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“Morning sex?” Adrian asked around another yawn, and Eric pressed a smile against his shoulder.
“Definitely.”
Adrian made a soft noise of protest when Eric moved away, then realised it was only to switch off the lamp. The room plunged into darkness as Eric shifted back against Adrian, and they shuffled around for a moment until they found a comfortable position, one of Adrian’s arms wound around Eric’s chest.
It was … nice. Just nice. And temporary, of course—a here-and-now kind of thing, nothing that Adrian was starting to rely on.
Right.
11
Christmas week meant the scent of pine and spices wafting through the hallways, guests dressed in a blend of festive clothes and functional wear, snow still blanketing the world outside. Compared to the boisterous spectacle that was Christmas in the UK, with its minced pies and crackers pulled at the dinner table, this felt like a hushed affair—baked apples with cinnamon and real candles on the large tree in the common area. Eric took to the piano several evenings and alternated between quiet jazz standards and traditional tunes that had people singing along on Christmas Eve, familiar melodies meeting words in a language that was starting to feel less foreign by the day.
Morning runs with Adrian became a ritual. Icy air snapped them awake as they followed the river, its frozen edges cradling chunks of snow and dormant reeds while at the core, water still flowed, snaking its way past rocks and broken tree branches. Back at the hotel, they’d share a shower, Eric mapping droplets of water that trailed down Adrian’s back or Adrian pressing Eric against the tiled wall.
It was…
It was.
At breakfast, they sat with Kojo and Eric’s family, Adrian’s parentszipping through as they served pots of tea and coffee to hotel guests eager to hit the slopes. Martin and Matteo stumbled in at some point, Matteo slightly more talkative than Martin, who was expressly not a morning person and would grunt at everyone until he’d had his first two cups of coffee. They talked about the weather and eccentric guests, about the hotel’s history and, on one memorably horrifying occasion, about blowjob techniques.
Kat, who’d arrived halfway through the week, was the one who started it when she commented on Adrian’s sausage handling. Her tone was so innocent it warranted a halo. Martin felt compelled to offer his expert take on the matter at hand, so to speak, and then he and Adrian joked about attractive angles and what looked impressive without being too much of a stretch, pun intended.
“You always did thatsound,” Martin told Adrian, then demonstrated by means of a banana, letting it slip from his mouth with an audible pop. “Every. Single. Time.”
Adrian grinned back. “Well, and you did that thing where you pulled back with this huge, pleased smile—like you’d never tasted anything that good.”
Eric focused on buttering his bread, a slightly hysterical laugh tickling his throat as he avoided glancing up to assess his parents’ and sister’s reactions. Maybe Adrian remembered their audience because a minute into the discussion, he fell silent quite suddenly, foot bumping Eric’s under the table. When their eyes met, Adrian looked contrite, and Eric gave just the tiniest shrug of his shoulders. Honestly, it was fine.
It was still fine when his mum broached the subject later that day, as they were clicking into their skis at the top of a blue run. “Not prying, darling, but is everything kosher between your Adrian and Martin?”
He hadn’t expected her to ask, and surprise delayed his ability to make sense of the question. Oh, hell. “They’re best mates, Mum. Just … with a bit of history.”
“A bit of history.” She studied him with open concern. What was it she’d said—your Adrian?
“He’s notmyAdrian, for the record.” Eric let his gaze drift across the crowds of skiers and snowboarders, colourful against the backdrop of snow-covered mountains. Should he leave it at that? “And it’s not what you think—Adrian and Martin. Or it is, but not… They did gay porn together in uni. Like, as a job. It’s how they met.”
Okay, not how he’d meant to break the information. But it also wasn’t cause for shame, was it? Sure, there was the cringe factor of Eric’s personal familiarity with the result of Adrian and Martin’s … work. The problem wasn’t with porn as such, though, or at least not with the kind of porn they’d done.
Mum made a noise that could mean anything. “So they were a couple?”
How to put this delicately? Eric was pretty sure that the woman next to him was eavesdropping as she took her sweet time zipping up her jacket.
“Only in front of the cameras.” He glanced over just in time to watch his mum’s face twist into a thoughtful frown.
“Well. I guess they are very handsome.”
Wow, all right—once in a while, his mum sure managed to surprise him. He shot her a small grin. “Yeah, people enjoyed watching them together.” Uh. “Or so I’ve heard.”
Smooth.
She nodded slowly, changing the grip she had on her ski poles before she asked, “Did they need the money?”
“I mean, what student doesn’t need the money? But also, yes.”
It had actually come up during a run earlier this week, about how Adrian’s dad had studied in Berlin some thirty years ago, when the city had been cheap. The misconception that it still was had guided Adrian’s monthly allowance.‘Asking for money? Not my style,’he’d confessed, wrinkling his nose. So, to protect both his wallet and his pride, he’d taken a gig at a bar, which—plot twist—was where the guy from ErosElite had invited him to strut his stuff at a casting. Go figure.
“Adrian’s allowance was fairly low,” Eric continued, “because it didn’t account for how Berlin got expensive in the last ten years or so.As for Martin… His parents weren’t on board with a gay son, so he didn’t want to rely on them. Turns out that him doing gay porn was the final nail in the coffin.”
