“I don’t know! I mean, no, not really. I want to get to know you because I feel like there’s some real potential between us. Do you know how hard it is to explain my life to nonathletes? How many relationships have fallen apart because the guy I was dating couldn’t understand why I had to put in the hours at the gym that I do?” He gestured at himself. “But you understand it perfectly, don’t you? You know what it takes to put your whole body into something in order to achieve a goal. And you know how crushing it feels when you defeat your own damn self because you make a dumb mistake on the world stage. No one I’ve ever been with has come close to understanding that.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I hate that the Olympics is cutting that potential short, because I’ll wake up in the morning a week from now and get on a plane and very likely never see you again.”
Topher supposed he should have expected that answer, but for a hot minute he’d thought maybe Jake was proposing that they keep seeing each other after the Olympics were over. And Topher admitted to himself that he kind of wanted that, because he really liked Jake. And Jake was right—they both knew something that only elite athletes knew. They understood each other. It seemed a shame to throw that away over a small issue like geography.
“You’re probably right,” Topher said.
“Or, I don’t know.” Jake met Topher’s gaze, a bit of daring in his expression. “I could take some time off and spend it in New York. See if the potential between us is real.”
Topher’s pulse kicked up. “Yeah?”
“I mean, it’s just a crazy idea. Would you even want that?”
“I would, actually.” There was no sense in playing games or mincing words. Topher leaned over and kissed Jake slowly, giving them both time to savor it, and perhaps offer a reminder of what they’d be giving up if they said goodbye after the Closing Ceremony.
When Topher pulled away, Jake was smiling. “This is insane.”
“I know. And who knows, maybe once the bubble bursts, we’ll hate each other.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“No?”
Jake kissed Topher, mimicking Topher’s move of slowly sliding their lips against each other. “No. I think that I will spend the rest of my life reliving these two weeks. In a good way.”
“Well, we have this week. Maybe we shouldn’t make any decisions yet.”
Jake nodded. “You know, I have a room here by myself. I don’t think anyone would miss me if I didn’t go back to it tonight.”
“You want to spend the night with me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“If that’s okay.”
“It’s more than okay.” Then Topher dove for Jake and vowed to make it worth Jake’s while.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Day 12
AFTER A few idyllic days and nights in Jake’s bed, Topher was in a wonderful mood as he walked into the network staff meeting. Only it didn’t last. To Topher’s surprise, Joanna had pitched a story to her athlete commentators about the triumph and tragedy of the Olympics that involved the clip of one Christopher Caldwell falling on his ass. Topher had been reluctant to balk too hard at the idea lest he anger the people in control of deciding how much airtime he got, but he’d had a word with Joanna about it after the meeting, asking her to leave it out. Natalie had backed him up, patiently explaining that most athletes didn’t enjoy having their failures broadcast on national television again and again.
It was still too raw. That gut punch of fucking up when the moment was his, when that gold medal was so close that he could touch it. He couldn’t blame it on being outskated, because he wasn’t; if he’d landed that jump that gold medal would have been his. It hadn’t been the ice conditions, it hasn’t been his skates, it hadn’t been audience distractions. It had been one hundred percent his own failure to perform when it counted.
It still hurt. It would probably never stop hurting. That knowledge of what could have been still hung in front of him.
“She wanted to put my worst moment ever on-air,” Topher said later. He and Jake were walking hand-in-hand through the Casa de Campo, a huge public park in the center of Madrid. Jake had given up on the crutches, but he didn’t have the full range of motion of his ankle yet, so they were moving very slowly.
“I have, like, eight of those, so I sympathize.”
Topher looked around. Jake had wanted to get out and walk after a being cooped up in the hotel for a couple of days. They’d decided on wandering around outside in the relative anonymity of the park. Neither wore anything that indicated their country of origin or that they were in town for the Olympics, and Jake had put on mirrored aviator sunglasses that obscured his face pretty well. Topher still stood out a bit, but he hadn’t noticed any kind of tail. So he’d felt pretty comfortable taking Jake’s hand. The way Jake kept squeezing it indicated he liked holding hands.
They got a few hairy eyeballs from passersby, but so far they’d been left alone.
Not that holding hands in a public park meant they were a couple or anything. They were just exceedingly fond of each other.
“Can you imagine?” Topher asked, still a little offended by Joanna’s story pitch.
“I don’t want to. They keep showing me falling on the floor exercise. On the floor! Nobody fucks up on the floor! You hop out of bounds, sure, or you sit at the end of a tumbling pass because you under-rotated. But tumbling passes are Gymnastics 101. It was such a dumb mistake. And I feel humiliated all over again every time I see it on a TV out of the corner of my eye.”
“It feels like it matters more than the gold medal does.”
“Yeah. I mean, I fought for that gold medal. It’s mine, and no one will ever take it from me. But I keep reliving the worst parts of my career. All the times I’ve fallen off an apparatus or, I don’t know, banged my leg on the pommel horse, or torn a muscle doing practice on the rings, or that time I got a concussion at the World Championships because I missed the landing on a vault.” Jake sighed and hopped a few steps. “Sorry. I don’t mean to rant, but I don’t love that the networks keep showing that clip.”
“No, believe me, I get it.”
“You said Natalie talked Joanna out of it?”
“Well, she talked Joanna into making participation voluntary instead of mandatory. I opted out. I don’t need to relive not winning a gold medal.”
“Yeah. I could do without seeing myself tripping over my own feet every time I look at a television.” Jake sighed. “Are you okay with all this? I mean, I can’t help but think… you don’t resent me, do you?”
“What? No. Not at all.”
“I guess I worried.”
“No, Jake, I’m so proud of you. You did something I couldn’t have. I still have nightmares about quad jumps, and that Olympic experience is seared in my brain. But that’s my issue, not yours. You grabbed that opportunity and went for it, and watching it was exciting! I’m thrilled you won, I really am. I could never resent you.”
“Okay. Sorry I asked. I must seem selfish.”
Topher took a deep breath. He completely understood where Jake’s fear came from, but he was glad Jake had taken the opportunity Topher hadn’t been able to. “You’re not selfish. You care about me and want to make sure I’m okay, right?”
“Yes, I care about you a lot.” Jake hopped again.
Topher wanted to talk about that more, to find out how much Jake cared, but Jake seemed distracted by his leg. “Your foot okay?”
“Eh. It’s starting to throb.”
“I think I see the street over there.”
“Where are we?” Jake pulled out his phone and touched the icon for the maps app.
“I don’t know, but where there’s a street, there’s a taxi.”
Jake laughed. “Fair enough.”
Topher squeezed Jake’s hand. “This is nice, you know. Us just hanging out. Chatting. Holding hands.”
“It is nice. Maybe we should think about finding ways to do
it more often.”
“I mean, I guess I’m not opposed to visiting Houston. I hear there’s a nice…. Actually, I know absolutely nothing about Houston.”
Jake laughed. “We’ve got some good restaurants. If you come in March, we can go see the rodeo. That’s kind of a big deal. There’s… I don’t know. The NASA Space Center. And it’s right on the Gulf Coast, you know. I like the beach in Galveston.”
“All right. New York has all the New York things you probably already know about.”
“I’ve been a few times. I was just there a few weeks ago. Wake Up, America! had me on to do an interview as part of their series on ‘Olympic hopefuls.’” Jake made quote fingers. “I was in and out pretty quickly because it was the middle of training camp, but there’s a gym in New Jersey I use when I’m in that part of the country. It’s owned by a former Mirakovitch student, so Valentin trusts that she won’t corrupt his teachings.”
“Do you often call your father by his first name?”
Jake shrugged. “He’s kind of a special case. Valentin Mirakovitch is a force of nature. If you ever get to meet him, you’ll see. He has the authority of an Eastern European dictator and does not like jokes or disagreements. He’s the most serious person I have ever known. My mother is a good influence on him because she gets him to lighten up, but when he’s training gymnasts, there is no levity. It’s intense.”
“I can imagine.” Topher liked the idea of getting to meet Jake’s father someday, in the context of them being in a relationship. He took a moment to imagine some future dinner in which they all sat down and Topher tried to impress Valentin with his rudimentary Russian, the same way he had Lana Mirakovitch that night they’d met.
Was it dangerous to think that way? Topher thought it might be. Then again, here they were, holding hands and talking about how they’d go see each other after the Olympics. So maybe there was some hope.
“Can we sit for a sec?” Jake asked, leading Topher over to a bench at the side of the path.
Topher sat beside him. “I guess it feels pretty silly to complain about my old pain when you are literally still healing from an injury.”
Jake frowned. “Nah, not really. I totally understand why you wouldn’t want to have to talk about your Olympic experience. I don’t really want to talk about mine either, even the good stuff.” He leaned back on the bench. “Doc says it’s a grade two sprain, which means I don’t really need the crutches anymore, but I’m out of the gym for six weeks. Which means I’ll get a late start on training for next season.”
“Really? When does training start?”
“Time off is not really a thing I ever get. Except when forced on me by injury.”
“In other words, if we’re going to go to the beach or steal a space shuttle from NASA, we should do it in the next six weeks.”
Jake laughed. “I suppose so.”
“Good to know. I’m mentally penciling you in on my calendar.”
“I’d love to see you. I mean that. You don’t have to come to Houston. You can take me to eat good pizza in New York instead.”
Topher tilted his head back, letting the sun beat down on him, the warm air envelop him. Sitting beside Jake and talking as though they had a future made him warm inside too. He took Jake’s hand again, feeling content. “If I come to Houston, be prepared for a lot of ‘Houston, we have a problem’ jokes.”
“So noted.”
Topher leaned over and kissed Jake’s cheek. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”
Jake smiled. “Yeah, I think we are. The more I think about us spending time apart, the more it upsets me.”
“Me too. Turns out I like you.”
“I like you too.”
And even though they were in public, because Jake was so damned irresistible, Topher leaned over and placed a soft kiss on Jake’s lips. Jake lifted his hand and cupped Topher’s jaw.
Yeah. They were doing this. Topher could see himself falling in love with this man. Would it be easy? No, definitely not. Jake still had a lot of decisions to make and Topher still traveled a lot and there was still so much to negotiate, but Topher decided to savor the promise of a happy ending with Jake.
Jake pulled away slightly and said, “So, about that taxi.”
“Yes, sir.” Topher hopped up and then helped Jake to his feet. “Your chariot awaits.”
Jake’s foot was obviously really hurting him now, because he hooked his arm around Topher’s and mostly hopped to the street, but Topher didn’t mind holding Jake up. He hoped to keep doing it for a long time.
JAKE HEARD the text message alert on his phone as if it was underwater.
It wasn’t worth pulling out of the tangle with Topher’s limbs to check on it. In fact, Topher was currently trailing kisses along Jake’s jaw, and it felt too good to stop.
Jake put his arms around Topher and pulled him close. “I want you inside me this time.”
Topher moaned. “Yes. Perfect.”
The text message alert went off again. It occurred to Jake to wonder if something had happened, but he pushed it aside. Instead, he grabbed a condom from the drawer and rolled it on Topher. Topher had the bottle of lube in his hand and got to work preparing Jake. Jake shifted his hips up, spread his legs wide, and tried to keep his injured foot out of the equation.
And then Topher hovered over him. They’d swapped back and forth quite a bit over the past couple of days, and they’d had so much sex that they had some understanding of each other’s bodies now. Topher had a tattoo of the Olympic rings on his right buttcheek, which Jake loved. Jake’s own Olympic tattoo was on the underside of his right arm. But Topher also had a tattoo on his hip.
“Infinity sign?” Jake asked, rubbing his finger over it.
“Figure eight.”
“Oh.” Jake laughed. “Of course.”
Topher grinned and shoved two fingers inside Jake. Jake threw his head back and moaned. God, that was just what he needed. No, he needed more.
“I want your cock,” Jake grunted.
“Then stop making small talk.”
Topher tossed the lube aside, then positioned himself between Jake’s legs. Jake felt the blunt head of Topher’s cock against his entrance and tried to push himself forward on it. He really wanted the burn of it, the pleasure only Topher could give him. Topher hooked Jake’s knees around his arms and shifted his hips forward, finally sliding inside Jake.
God, Topher felt amazing. Jake’s body stretched to accommodate him, and it stung, but in the best possible way, the fiery promise of future pleasure. Jake’s body relaxed to let Topher in and the pain became pleasure.
“More,” Jake moaned.
“You are insatiable, darling,” Topher said, a little breathless.
Topher picked up the pace, pushing in and out of Jake. Topher’s skin had a sweaty sheen to it, and his hair had become messy. And then he looked up and met Jake’s gaze.
Jake could get lost there. He could see every nuance of color in Topher’s bluish-gray eyes. There was an icy quality to them, or Jake was imagining it. It didn’t matter, because that connection between them made Jake’s heart flutter.
He put his arms around Topher and pulled him close. It occurred to Jake to whisper that he loved Topher, but it was far too soon. He wasn’t ready to make that kind of declaration, didn’t trust his feelings yet, didn’t want to say such things during sex. He felt a lot of things for Topher, but he wasn’t sure they were love yet.
But some of this was heat and magic, because it was there, where their bodies met. Topher wrapped his hand around Jake’s cock and started stroking, and Jake began to feel like he was all nerves everywhere. His skin tingled, his insides melted, and an orgasm building somewhere near the base of his balls.
Topher closed his eyes as if he was about to surrender to everything. “I’m gonna come,” he mumbled. “But it’s too soon.”
“I’m close too.”
Topher increased the pressure on Jake’s cock, squeezing it an
exquisite way, coaxing the orgasm out of him. Jake groaned and distantly heard his phone chime again, but it didn’t even matter because suddenly he was coming, shooting between himself and Topher.
Then Topher said, “Oh God,” and crushed his lips against Jake’s, taking a searing kiss as he came inside Jake.
A few moments later Topher said, “You are too fucking sexy. It’s hard to draw things out between us.”
“Well, if we’re going to visit each other in the future, we’ll have some time to practice.”
Topher laughed softly. “An excellent point.” Then Jake’s phone chimed again. “Someone is really trying to get in touch with you.”
Topher hoisted himself out of bed and went into the bathroom. Jake wasn’t eager to put his foot back down on the ground, but with a groan, he forced himself out of bed and limped into the bathroom, since Topher had left the door open.
Apparently they’d already reached the level of intimacy where they could pee in front of each other. Okay.
With a laugh, Jake went to the sink and washed his hands, then washed the drying cum off his abdomen.
“Don’t know if you knew this,” Topher said, nudging Jake out of the way so he could wash his own hands. “But you and I are spectacular in bed together.”
“I may have noticed that.”
“I had a lot of fun with you today. I just wanted to tell you that before we re-engage with the real world. I lost track of how many texts you got while you were scrambling my brains, but it sounded like kind of a lot.”
“It’s probably just Chelsea.”
“Or your other boyfriend.”
“Ha ha.” Jake kissed Topher and let it linger for a moment. “I had fun with you too,” he said.
Jake hopped back to bed and grabbed his phone. Eight text messages, most of them from Chelsea. He opened the text app.
“Oh,” Jake said as he read. “Apparently I’m in the running to be the flag bearer at the Closing Ceremony. I got a text from a swimmer named Melissa, who I guess is kind of the de facto Team USA leader. She says there have been a half-dozen names suggested, then all the athletes will vote. They want me to be the flag bearer?”
Stick the Landing Page 24
