Notes

October 2012

Scott’s Flat in Ilderton, ON

8:21pm





“We should have sex.”

Scott chokes on his sip of beer, foam and spittle landing on the back of the hand he brought up just in time to protect T’s face from the worst of it.

She leans forward, places a palm on the swell of his shoulder. “You okay?”

He’s hallucinating. It’s the only explanation. Hand curled around his pint, he lifts up a finger and nods, tries to get his lungs back in working order. Tess pats his back, concern pulling on her brows, and he continues to cough even after the spell has passed—just to give himself an extra few seconds to think.

It’s the middle of October, nowhere near any sort of holiday involving pranks—which Tessa’s never been a fan of in the first place—and her voice doesn’t have that odd lilt to it like it normally does when she’s messing with him.

Then he notices her empty wine glass, remembers this dinner was her idea, thinks of how skittish she’s been the entire evening, sees the way her knuckles are turning white as she squeezes her hand into a fist underneath the glass tabletop.

She’s serious.

Scott narrows his eyes. “Where’s this coming from, T?” It’s not the question he meant to ask.

She shrugs, but it lacks commitment. “Dunno.”

Nope. No way she’s getting away with that answer. She can’t just invite herself over for dinner after training and casually suggest they fuck and expect him to go along with it, no questions asked, so he raises an eyebrow and waits.

Silence sprawls messily between them, each second punctuated by the hands of the analog clock hanging on the wall above Tessa’s head.

Tick, tock.

She stares at him, stubborn, and yields nothing.

Tick, tock.

Patience has never been his strong suit, but he’s determined.

Tick, tock.

She blinks once, twice, and on the third time her resolve crumbles. “I just… want to know what it’s like,” she says, voice small, and maintains eye contact for half a second longer before her gaze darts elsewhere.

Scott tilts his head, furrows his brows, and for one dizzying, ridiculous second, he allows himself to believe that Tessa Virtue just admitted to fantasizing about sex with him. Admittedly, the boost to his ego is immediate and invigorating, but then reality blurs back into focus. Surely not, he thinks with a dismissive huff. If Tessa wanted to fuck him, she’d have done it already—because heaven knows he wouldn’t have stopped her.

No, that’s not what she meant.

Probably.

Scott shakes his head, tries to scramble his thoughts just as he would an eight ball. To his surprise, it seems to work—until he’s assaulted by a memory from practice earlier in the day. It’s his hand curled around Tessa’s thigh as she bends low. It’s her mouth parted as her green eyes turn dark with an intense, desperate hunger. It’s the thought that what if… what if she hasn’t really been acting during their rehearsals for Carmen?

Don’t be ridiculous, Moir.

But the damage has been done because here’s the thing about thoughts: they’re sticky little devils. Once you have them, they refuse to fade back into non-existence, clinging to any memory they can latch themselves onto. Tragically, Scott has no shortage of memories involving Tess looking at him with barely restrained want.

She pushes out a nervous breath, and his attention snaps back to her. “I’m tired of waiting,” she mumbles, eyes trained on the carpet he should really get around to vacuuming sometime this week.

Waiting? Waiting for what? The stars to align? Is the fucking Cosmos to blame for this five year tango they’ve been doing off the ice? And what does she mean she wants to know what it’s like —

Scott goes utterly still, stares at her until she’s brave enough to stare back.

No, he thinks.

Tessa’s throat bobs, and a pink flush creeps over her collar bones.

There’s no way.

She presses her lips together.

“You haven’t…” He’s not sure how to finish the question lurking in his thoughts, not sure if he wants to put language to it.

Tess sighs. “No.” The word is heavy.

“But I thought—”

“We never did.” She shakes her head and drops her eyes, and something broken churns just underneath her porcelain skin, settles in the small lines of her frown.

“Not even that one night—”

“Nope.” The word is a sharpened dagger, but Tessa wields it with grace.

Then the purpose of this evening catches up to him, and it’s like someone presses pause on his entire being. Scott feels his features freeze, knows the exact expression he’s wearing, lips formed around the beginnings of another question he can’t seem to get out. He’s vaguely aware that time is still moving forward, but he’s powerless to snap himself out of it.

Tessa. Virgin. Sex. Him.

It’s all so much so fast. Why now? Why him? What if he refuses? Oh, God— what if he agrees?

“Scott, say something.”

“Huh?” They’re both standing now. When did that happen?

Tess looks up at him, eyes watery and lower lip quivering.

Scott knits his brows together, brings a hand to her jaw. Why is she—

“Oh, kiddo—c’mere.” He wraps her in a crushing hug just as a tear crawls down her cheek. Scott pulls a face she can’t see, wants to strangle himself for letting her stand there for God knows how long while he was trapped in his own mind. “I’m sorry,” he says into her hair, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head for good measure. “I’m an idiot.”

T buries her face in his sweatshirt, and he slips into their slow pattern of breathing, rubs soothing circles over her back until each of her inhales match his.

Scott’s always believed the story of original sin to be a bit dramatic, with its gold-gilded apples and its smooth taking snakes. More than that, though, he's always questioned the allegory's central message. Why should knowledge lead to ruin? Why is enlightenment something to be feared? But he understands now. It’s not the knowledge that’s the problem, it’s the possibilities one’s capable of dreaming up with the knowledge. And for the first time in his entire life, he allows himself to consciously wonder if Tessa Virtue tastes as sweet as the forbidden fruit from the myth.

His hands trace steady curves up and down her spine, across her shoulder blades. It’s the most natural thing in the world to touch her, hold her, comfort her. Would sex be so different? Would it be so bad—to give into the temptation just this once? He’s not a perfect lover by any stretch of the imagination, but he knows Tess, knows her body, and he’s fairly certain he could make her feel good.

Tessa’s arms fall to her sides, limp. “Forget I even asked—”

“Of course I’ll sleep with you,” he says at the same time.

She goes rigid in his embrace.

“Unless you don’t want to,” he blurts out, fingers briefly pausing in their task before he remembers to keep them moving. There’s a terrifying beat of silence between them, where she stops breathing and he brainstorms no less than seven ways he could play this off as—

“Really?” Tessa says softly, hopefully, and gently pushes against him.

Scott lets her pull away, and when she looks up at him, he nods.

She drags the heel of her palm across her cheek, smearing fresh tears into her blush. Scott doesn’t recognize this particular shade of rosy-peach, but it suits her. It’s close to the color her skin turns in the middle of a routine, when she’s panting and focused and alive .

“I’d do anything for you,” he whispers, and realizes a moment too late that, while the sentiment is right, the intensity is all wrong. He clears his throat and reaches for her hand, brings it up to his mouth for a quick kiss. “But, Tess…” he continues, fingers still clasped around hers, “why me?”

Her gaze stutters to the ground. “You know why…” She draws a shaky breath, sighs it back out, purses her lips when she swallows.

Trust has never come easily to her, but she trusts him. He just never realized she trusted him like this. “Yeah.” Something stirs in his gut. Excitement, terror, anxiety, caution— desire. It’s nearly enough to knock him prone. “So I guess this means I’ll be…”

“My first.” She sighs. “Yeah.”

Scott drops her hand and reaches for his pint glass and upends the damn thing, figures it’s impossible to say something dumb if his mouth is full.

“If you’re not comfortable with this—”

He clumsily sets the glass back down with a thunk and grips her face. “Tess,” he says, her cheeks caught between his hands so she has no choice but to meet his gaze, “are you s—”

“I’ve thought about it, Scott.”

Of course she has. Tessa won’t even order at a restaurant unless she’s had a full twenty minutes to read the menu and weigh her options.

Delicate fingers curl over his wrist and squeeze. Her eyes are honest when she says, “This is what I want.” There’s no bend in her tone, no doubt.

He gulps. “Okay.”

The sigh she releases is small, but there’s no mistaking the relief that crests over her features. “Okay,” she repeats.

He kisses her forehead and holds her close and hopes she can’t hear the way his heart pounds inside his chest. It’s second nature to quash rogue, unprofessional thoughts, to compartmentalize his emotions and ignore, ignore, ignore. And now she’s asking him, point blank, to fuck her.

‘Whiplash’ is the understatement of the decade.

“So,” he says on an exaggerated exhale, “when did you want to—”

“Now.” The response is immediate and confident and yet another thing Scott wasn’t expecting.

His eyes go wide, hands tightening around T’s shoulders. “Like… right now?”

She drops her head back to look at him, dark brows pinched together. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he says entirely too quickly. A string of uninventive curses shouts through his mind, but he plasters on a thin smile and does his best imitation of relaxed-Scott. “Yeah, just… give me five minutes?”

Tessa nods.

He sighs with relief. “Right, uh”—he releases her and gestures toward the couch—“make yourself comfortable, I guess?”

She shoots him a grateful smile and squeezes the upper part of his arm. Is it meant to be sexual? Is she just trying to be friendly? He can’t tell anymore. He’s been launched into a parallel dimension, and whatever frame of reference he’d been clinging to is of no use here.

This is weird, he thinks. This is so fucking weird.

The moment her back is turned, he lunges for the bathroom—with all the grace of a newborn antelope. The pain of his shoulder clipping the doorframe is secondary to the pain of embarrassment, though, so he swallows the yelp and quietly shuts the door behind him.





Holy fuck.

As the world keels underneath him, Scott slams his palms into the faux-marble countertop, grips the ledge, and hangs on for dear life.

Holy fucking fuck.

His vision blurs, and he realizes a moment later it’s because he’s hyperventilating.

Breathe, dumbass.

His lungs are sluggish to respond, but eventually his breaths slow and his arms stop shaking quite so much.

So you’re gonna have sex with Tess, he thinks, tries to make it sound as boring as possible. It’s not a big deal.

His heart beats out a panicked rhythm as he stares at himself in the mirror.

Pull it together, Moir.

Scott turns on the faucet and splashes a handful of cold water on his face. It does nothing to help.

You can do this, he tells himself. It’s just Tessa.

He nearly chokes on a laugh. Just Tessa is an oxymoron. As if Tessa could ever just be anything.

“You can do this,” he whispers aloud. Positive self talk always works wonders before a performance. Why should now be any different?

Yeah. Yeah, he just needs to psych himself up. That’s all. Tessa caught him off guard, and this is just a classic case of performance anxiety, nothing more.

Scott puffs up his chest and straightens his spine and looks himself dead in the eye when, in a harsh whisper, he says, “You’re gonna go back out there, and you’re gonna bang your good buddy Tessa, and you’re gonna keep your feelings out of it, and everything’s gonna be fine.”

As far as pep talks go, it’s not a great one, and what little confidence he manages to recruit goes scampering away as soon as he releases the breath he’d been holding.

Scott slumps forward, elbows on either side of the sink, drops his head into his hands, and groans. I am so fucked.