Stick the Landing

by Kate McMurray

  So, actually, maybe hooking up with Jake had not been one of Topher’s better ideas, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to do it again.

  Topher’s phone chimed.

  Stuck at America House with my family, Jake texted. Don’t think I’ll be able to get away.

  Well, there it was, wasn’t it? All of Topher’s doubts confirmed.

  There would be no tonight.

  Probably there would be no anything again, because what could they even be to each other? Their night together had been some miraculous fluke. They were attracted to each other, sure. They understood each other. But life wasn’t a movie. Topher didn’t see any kind of happy ending here.

  He texted Natalie. I need a drink.

  I’m already at the hotel bar, baby.

  Topher didn’t bother prettying himself up more. He pulled on a sparkly black cardigan to combat the air-conditioned chill of the hotel and headed down to meet Natalie.

  “You glitter even when you dress down,” Natalie said when she saw him.

  “I got stood up.”

  “I gathered that when you texted me. I don’t think I want to know who.”

  Topher sat at the bar with a heavy sigh.

  “You’re not wearing makeup,” said Natalie, gesturing at his face.

  “I don’t always.”

  “No, but your eyelashes are real. That’s not fair.”

  Topher grinned. “Don’t hate me cuz you ain’t me.”

  “I wore falsies in competition once. Then I sweat so much during my floor routine that it made the glue start to melt, and I wound up with one stuck to my cheek. I only wore mascara after that.”

  Topher chuckled. “What would even possess you?”

  “The cameras, I don’t know. Why do gymnasts put glitter in their hair? The world of women’s gymnastics is becoming more athletic, sure, but it still hasn’t quite shaken off its history as a sport in which women are supposed to be tiny and cute.”

  “Female gymnasts are still tiny. I haven’t met a single one taller than five two.”

  “Figure skaters aren’t exactly hulking athletes, either.”

  “Touché.”

  Natalie grinned. Topher managed to signal the bartender and ordered a glass of wine in halting Spanish.

  “Your accent is terrible,” Natalie said.

  “I speak three languages, but Spanish isn’t one of them, I’m afraid.”

  They drank in silence for a moment. The TV over the bar was, of course, showing local coverage of the Olympics. The clips of Jake played again. Clearly that story was dominating the Olympics coverage worldwide.

  “I have to confess something,” Topher said. “Cone of silence.”

  Natalie clapped her hands gleefully. “I love a scandal! What is it?”

  “It’s not a—” Topher shook his head. “You had mentioned making some discreet inquiries about what Jake’s deal is.”

  “I haven’t really had time. Well, I asked Sam, who said there were some rumors about Jake… but you already know, don’t you?”

  “I do, yeah.”

  “Did you hit on Jake? That’s ballsy.”

  Topher sighed. “That’s not exactly what happened.”

  Natalie’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. Did you sleep with him?”

  Topher’s face felt like it was on fire. Rather than answer, he glanced up at the screen again. In slow motion, Jake stuck his high bar landing. “I won’t kiss and tell, but let’s just say he was going to try to come here tonight, but now he’s famous, as you can see.” He gestured at the TV. “And suddenly I’m wondering how I could have been so crazy as to think anything between us would work out.”

  “Wait. You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “Why would I kid about something like that?”

  “The guy who stood you up is Jake.”

  “Hush. This whole hotel is crawling with media employees.”

  The look of utter glee on Natalie’s face only made Topher feel worse.

  “This is the best thing ever,” Natalie said. “A perfect sports romance. You’ll be, like, the Madrid Olympics power couple. You’ll go back to the States and open a gym together and adopt babies who grow up to be Olympic athletes!”

  Topher laughed. He… didn’t hate the image, actually, but it seemed radically at odds with his current circumstances. “None of that will happen.”

  Natalie winked. “I bet it will. He’s such a sweet guy, and you’re my favorite person in Madrid right now, so clearly you’re perfect for each other. Unless he’s one of those guys who thinks you’re too flamboyant. If he tries to douse your flame, he’s a dead man.”

  Topher hugged her, loving her defense of him. “I don’t think he would. He seems to like me for me, which is the crazy part of all of this.”

  Natalie narrowed her eyes at him. “I take it that has not always been the case with the guys you dated.”

  “Or anyone. I spent a lot of my life trying to conform to how other people wanted me to be. A gay figure skater is such a stereotype that male skaters go out of their way to make skating seem more masculine and athletic. Do you know how many skaters have beards? One of my teammates, who is gay as a rainbow, dated a female Canadian pairs skater for nearly all of his career. She was banging her partner the whole time, it turned out, but that’s just… how it works. Every four years, the media combs through all of our personal lives to see what juicy tidbits they can unearth, when all we want is to live and love and compete and not have to apologize for being who we are. So we create these stories for the press and wait until we retire to fade away and live our lives.”

  Natalie nodded.

  “Sorry, that was heavy.”

  “No, you’re right. I never dated during the training season. I met my boyfriend after I retired, and that’s hard enough sometimes. I mean, being his arm candy at the ESPN Awards is not the worst time I’ve ever had, but I imagine it’s pretty bad if you’re LGBTQ.”

  “It’s better now than it was in my day. But Jake doesn’t exactly advertise his sexuality.”

  “And male gymnasts don’t wear sequins.”

  “That too.” Topher sipped his wine. “Anyway, I spent my whole skating career trying to butch it up, and it’s exhausting, and I’m not willing to do it anymore. My agent made that very clear to the network, and luckily the feathers and sparkly nail polish are part of my appeal.” Although Topher could also tell that he was being set up as the butt of the joke sometimes. He was supposed to look ridiculous and frail, despite the strength he had after years of elite athletic training. That bothered Topher sometimes, that he still wasn’t being taken completely seriously.

  Natalie smiled. “I should show you this.”

  Topher felt a spike of anxiety. Natalie pulled her phone out of her purse and started sliding her fingers over the screen. Then she handed it to him.

  She pulled up an article… about Christopher Caldwell.

  “Do I want to know?”

  “I saw it this morning. The subtitle is ‘The Unexpected Star of the Summer Olympics.’ CliffsNotes version is that young women—the prime demographic for Olympic sports like gymnastics and figure skating—think you are precious and are totally buying whatever you’re selling. You’re becoming something of an internet celebrity. There are stories about you on fanfic sites.”

  Topher recoiled. “Who am I fucking in these stories?”

  “Mostly other athletes. A lot of them pair you up with Timmy Swan. He’s an out gay diver.”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “He’s very cute, but he’s no Jake Mirakovitch.”

  “And this is why skaters have fake relationships.”

  “This is good news, Topher. You have a fan base.”

  “In other words, TBC is probably keeping me because my sassy self makes for good ratings.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Well that’s neat.” Feeling a bit gratified, Topher looked at the article on Natalie’s phone. S
o maybe he wasn’t a complete joke. The article was posted on one of those sites that mostly posted buzzy news and listicles. The story contained a ton of photos of Topher in some of his more fashionable outfits—he was particularly proud of the Prada suit he’d worn to the ESPN Awards a few years ago, and there it was—and it included a ton of tweets praising Topher for being so zany and unapologetic. “Wow. I guess we have come a long way. Text this story to me?” He handed the phone back.

  “Sure thing.” She fiddled with her phone, and a text with the link showed up on the screen of Topher’s.

  He opened the article and scanned it again. So maybe he wasn’t a joke, at least not in the eyes of everyone. Maybe he could use this as leverage to appeal to whoever at TBC made decisions about who would do the commentary for the next Winter Olympics.

  Buoyed, he smiled, closed the article, and sipped his wine.

  Natalie leaned close. “Now, back to the fanfic I’m writing about you and a certain gymnast….”

  Chapter Twenty

  Day 8

  TOPHER HAD the day off, which seemed like a reasonable excuse to spend the day moping around the hotel.

  This Jake thing upset him more than it should have. Jake hadn’t made any promises the night before. He didn’t owe Topher anything. He’d said he’d try to sneak out… of the party thrown in his honor; of course he couldn’t get away. Nor would he probably be able to see Topher much before he flew back to the States. Then he and Topher would likely never see each other again.

  That didn’t change the reality that Topher really liked Jake. Leaving things unresolved felt a little like leaving something important behind on the ice after finishing the long program. So Topher got dressed, ate breakfast with Natalie, and then kind of wandered around aimlessly for a bit, mourning what might have been. He took a walk up and down the street and took some photos of the architecture, which he threw up on social media to appease the TBC powers that be, but mostly he just mulled over his own thoughts.

  When evening rolled around, he ate tapas at the bar while nursing a glass of rioja blanco—when in Madrid, he’d decided—and he watched the local coverage, which, perhaps fortunately, was not focused on gymnastics. A Spanish men’s beach volleyball team occupied the screen instead, and they were beating the pants off a team from Australia. One of the Spanish players was a beardy guy who was quite foxy, so Topher was entertained at least.

  He was into his second glass of wine when a shadow appeared over the seat next to him and someone said, “This seat taken?”

  Jake.

  “It is now,” Topher said. “What are you doing here?”

  Jake smiled. He propped a set of crutches against the bar, sat on the stool beside Topher, and ordered a mineral water. “I want a beer, but it’s probably a bad idea to mix painkillers and alcohol,” he said when the bartender slid a glass in front of him.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “So, fun story.” Jake took a big gulp of his water. “I spent the day watching women’s gymnastics. Chelsea, of course, won gold in everything except the balance beam—she got bronze—because that’s her worst event. Chelsea’s weakness still earned her a bronze—think about that. And there was, of course, a raucous party to celebrate, because the American women will be bringing home a wheelbarrow full of medals, and I went to part of it because she’s my sister. Then my father started doing his ‘You need rest, Jakob’ routine, which I think might be his way of telling me that he’s concerned about me. I saw Natalie at the party, and I know you guys are friendly, so I asked if she knew where you were, and she directed me here. She said you had a day off. So I told my dad I was going to sleep and then caught a cab over here with Natalie.” Jake eyed Topher and sipped his water. “You were here all day?”

  “I was. It sucked.”

  “Oh no. Really? Why?”

  Topher considered lying, but Jake was here, so he said, “I was bummed about you not coming here last night.”

  He felt self-conscious for having admitted that, but Jake nodded. “I thought about you all day.”

  Aw. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t get good crutches until this morning, though, so my mobility was severely limited. And it’s probably just as well, because I had to get up at the crack of dawn to do the morning show on TBC.”

  Topher smiled. Having Jake sit beside him thrilled him beyond reason. “Now I’m picturing you being carried around on a chaise, a litter of hot young men hoisting you up on their shoulders, you lounging casually atop it, eating grapes.”

  Jake laughed. “If only. It wasn’t nearly that glamorous. Mostly my teammates let me lean on them while I hopped around on one foot.”

  Topher watched Jake for a moment. Jake shifted his weight and managed to get his injured foot propped up on the empty adjacent stool. He winced as he moved, belying how much pain he was probably in.

  “That was an incredible thing you did yesterday,” Topher said. “And clearly everyone is in agreement, because I’ve seen the clip on TV today about three hundred times.”

  Jake pressed his lips together. “Well. There is that, I suppose.”

  Topher suddenly became conscious of the fact that he was talking to a man who was now one of the most famous faces at the Olympics, and that several pairs of eyes were trained on them. He reached for his wallet and extracted enough euros to cover his meal. “Do you think it’s wise for us to be seen together?”

  Jake looked startled. He looked around, then looked back at Topher. “Oh. Probably not.”

  Topher stood. He leaned close to Jake, slipped a key card into his hand, and whispered, “Come up in five minutes.”

  THIS TIME Jake didn’t hesitate to meet Topher in his room. Sure, his parents were in this hotel, so he had some plausible deniability. But did he really care if he got caught? Not much.

  At Topher’s door, he pressed the key card against the lock until the green light flashed. When Jake walked into the room, Topher stood with a grin on his face. He’d dressed down that day—something Jake had noticed as soon as he’d walked into the hotel bar—but “dressed down” for Topher meant looking impeccable in a white button-down and dark jeans, with a bright red cravat tied at his throat, a belt with a glittery buckle, and his hair done in its customary pompadour.

  Jake was wearing an old warm-up suit and felt like he’d come from a different planet.

  “This is almost familiar now,” Jake said.

  Topher undid his cravat and raised an eyebrow at Jake.

  Jake sighed and stepped forward. He pressed his face against Topher’s shoulder for a moment, and Topher cooed something and rubbed his back.

  “How much does your leg hurt?” Topher asked softly.

  “Hardly at all. That’s mostly due to the painkillers, though.”

  Topher smelled amazing, and Jake enjoyed being pressed against him, but he wanted to elevate things. He leaned up to kiss Topher but nearly fell over when he forgot he was on crutches.

  Topher laughed softly. “Okay, I got you. Hand me your crutches.”

  Jake took the crutches out from under his arms and handed them to Topher, who propped them up on a wall between two of his suitcases. Jake stood on one foot and leaned against a dresser. Topher walked over to Jake and cupped his cheek; then their lips met in a searing kiss.

  “How much time do you have now?” Topher asked.

  “I mean, I should probably get back to my dorm before anyone misses me, but I can give you a few hours, I think.”

  “Good. Lie down.”

  That seemed like an excellent idea, since putting weight on his injured foot just made it throb. Jake hopped over to the bed and lay down, happy to be off his feet. He pulled off the sneaker on his good foot, tugged off his hoodie, and shucked his pants carefully, leaving him in just the wrap around his ankle and a pair of plain red briefs. There was no need to beat around the bush this time. He wanted to get right to it.

  Then Topher, with his eyes on Jake at all times, pulled
the cravat from his throat, took off his shirt, and pushed his jeans to his ankles. He’d been wearing fussy slip-on shoes, which disappeared in the pile of his clothing. Topher glanced at the discarded garments on the floor, then shrugged and climbed onto the bed with Jake. Topher wore flimsy white briefs this time, and they hid nothing. Jake smiled and took Topher into his arms.

  Topher whispered, “I’m game for anything, but maybe we could switch it up. I’d love to be inside you.”

  Jake’s cock pulsed in response. “I was imagining doing just that last night.”

  “You and your fruit emojis,” Topher laughed softly.

  Jake laughed. “Your ass is amazing. How could I resist fucking you? But now I want to try something else.”

  “I bought a box of condoms from the hotel shop last night in anticipation of this. They’re in the drawer on your side of the bed.”

  “I’ve got a couple in my pants pocket. I didn’t think you’d be expecting me today.”

  “Look at us, being all prepared.”

  They made quick work of preparing each other, and then Topher was inside Jake. Jake threw his head back and pulled Topher down to kiss as they writhed against each other.

  And this was exactly what Jake had wanted the night before as he’d sat trapped in that booth at the bar. He’d wanted pain and pleasure and sweat, two men kissing and touching and finding release in each other. He’d wanted this elemental thing he and Topher had together, the pleasure of Topher’s company, the feeling of Topher moving inside him.

  Topher wrapped his hand around Jake’s cock, and Jake nearly leaped off the bed as excitement zipped through him. This coupling would be hard and fast, and Jake wanted that. He wanted Topher inside him, in his arms, muttering sexy talk in his ear.

  When Jake came, it was the sweetest bliss, and he dug his fingers into Topher’s back as his body tightened and expanded and he spilled all over his own belly. Topher kept pumping inside him, then closed his eyes and seemed to lose himself, coming inside Jake and grunting as he did.