Closer

Mia managed to cough the awkwardness away before heading to the kitchen and starting to work on dinner.

It wasn't easy to deal with all the conflicting emotions currently going through her head. For the first time in her life, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the looks of a man. Because, if she was being honest, every time he looked at her like that, her whole body was set on fire.

This was a completely new experience for her. It wasn't as if different men hadn't tried to get in her bed, but she had always denied them.

Then again, none of them was quite like this one.

It was always easy to deny men, but she had never felt the heat consume her like whenever Yuzuru looked at her in that way.

She wasn't even sure if the reason behind his looks was being interested in her body, but his body language showed her enough.

Not that she would ever act on it.

Sleeping with the idol of her son was far from being something she wanted, especially after noticing Alex getting more and more attached to Yuzuru in the space of mere hours.

Mia was cutting some tomatoes when she felt a presence behind her and it didn't take a genius to know exactly who it was.

For all of Yuzuru's apparent politeness, he was strangely comfortable closing the distance between them and casually looking at what she was doing from behind.

"Do you need any help?" he whispered making her shiver once again.

Damn, what was wrong with her today.

She was almost scared that her voice would fail her from the rollercoaster of feelings going through her at that moment, but she ended up being able to speak after all.

"No, you're a guest, you shouldn't even be in the kitchen."

"Alex was quite distracted by the game and I just figured I could check on you."

Mia couldn't help but smile at the way he said that. Yuzuru was charming and she suspected it was something that just came naturally to his personality.

"Bored already?" she joked.

"Believe it or not, this is actually far better than what I expected my evening to be."

The woman looked at him with an incredulous look. She was quite sure this man was decently famous from the reactions of everyone at the rink and he could probably find far better ways to spend his night than to deal with a boring lawyer and her son.

"I seriously doubt that."

"I was going to eat some random takeout and play games until I got sleepy." he said chuckling "Not that interesting."

"Out of everything you could do? Don't you have anyone to catch up with? Old friends?"

"There are a few skaters that I became friends with through the years, but none of them is here in Toronto right now."

"I doubt it's hard for you to find any company, not with what I saw at the rink today"

"That's just the thing... I don't always want to be surrounded by fans."

Mia had to laugh at that because he ended up coming to a fan's house either way.

"Should I remind you that Alex is your fan too?"

"It's different. He's just a kid. I remember being like that and looking up at my idols. I see a lot of myself in him."

"Because of the Asthma?"

"Maybe... I struggled a lot with it as well."

"It didn't stop you from becoming good at what you do."

"No, but it meant that I had to work harder than anyone else to fulfill my dreams."

"And did you fulfill them?"

"Most of it, yes. The problem is that when you achieve the things you once thought to be impossible, you always need more motivation. For me, it was having a goal, that more often than not was almost impossible. It worked for some time but eventually, the goals were set too high."

"An overachiever, I see."

Yuzuru laughed at that. It seemed like a smile was constantly on their faces when they were around each other.

"Don't blame me... I was an Olympic Champion at 19."

"Was that your childhood dream?"

"At Alex's age, yes. Then I got greedy as I slowly understood that maybe I could achieve more and it soon turned into the 2 Olympic medals... after I won in 2014, the goal quickly became the Super Slam, and even then, it wasn't enough and I wanted the Quad Axel."

"You're speaking gibberish to me right now."

They laughed in unison, only to stop when Alex showed up in the kitchen, confused about the interaction.

"Why are you laughing?" he questioned curiously.

"Yuzuru was talking about some skating stuff and I told him I didn't understand anything... it's just like when you try to explain things to me."

"Mommy is helpless in skating... I stopped trying a long time ago."

" I can see that... well, how about we help your mom out? What do you think we can do?"

"Yuzu, it's fine. I told you..."

She stopped talking as his eyes brightened and she knew why. The nickname had slipped her lips after a few hours of trying to keep it from coming out and he was very happy that it did.

"We can set the table!" Alex interrupted their staring contest.

"That's a great idea. Show me how you usually do it!"

"Be careful to not break anything, you can hurt yourself!"

"Yes, Mom..."

"Don't worry, I'll keep him safe."

Once again, the way this man managed to say the perfect things while looking strangely innocent was something that she still couldn't understand. Yuzuru was acting as the father that Alex never had and it was messing with her head in ways that she didn't think to be possible.

Mia had met this man hours ago and somehow he had already managed to fill in the gaps that Nyck left almost 9 years ago.

Oh, Mia... you're utterly screwed.