Chapter 8: Collision Course
The chill of the rink was a shock to the system after the Moscow fog. It wasn’t just the temperature; it was the stark, unforgiving clarity of it. The air in Benoit’s facility smelled of Zamboni exhaust and ambition, a sterile, familiar scent that did nothing to cleanse the lingering whispers of vodka and sweat from Matthew’s memory.
A week had passed. The medal was in a case. The night in room 412 was a bruise on his psyche, tender to the touch.
“Again,” Natasha’s voice sliced through the air, sharper than any blade. “From the twizzle sequence. Hillary, your free leg is a soggy noodle. It is an extension, not a suggestion.”
Hillary nodded, sweat darkening the back of her neck. They reset. Matthew took his position, his hand on her waist, the other clasping hers. The opening chords of Libertango, aggressive and pleading, poured from the speakers. They launched into the step sequence, their bodies carving synchronized patterns into the ice. Matthew moved on muscle memory, his body performing while his mind replayed a different script. The feel of Benoit’s sheets. The sound of his breathing in the dark. The way he’d said mon cœur like a confession and a curse.
“Matthew!” Benoit’s voice, cool and detached, from the boards. “Your shoulders are hiking. You’re leading with your chin, not your center. You look like you’re running from something. This is a chase, not a flight.”
The correction was professional, precise. It was also a needle dipped in poison. Matthew forced his posture to loosen, his gaze to harden. He wouldn’t look at Benoit. Not directly. He’d mastered the art of looking just past him, at the mirrored wall where Benoit’s reflection was just another piece of the coaching furniture.
On the other side of the rink, a different chase was happening. Shawn Lee and his partner, Rachel, moved through their free dance with a terrifying, silent precision. Their music was some contemporary strings piece, all aching builds and sudden silences. Shawn’s movements were economy incarnate—no wasted energy, every tilt of his head, every extension of his arm calibrated for maximum effect. He was a closed system, radiating a controlled heat that contrasted with Matthew’s more expressive, outwardly burning style.
Matthew completed a rotational lift with Hillary, setting her down smoothly. As they coasted to a halt, he saw Benoit had shifted his attention. He was now at Shawn’s boards, one foot up on the ledge, speaking quietly. Shawn listened, nodded once, then without a word executed a perfect series of back-counter turns, his edges so deep they threw up a fine, feathery spray of ice. Benoit gave a single, satisfied nod.
A hot, irrational spike shot through Matthew’s chest. It was the same nod he’d gotten a hundred times. Now it felt like a theft.
“You okay?” Hillary asked, grabbing her water bottle. “You’re breathing like you just ran a marathon.”
“Fine. Just getting my wind back.”
“You’re glaring at the ice so hard you’re gonna melt it.”
“Funny.” He took a swig of water, the cold doing nothing to douse the simmer in his gut. He watched as Benoit clapped Shawn lightly on the shoulder—a coach’s gesture, universal—before turning away. Shawn’s eyes followed Benoit for a half-second too long before flicking, with laser accuracy, across the rink to meet Matthew’s.
The look was not friendly.It was an assessment. A challenge. And beneath that, something else, a flicker of knowing that made Matthew’s skin prickle.
He doesn’t know anything, Matthew told himself. He can’t.
The session bled into off-ice conditioning. The gym was a glass-walled box overlooking the rink, filled with the clank of weights and the rhythmic thump of treadmill belts. Matthew was on the lat pulldown, muscles burning, trying to sweat out the ghosts. He was alone, the late afternoon sun slanting through the windows, painting the floor in long, tired rectangles.
The door hissed open. Shawn walked in, alone, a towel slung around his neck. He didn’t acknowledge Matthew. He went to the free weights, selecting a pair of heavy dumbbells. He began a set of bent-over rows, his back muscles rolling under his tight black tank top with each precise, powerful movement.
The silence was oppressive. Only the sound of Shawn’s controlled exhales and the thud of Matthew’s stack.
Matthew finished his set, dropped the bar, and sat up, wiping his face. He could feel Shawn’s presence like a low-frequency hum.
“Congrats on Moscow,” Shawn said suddenly, his voice flat. He didn’t look up from his weights.
“Thanks.” Matthew’s reply was guarded.“Big win. Good momentum.”
“That’s the idea.”
Shawn set the dumbbells down with a soft clink. He straightened, picked up his towel, and finally looked at Matthew. His intense brown eyes were unreadable. “Benoit seemed happy with it.”
There it was. A tiny hook, baited.
“He’s the coach. That’s his job,” Matthew said, standing and moving to the cable machine, creating distance.
“Right.” Shawn took a slow drink from his water bottle, his eyes tracking Matthew. “He’s in a good mood lately. More… focused. Less like he’s chewing on broken glass.”
Matthew adjusted the weight pin. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Sure you have.” Shawn’s tone was casual, but it carried an edge. “You notice everything about him.”
The air in the room thickened. Matthew kept his back to Shawn, pretending to examine the cable attachment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means he’s different since the trip. You’re different. The energy’s off.” Shawn took a step closer. The scent of his soap, something clean and woodsy, mixed with the smell of sweat. “You two had a lot of late-night strategy sessions over there?”
Matthew turned now, facing him. “What’s your problem, Lee?”
“My problem?” A humorless smile touched Shawn’s lips. “No problem. I’m just observant. I have to be. It’s how I beat people. I see the little cracks before they become canyons.”
“There are no cracks.”
“Aren’t there?” Shawn moved to the adjacent cable machine, mirroring Matthew’s setup. He began a set of one-armed rows, his movements fluid and strong. “You’ve been avoiding his eyes for a week. He watches you when you’re not looking. It’s not coach scrutiny. It’s something else.” He grunted with the effort of a rep, then continued, his voice tighter. “And you came back from that city looking like you’d seen a ghost. Or fucked one.”
The vulgarity hung in the air, stark and ugly. Matthew’s fists clenched at his sides. “You’re out of line.”
“Am I?” Shawn stopped, letting the weight stack fall with a crash. He turned, his chest heaving, his expression stripped of its usual control. For a moment, the raw, unchecked emotion there was startling. It wasn’t just rivalry. It was something far more personal. “He’s the best coach in the world. He’s what stands between me and gold. I need him clear.I need him present. Not tangled up in whatever ancient history you two have.”
So that was it. Not suspicion about Moscow, exactly.Possessiveness. A fear of losing Benoit’s focus.
“Our history is none of your business,” Matthew said, his voice low and dangerous.
“It becomes my business when it affects my training. When it gets in the way.” Shawn took another step, now squarely in Matthew’s space. He was an inch shorter but built like a wall of coiled tension. “He looks at you, and for a second, he’s not here. He’s somewhere else. I can’t afford for my coach to be somewhere else.”
The jealousy was so naked it was almost pitiable. And in a flash, Matthew understood. It wasn’t just about the coaching. Shawn’s obsession with Benoit’s attention ran deeper. The realization was like a sip of cold water. This wasn’t a rival sniffing out his secret; this was a rival who wanted what Matthew had, in every conceivable way, and was terrified of the emotional landscape it represented.
A perverse calm settled over Matthew. He leaned back against the machine, crossing his arms. “You want his undivided attention, Shawn?Work harder. Be better. That’s how you get it from him. Not by psychoanalyzing me in the gym.”
Shawn’s eyes narrowed. The raw emotion was shuttered, replaced by a cold, calculating glare. “I am better. My technique is cleaner. My edges are sharper. The only thing you have that I don’t…” He trailed off, but the sentence hung in the air, unfinished. The only thing you have that I don’t is him.
“Good luck with that,” Matthew said, pushing off from the machine. He grabbed his towel, the conversation over.
As he walked to the door, Shawn’s voice stopped him, quieter now, stripped of its heat but carrying a final, probing thrust.
“Does Jonathan know how you look at Benoit when you think no one’s watching?”
Matthew froze, his hand on the door handle. The world tunneled to the cold metal in his grip. He didn’t turn around. He couldn’t.
He pushed the door open and walked out, leaving Shawn standing amid the weights and the slanting, accusing light. The question echoed in the empty hallway, a trap he had no answer for, laid by the one person who’d been watching closely enough to see the truth written in the silence between glances.
The question echoed in the empty hallway, a trap he had no answer for, laid by the one person who’d been watching closely enough to see the truth written in the silence between glances.
Matthew stood frozen, the gym door handle cool under his palm. He listened to the silence behind him, waiting for Shawn to say more, to follow, to make his accusation real by pushing it into the open. Only the distant hum of the rink’s cooling system answered. He exhaled, a shaky release of breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and walked away, his footsteps hollow on the polished concrete.
He needed air, space, anything but this sterile, mirrored prison. He pushed through the heavy back doors into the loading bay, the evening LA heat wrapping around him like a damp blanket after the rink’s artificial winter. He leaned against the sun-warmed brick, tilting his face up to a sky bleached white by smog. Does Jonathan know? The words were a virus in his brain, replicating, corrupting every other thought.
“There you are.”
Matthew’s eyes snapped open. Benoit stood in the open doorway, backlit by the fluorescent hall lights, his figure a sharp silhouette. He stepped out, letting the door swing shut behind him, and the world narrowed to just the two of them in the dusty, quiet alley.
“I was looking for you,” Benoit said. His voice was calm, coached-neutral, but his eyes were doing that thing again—seeing too much. “The session was good. Intense. You and Hillary are finding your depth again.”
“Thanks.” Matthew’s own voice sounded rough, unused.
“But the free dance… the emotion is still manufactured. It’s in your limbs, not your gut.” Benoit leaned against the wall opposite him, crossing his arms. The casual pose was a lie; every line of him was tense. “We need to dig into the footage from Moscow. The Rostelecom performance. Find where you are holding back.”
Matthew stared at a crack in the pavement. “I can review it at home.”
“The projector at my house is better. The sound system.” A pause, deliberately placed. “We can go through it without… interruption.”
The subtext was a physical thing, a third presence in the alley. Matthew finally looked at him. Benoit’s face was shadowed, but his gaze was direct, unwavering. This wasn’t about footage. This was an invitation back into the orbit of what had happened, a deliberate crossing of a line they’d already blurred beyond recognition.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Matthew heard himself say, the words tasting like cowardice.
Benoit pushed off the wall, taking one step closer. The space between them crackled. “Probably not,” he agreed, his voice dropping, shedding its professional sheen. It was just a man’s voice now, tired and wanting. “But will you come anyway?”
The directness was a shock. It stripped away the pretense of coaching, of analysis, of anything but this raw, humming wire that connected them. Matthew saw the faint tremor in Benoit’s hand where it hung at his side. He remembered that hand on his skin, in his hair, holding him down. His better judgment screamed, a distant, fading siren. Jonathan’s face flickered in his mind, kind and trusting, and was smothered by the more immediate memory of Benoit’s mouth, his taste, the sound of his broken breath.
He was already lost. He had been since the knock on the hotel door.
“Yeah,” Matthew said, the word leaving him like a surrender. “I’ll come.”
Benoit’s house was a modern, minimalist box in the hills, all glass and sharp angles. Inside, it was unnervingly quiet and clean. A few abstract paintings, a sleek black leather couch, a wall of books that looked unread. It smelled of lemony polish and, faintly, of Benoit’s cologne.
“Drink?” Benoit asked, heading to the kitchen.
“Whiskey. Neat.”
Matthew stood in the living room, not touching anything. The giant screen on the wall was dark. The projector on the ceiling was a mute, plastic eye. There were no video files on the coffee table, no notepad, no pens. The lie was so complete it felt like an accusation.
Benoit returned with two glasses, handed one to Matthew. Their fingers brushed. The simple contact was a jolt. Benoit didn’t move away. He just stood there, so close Matthew could see the individual silver strands in his stubble, the dark pool of his pupils.
“To improvements,” Benoit murmured, his eyes not leaving Matthew’s.
They didn’t drink. The tension was a live wire, snapping in the silent room. Matthew watched Benoit’s throat work as he swallowed, watched his lips part slightly. The glass in his own hand felt impossibly heavy. He set it down on a side table with a sharp click.
The sound seemed to break something. Benoit’s hand came up, cupping the side of Matthew’s face. His thumb stroked the arch of Matthew’s cheekbone, a touch so unbearably tender it made Matthew’s chest ache. He leaned into it, his eyes closing for a second.
“This is fucking insane,” Matthew whispered, not opening his eyes.
“I know.”
Then Benoit’s mouth was on his, and all thought dissolved into sensation. This kiss was nothing like Moscow. Moscow had been a collision of past and present, frantic and desperate. This was a claiming. It was deep, slow, and devastatingly thorough. Benoit licked into his mouth, tasted him, mapped him like he was trying to memorize a terrain he’d once owned. Matthew groaned, his hands coming up to fist in Benoit’s shirt, pulling him closer until their bodies slammed together from chest to thigh.
They staggered, a tangled unit, through the living room, down a short hall. Benoit shouldered open a door to a bedroom dominated by a large platform bed with crisp white sheets. He pushed Matthew onto it, following him down without breaking the kiss.
Hands were everywhere, tearing at clothes. Buttons popped. Fabric ripped. There was no patience, no art to it. It was a raw need to feel skin, to erase the space and the time and the people between them. Benoit wrestled Matthew’s shirt off, his mouth leaving a burning trail down his neck, his teeth grazing a collarbone. Matthew arching into the bite, a sharp spark of pain-pleasure.
“Off,” Matthew gasped, clawing at Benoit’s trousers. “Get these the fuck off.”
Benoit stood, shoving his pants and boxers down in one rough movement. He was already fully hard, his cock standing thick and flushed against his stomach. Matthew stared, his mouth dry, a fresh wave of pure want drowning the last shreds of his conscience. He yanked his own remaining clothes off, kicking them to the floor.
Benoit knelt on the bed, crawling over him, caging him in. He kissed him again, deep and filthy, his hand sliding between Matthew’s legs, cupping him, squeezing. “You have no idea,” Benoit growled against his lips, “what it does to me. Watching you every day. Knowing I had you. Knowing I let you go.”
“You didn’t let me go,” Matthew breathed, bucking up into his hand. “You threw me away.”
Benoit stilled, his face a mask of pained hunger. “Then let me have you back. Just for now.” His hand moved, stroking Matthew’s length, his thumb smearing the wetness at the tip. “Just for this.”
Matthew’s head thrashed against the pillows. “Yes.”
Benoit reached over, fumbling in the nightstand drawer. This time, his hand emerged with a small foil square. He tore it open with his teeth, his eyes never leaving Matthew’s as he rolled the condom on himself, a slow, deliberate act that was more intimate than anything that had come before.
He positioned himself, the blunt head of his cock pressing against Matthew’s entrance. He leaned down, his forehead resting against Matthew’s, his breath hot on Matthew’s face. “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice raw. “I want you to see me when I do this.”
Matthew forced his eyes open, locking onto Benoit’s dark, stormy gaze. He saw desire there, and regret, and a terrifying, undeniable love. Then Benoit pushed inside.
The stretch was intense, a bright, burning fullness that stole Matthew’s breath. He cried out, a ragged, broken sound, his nails digging into Benoit’s shoulders. Benoit sank deeper, inexorably, until he was buried to the hilt. He held there, not moving, both of them shuddering with the shock of the connection, the profound rightness and wrongness of it.
“God,” Benoit choked out. “Matthew.”
Then he moved. He pulled back and thrust in again, setting a rhythm that was relentless, possessive. Each stroke was a punctuation mark on a sentence they’d left unfinished years ago. It was not tender. It was hard, and deep, and perfectly aimed, a physical argument. Mine. You were always mine.
Matthew met every thrust, his hips canting up, his legs wrapping around Benoit’s back to pull him in even deeper. The pleasure was a coil tightening in his gut, white-hot and urgent. The slap of skin, the wet, slick sounds of their joining, Benoit’s guttural grunts in his ear—it was a symphony of ruin.
“Touch yourself,” Benoit ordered, his pace increasing, becoming more frantic. “I want to feel you come around me.”
Matthew’s hand flew to his own cock, stroking in time with Benoit’s brutal, perfect thrusts. The dual sensations were overwhelming. He was so close, teetering on a knife’s edge.
“That’s it,” Benoit urged, his voice rough with strain. “Come for me. Let me feel it.”
It shattered him. Pleasure detonated up his spine, blinding and total. He came with a hoarse shout, his release streaking across his stomach, his body clamping down on Benoit in rhythmic convulsions. The intensity of it seemed to trigger Benoit’s own end. With a final, driving thrust and a sound ripped from the depths of his chest, Benoit followed, his own climax pulsing inside the condom as he buried his face in Matthew’s neck.
They collapsed, a mess of sweat and spent limbs, Benoit’s weight a heavy, welcome anchor. The only sounds were their ragged breaths slowing, and the distant hum of the city through the glass walls. The room smelled of sex and sweat and shame.
After a long moment, Benoit carefully pulled out and disposed of the condom. He returned to the bed, not speaking, and gathered Matthew against him. They lay in the gathering dark, the unspoken words piling up around them like ghosts.
Matthew stared at the sharp, clean lines of the ceiling. The numbness was returning, colder this time, edged with a deep, cellular dread. He had done it again. He had crossed every line and found nothing on the other side but this echoing emptiness, and the certain knowledge that it would happen again. And again. Until there was nothing left of the life he was supposed to be living.