Chapter 7: Champagne and Choices
The hotel bar was a cocoon of low light and softer noises after the arena’s deafening roar. Hillary had ordered champagne, the good stuff, and Natasha had even allowed herself a single vodka, neat, which she sipped like a concession to the universe. The gold medal, still hanging around Matthew’s neck, felt like a lodestone, a undeniable truth he kept touching.
“To not completely humiliating ourselves,” Hillary said, raising her flute.
“To being the biggest pain in my ass I have ever had the privilege to coach,” Natasha added, her stern mouth twitching.
Matthew clinked glasses with them, the high still buzzing in his veins. He caught Benoit’s eye across the small table. Benoit raised his whiskey in a silent, slow salute. The look held a world of things—pride, shared history, the memory of a brick wall and a kiss that had changed the atmospheric pressure between them. Matthew looked away first, the warmth in his gut twisting into something more complicated.
An hour later, the buzz had settled into a pleasant hum. Hillary, yawning widely, set her glass down. “I’m dead. If I don’t sleep for ten hours, I will fall on my face in practice tomorrow. Or today. Whatever time it is.”
Natasha stood with her, a rare smile gracing her features. “You earned the rest. Both of you. Do not be late for the flight.”
They left, Hillary squeezing Matthew’s shoulder as she passed. The silence they left behind was suddenly dense, intimate. The bartender polished a glass in the corner. A couple murmured in Russian by the fireplace. Matthew swirled the last of his champagne, watching the bubbles die.
Benoit didn’t move to leave. He signaled the waiter for another whiskey. “One more,” he said, not a question.
“Sure.”
The fresh glass appeared. Benoit took a slow drink, his eyes fixed on the amber liquid. “You skated today like the man I remember,” he said finally. “Not the ghost from practice. The one who feels the music in his bones.”
“You gave a good pep talk.”
“I told you a truth. There is a difference.” He set his glass down carefully. “Jonathan must be very proud.”
The name landed like a dropped weight. Matthew stiffened. “He is. We talked.”
“Good.” Benoit’s voice was neutral, but his thumb traced the rim of his glass. “He is a good man, from what I have seen in the magazines.”
“He is.” The defense felt automatic, hollow. The memory of Jonathan’s distant, weary “I love you” clashed violently with the taste of Benoit’s mouth just hours before.
“Matthew,” Benoit said, his voice dropping, the background chatter fading to a blur. “What happened outside… it cannot happen again. I meant what I said. It was unprofessional. It was a moment of weakness. My weakness.”
“Weakness.” Matthew barked a short, humorless laugh. “That’s one word for it.”
“What would you call it?”
“I don’t know. A fucking disaster? A really confusing trip down memory lane?” He leaned forward, his voice a harsh whisper. “You show up after four years of radio silence, you look at me like I’m a ghost you can’t stop seeing, you kiss me like you’re starving, and then you call it ‘weakness’? Don’t sanitize it, Benoit.”
Benoit’s composure cracked. His eyes flashed. “What do you want me to call it, then? Truth?Is that better? The truth is I have thought of that kiss, and others, every day since I ended things. The truth is coaching you again is a special kind of torture. Seeing you with him, happy, living the life I told you to go live… it feels like I built my own prison. And last night, I saw a crack in the wall and I tore at it. Is that honest enough for you?”
The raw admission hung in the air between them, more intoxicating than any alcohol. Matthew’s heart hammered against his ribs. He could see the pain etched in the lines around Benoit’s eyes, a pain that mirrored his own.
“You left me,” Matthew said, the old hurt freshened, sharp as a new cut. “You said it was for my own good. That the secret would ruin my career.”
“And has it?” Benoit countered, his gaze intense. “Has living openly ruined Jonathan’s career? The world is different now. Not perfect, but different. I made a choice from a place of fear, not wisdom. I was… a coward.”
Matthew had never heard Benoit use that word about himself. It was disarming. The last of his defensive anger bled away, leaving only a vast, aching exhaustion and a pull so strong it felt gravitational.
Benoit looked down at his hands, then finished his whiskey in one swallow. He stood, pulling a few rubles from his pocket and leaving them on the table.“I should go. We have an early flight.”
He started to move away, and a panic, swift and irrational, seized Matthew. This couldn’t be the end of the conversation. Not again.
“Benoit.”
He stopped.
The words tumbled out, quiet and desperate. “That museum of regret you talked about. Is it… is there room for one more exhibit?”
Benoit turned slowly. His expression was unreadable, a war of hope and caution. He didn’t speak, just waited.
Matthew stood, the decision solidifying in his chest with a terrifying finality. He left cash on the table, not looking at the amount. He walked past Benoit, close enough to feel the heat from his body, and murmured, low enough that only he could hear, “Room number.”
A beat of silence. Then, just two words, breathed against his ear. “Four-twelve.”
Matthew didn’t look back. He walked out of the bar, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the empty lobby. The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime. He stepped inside, pressed the button for the fourth floor, and watched the doors close, sealing him in the silent, mirrored box.
His reflection looked back at him—a gold medalist, a boyfriend, a man on the brink of throwing a hand grenade into the center of his carefully reconstructed life. The medal felt cold against his skin. He thought of Hillary’s trusting smile, of Jonathan’s tired, loving voice on the phone. He thought of the four years of quiet anger, the hollow space Benoit had left behind that no amount of success had ever filled.
The elevator dinged. The doors opened onto the fourth-floor corridor, plush and silent, stretching in both directions.
He knew where his own room was. To the left.
Room 412 was to the right.
He stood there, suspended in the threshold, the hum of the elevator motor the only sound. Every rational nerve ending screamed to turn left, to go to bed alone, to face the complicated future in the clear, sober light of day.
But his feet, of their own volition, carried him to the right.
The carpet muffled his steps. Each door he passed was a silent witness.404. 406.408.
He stopped in front of 412. The polished brass numbers gleamed under the hallway sconce. There was no sound from within.He raised his hand. Hesitated. His knuckles hovered an inch from the wood.
In the stillness, he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, a sound like distant waves. This was the point of no return. Once he knocked, everything changed. The past would cease to be the past. It would become a continuing, living, breathing thing.
He closed his eyes. Saw Benoit’s face in the shadows outside, the raw hunger in his kiss. Heard his voice: I was a coward.
Matthew’s fist connected with the door. Two soft, deliberate raps.
A lifetime passed in the ten seconds of silence that followed.
Then, a click. The door opened inward just a few inches. Benoit stood there, backlit by a single lamp, having shed his jacket and tie. He looked older, softer, utterly exposed. He didn’t say a word. He simply held the door open, his dark eyes holding Matthew’s, an unasked question hanging in the space between them.
Matthew took a single, shuddering breath.
And stepped across the threshold.
The door clicked shut behind him, a sound as final as a lock turning. The room was dim, lit only by a single lamp on the nightstand, casting long shadows across Benoit’s face. The air smelled of him—clean cotton, whiskey, and that specific, familiar cologne that had haunted Matthew for years. They stood a foot apart, the space between them vibrating with everything unsaid.
“This is a mistake,” Benoit whispered, but he didn’t move away.
“Probably.” Matthew’s voice was rough. “Tell me to leave.”
Benoit’s hand came up, his fingers brushing Matthew’s jaw, a touch so tentative it felt like a question. He traced the line of Matthew’s cheekbone, his thumb resting at the corner of his mouth. His dark eyes searched Matthew’s face, reading the conflict there, the want, the fear. “I can’t.”
That was all it took. Matthew closed the distance, his mouth finding Benoit’s with a hunger that erased the last four years in an instant. This kiss wasn’t like the frantic, angry clash outside the arena. This was deep and slow and devastating, a deliberate unearthing of buried feelings. Benoit groaned into it, his hands coming up to fist in Matthew’s hair, pulling him closer as if to consume him. Matthew tasted the whiskey, the familiar warmth of his mouth, and a dizzying wave of memory and want crashed over him.
He couldn’t get enough. His own hands slid under Benoit’s sweater, shoving the fabric up, his palms flattening against the heated skin of his back. Benoit broke the kiss long enough to yank the sweater over his head, tossing it aside. He stood there, chest heaving, and Matthew just looked. The lamplight gilded the silver in the dark hair on his chest, catching the lines of his torso. He was built like a swimmer—lean, athletic, strong—but without the defined, gym-honed bulk of Jonathan. This was a different terrain, one Matthew knew by heart.
“Jesus,” Matthew breathed, his hands spreading over Benoit’s chest. The hair was coarse under his palms, the skin beneath hot and alive. He leaned in, burying his face in the curve of Benoit’s neck, inhaling the scent of his skin, a primal recognition that made his knees weak. He kissed the hollow of his throat, licked a path to his nipple, feeling it tighten under his tongue as Benoit arched into him with a choked-off sound.
Benoit’s hands were on his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. “Off,” he growled, the word ragged. “Get this fucking thing off.” Matthew helped him, their fingers tangling in the urgency, until the shirt was gone, discarded on the floor with the sweater. Skin met skin, and the contact was electric. Benoit’s hands swept over Matthew’s shoulders, down his back, mapping the muscles with a reverence that felt like worship. “Still perfect,” he murmured against Matthew’s mouth before kissing him again, deep and desperate.
They stumbled toward the bed, a clumsy, connected tangle of limbs and hungry mouths. They fell onto the crisp hotel duvet, Benoit rolling on top of him, his weight a solid, welcome anchor. Matthew ground up against him, the friction of their trousers maddening. “These need to go,” Matthew panted, his fingers clawing at Benoit’s belt.
“Yours first.”
They separated just enough to wrestle with their own clothes, a frantic, graceless dance. Belts clattered, zippers rasped, fabric was shoved down over hips and kicked away. Finally, they were naked, the cool air of the room a shock against their feverish skin. Benoit looked down at him, his gaze a hot, physical touch. Matthew reached for him, pulling him back down into a searing kiss, their bodies aligning from chest to thigh.
The feel of him, all of him, was an overwhelming sensory overload. The coarse hair on Benoit’s legs rasped against Matthew’s smoother skin. His cock, hard and hot, pressed against Matthew’s hip. Matthew reached between them, wrapping his hand around Benoit’s length, and a violent shudder wracked the older man’s frame. “Fuck, Matthew,” he gasped, his hips jerking into the touch.
Benoit’s own hand found Matthew, his grip firm and knowing, his thumb smearing the wetness at the tip. The sensation was so intense Matthew saw white behind his eyelids. He thrust into that familiar, perfect fist, lost in a tidal wave of sensation and memory. This was their rhythm, older than any routine on ice, a syncopated beat of shared breath and frantic touch.
“I want to be inside you,” Benoit growled, his voice thick with need. “God, I’ve missed the feel of you.”
The words were a lightning strike of pure desire. “Yes,” Matthew hissed, his body screaming for it. “Do it.”
Benoit reared back, one hand fumbling for the nightstand drawer. He yanked it open, rummaging inside. The frantic searching slowed, then stopped. His expression shifted from hungry urgency to stark, frustrated reality. He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Nothing. I don’t have a thing.” He looked back at Matthew, his eyes dark with apology and unabashed lust. “I wasn’t… planning for this.”
A wild, reckless part of Matthew didn’t care. The risk felt like part of the high. But a sliver of colder sense, the ghost of Jonathan’s trust, wedged itself in his mind. “It’s okay,” Matthew breathed, pulling him back down. “We don’t need that. Just touch me.”
They rearranged themselves on the bed, facing each other on their sides, their legs entwined. Benoit’s hand wrapped around Matthew’s cock again, and Matthew did the same for him. It was intimate, devastatingly so. Their foreheads touched, their breaths mingled, and they began to move their hands in a rough, synchronized rhythm.
“Just like that,” Benoit whispered, his eyes locked on Matthew’s. “Jesus, your hand.I remember this. I dreamt about this.”
“Shut up,” Matthew gasped, but he was smiling, a wild, helpless thing. He sped up his strokes, using the slickness of Benoit’s pre-come to smooth the way. Benoit matched him, his own grip tightening, his thumb circling the head of Matthew’s cock on every upstroke. The pleasure was a coiling, white-hot wire in his gut, pulled tighter with every stroke, every grunt, every filthy whisper Benoit poured into his mouth.
“You feel so good,” Benoit rasped, his hips pumping into Matthew’s fist. “So fucking good. Gonna come.Look at me. Look at me when you do it.”
Matthew was close, the pressure cresting, his whole world narrowing to the slide of skin on skin and Benoit’s dark, commanding gaze. Memories flashed—a cheap motel after a junior competition, the backseat of a rental car in Calgary, the lost, secret afternoons that built the foundation of everything. It all fused with the present, a rush of past and present pleasure so potent it stole his breath.
“Benoit,” he choked out, a warning, a plea.
“Now. Come for me, mon cœur. Let go.”
It ripped through him, a convulsive, blinding release. His back arched off the bed as he spilled over Benoit’s fist, waves of pleasure roaring through him, muting every sound but his own ragged cry. Through the haze, he felt Benoit’s rhythm stutter, then break. Benoit’s entire body locked, a guttural sound tearing from his throat as he came, hot stripes painting Matthew’s stomach and his own hand.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the shuddering gasps of their breathing. The smell of sex and sweat filled the air. Matthew’s hand fell away, limp. Benoit’s did the same. They lay there, still entwined, the shocking reality of what they’d done settling over them like ash.
Benoit shifted first, reaching clumsily for the box of tissues on the nightstand. He cleaned them both with rough, practical motions, then tossed the wad aside. He didn’t move away. Instead, he pulled Matthew against him, tucking Matthew’s head under his chin. They lay in the dark, skin still damp, hearts hammering against each other’s ribs. No one spoke. The weight of the betrayal, the complexity of the joy, the sheer magnitude of the mistake—it was too vast for words. They just held on, as the Moscow night deepened outside the window, and the certain future they’d each built began to crack apart at their feet.
They just held on, as the Moscow night deepened outside the window, and the certain future they’d each built began to crack apart at their feet.
Sleep, when it finally came, was a shallow, guilt-ridden pool. Matthew drifted in and out, conscious of the older man’s steady breath against his neck, the solid weight of an arm slung possessively across his waist. The memories, unleashed, assaulted him in the dark. Not the grand passion of competition, but the quiet, stolen moments that had truly defined them. Benoit, younger but already streaked with grey, teaching him to tie a bowtie before his first senior gala, his large fingers surprisingly deft. The gritty feel of arena concession-stand coffee shared at 5 AM. The smell of menthol gel and Benoit’s specific sweat in a thousand fluorescent-lit physio rooms. It was a life built in the margins, tender and completely secret. A life he had missed with a physical ache for four years.
Now it was a crime scene painted across this hotel bed.
A sliver of pale, pre-dawn light cut between the blackout curtains. It fell across Benoit’s sleeping face, softening the stern lines of his coach’s expression into something unguarded and peaceful. Matthew watched the slow rise and fall of his chest. He studied the scatter of dark hair across his sternum, the way one hand lay open and vulnerable on the crumpled sheet. This was the man he’d known in the most intimate way possible, long before last night. This was also the man who had sent him away to build a “normal” life.
The tenderness curdled, poisoned by the fresh, raw reality. Jonathan. Sweet, patient Jonathan, who was probably just waking up in New York, his mind on his lines and his blocking, trusting his boyfriend was sleeping alone after a victory. The medal, a cold, hard circle against Matthew’s bare chest, felt like a lie.
He had to get out.
Moving with the meticulous, strained control of a thief, Matthew slid from beneath Benoit’s arm. The arm tightened for a second in sleep, then fell slack. He stood on the cool floor, his body a catalog of sensations—the pleasant ache in his muscles, the dried stickiness on his stomach, a deeper, more profound soreness inside. He gathered his clothes from where they lay in discarded heaps, each piece a testament to his own reckless hunger. Dressing in the near-dark felt furtive, shameful. He glanced back once.
Benoit lay sprawled, the sheet tangled low around his hips. The dawn light traced the curve of his shoulder, the long line of his back. He looked younger in sleep, utterly spent. A profound sadness, thick and cloying, washed over Matthew. This wasn’t a new beginning. It was a ghost, exhumed and momentarily animated, that would now have to be buried all over again. Only this time, the burial would happen in full daylight, with witnesses.
He slipped out of the room, the click of the latch sounding obscenely loud in the silent hall.
The walk back to his own room was a procession through a nullified space. The plush carpet, the tastefully generic art, the hum of a vending machine around a corner—all of it was backdrop to the screaming in his head. He saw Jonathan’s smiling face on a Broadway playbill. He saw Hillary’s trusting eyes as they hugged on the podium. He saw Shawn Lee’s intense, calculated gaze across a practice rink, watching Benoit with a focus that now made a horrible, sickening sense.
Back in his sterile room, the silence was a physical pressure. He stood under a scalding shower, scrubbing at his skin until it was pink, trying to erase the smell of Benoit, the feel of his stubble, the taste of his mouth. It was futile. The act was in him, a stain on his cells. He wrapped a towel around his waist and stared at his reflection. The gold medal, abandoned on the nightstand, winked at him in the bathroom light.Champion. Cheat.
He picked up his phone. No messages. He typed a text to Jonathan: Couldn’t sleep. Nerves, I guess. Heading to the airport soon. Talk later? He deleted it. He typed another: I miss you. He stared at those three words, their absolute falsehood a hot coal in his throat. He deleted that one, too. He placed the phone facedown.
The flight to Frankfurt, then on to Los Angeles, was an eighteen-hour study in silent torment. He had a buffer of two empty seats between himself and Hillary, who slept with a neck pillow and an eye mask. Natasha was several rows ahead, Benoit across the aisle and one row up, his face buried in a stack of performance analytics. The professional distance was back, airtight and impenetrable. Matthew watched the back of Benoit’s head, the neat line of his haircut, and wondered if he was thinking about the same things: the feel of skin, the broken trust, the impossible logistics of the coming days.
Once, when Benoit rose to use the lavatory, he paused beside Matthew’s row. His eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep, met Matthew’s for a fractured second. No smile. No acknowledgment. Just a flicker of something bleak and shared before he moved on. It was worse than any conversation.