost gentle, as if I am very, very confused. And he's being very, very polite about it. "Not every kid at a rink gets a coach. A lot of times it's just open for them to skate. For fun, you know?"

How is skating for fun as a child a completely foreign concept to me?

I've always enjoyed skating, of course I have, or I wouldn't have kept doing it. But nobody ever questioned whether I would love it. I never had an option not to. I’ve just always skated, improving over time, working my way up the ranks, learning enough physics to do the impossible.

I think about skating as a child, on a public rink, without a coach, just to be on the ice. It is a world so different from mine that it's almost incomprehensible.

Evan must note the confusion in my eyes. "If it helps, I didn't actually start at the rink. I only started going when I was like twelve. There's a pond at the farm we live at that freezes over, so I skated on it every winter."