Past the field was a trail that led down into a woodland valley I hoped would never be sold for tract housing. I counted my inhalations and exhalations as I descended, leaping over roots, a few dry leaves crunching beneath my feet.

It was still mostly green, and birds chirped in the mid-morning sunlight. I usually only listened to music while running when there were other people around who might want to talk to me.

Today, Theodore Sullivan barged into my meditative focus of breath and footsteps and forest sounds.

“There’s no issue with Theo we should know about, is there?”

I could have told them he was a distraction. It was the truth—I stumbled as the path twisted toward the tall maples crowding the valley floor and wanted to shout, “See?!” as I caught my balance and increased my stride, my footsteps thudding on the earth.

But I couldn’t tell them all the reasons Theodore was an issue. I couldn’t confess that on the eve of the free skate at the junior world championships when I was fourteen, I’d seen Theodore Sullivan and his new body hair naked in the communal shower room in a concrete Croatian arena.

I’d still been small for my age, but he was sixteen and had had a growth spurt in…every way imaginable. Our eyes had met after he caught me gaping. After he’d spotted my erection.

And he’d smirked.

He’d laughed. Carelessly. Light and airy as though nothing mattered. When everything mattered.

I’d run, shampoo still lathered in my hair, and yanked on a winter hat and sweats over my wet body. I’d always been focused on skating and school, and I was so confused by the new desires that were inconvenient at best.

I’d had an extremely explicit and detailed dream that night of Theodore. The next day, I’d blown my lead from the short program and missed both my triple Axels. I’d ended up with bronze—barely—while he took gold, and the worst part was that I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him. Doing…more. I wasn’t even sure what, but doing everything with him. I’d been reluctantly attracted to boys before that moment in the shower room, but actors on TV weren’t real.

Wet, naked Theodore had been very, very real.

I’d apparently imprinted on him like an infant duck, much to my horror and humiliation. Other people seemed to shrug off embarrassing incidents and blithely forget them, but I couldn’t fathom how.

Even now, my heart pounding as I raced through the trees in an outlying Toronto suburb nine years later—nine years—I imagined what grown-up Theodore would look like wet and naked.

Light brown hair, thick lips, dimples, lean muscles, and dark hair scattered over his pale chest, accentuating pink nipples. A trail of hair below his navel leading down to…

I roared in frustration, sending a flock of birds flapping out of a birch tree. I shouldn’t have been thinking about this. Normally I could quell this sort of distraction. Though occasionally, I’d been tempted to finally shrug off what had happened the first time I let down my guard and trusted a guy…