by Shae Connor
“Hey!” I grin at him. “What are you doing down here?”
He waves his arm down his body, and I realize he’s wearing the team athletic suit, gray with blue trim and the gray-and-blue Tornados logo on the chest. “Coach put me on disabled reserve so I could dress and sit with the team. I decided to surprise you.”
My smile feels like it’ll split my face wide open. “Well, I’m surprised! Glad to have you here.”
I’d love to kiss him right now, but I realize that as much time as we’ve spent together in our dorm room the past few weeks—a lot of it naked—we haven’t talked about when and how to go public with our relationship. I do let myself reach over and squeeze his knee for a second, figuring it’s a friendly enough teammates gesture not to raise eyebrows.
Darryn raises an eyebrow at me, as if he’s read my mind, and he probably has. He bumps my side with his elbow. “You gonna win one for me?” he murmurs.
A flash of heat washes through me. “I’ll win it all for you, baby,” I whisper back.
The announcer’s voice comes over the loudspeaker, drowning out any possible reply, but Darryn mouths baby? back at me, and I shrug. You heard me, I mouth back.
And then it’s time to get down to business.
…
The meet starts out well for us. Heath sticks his difficult dismount from the pommels, Kenny’s flairs on the floor look so much better than they did back in the fall, and I get through the iron cross on rings without losing it too soon. By the time I walk out onto the floor for my final event, I’m a little tired but pumped and loose.
From the moment I start my routine, I know it’s good. My leaps are strong, my landings solid, my flairs high. I can hear the crowd react with each tumbling pass, but it doesn’t intrude on my focus. The minute flies by, and after I nail my last diagonal run across the mat—round-off into a double-twisting forward flip punching into back layout followed by a front tucked flip—I hold my last landing before lifting my arms and nodding toward the judges’ table. I walk off to the roar of the hometown crowd, and Coach Sato greets me at the bench with a nod and a slap on the shoulder.
“Great job,” he says, and that’s the biggest compliment I could get. I grin as my teammates congratulate me with low-fives and more shoulder pats. I know my performance was good, probably the best of my career. I just have to wait to see if the judges agree.
A minute later, the score pops up: 14.130. A whoop that sounds suspiciously like Darryn comes from behind me. That’s two-tenths of a point higher than my previous top score, the first time I’ve crossed the 14-point barrier, probably helped by the added difficulty. Hell, that might even be enough to get me into the event finals at nationals, if I can keep it up for the whole season.
The crowd noise spikes, and I look over toward the display where they’ve posted the apparatus standings. My mouth drops open. My name stands at the top of the list, 0.20 points ahead of Markman from Carlisle U, who probably everyone thought would win—including me. And then Coach Sato is next to me, and I lean in to hear what he’s yelling into my ear over the crowd noise.
“If my math is right,” he says, “you’re at third in the all-around. Congratulations, Clark.”
My teammates are swarming me by then, but I’m still stunned. I knew I’d performed well today. I hadn’t expected to leapfrog over that many great competitors to win my first apparatus and finish so high overall.
Then Darryn’s face is in front of mine, the smile on his face blinding. “You did it!”
And just like that, it sinks in.
“Oh my God!” I grab Darryn in a huge hug, and he laughs against my neck. Within seconds, we’re the center of a team hug, guys patting me on the back and congratulating me from all directions.
I did it. Holy crap. And it’s our first meet. I have a whole season and two more years ahead of me.
But the best part of all is that I’ll have Darryn right by my side all the way.
…
The awards ceremony goes by in a blur. It isn’t exactly Olympics-caliber, but it’ll do nicely. I accept the trophy for my first-place floor exercise finish and clap for the other winners. We finish third as a team, which doesn’t come with hardware but gives us a big boost going into the rest of the season.
The second the ceremony ends, my teammates surround me again, but I only have eyes for one of them. I reach out for Darryn’s hand and pull him close.
“Here.” I hold out the trophy. “This is yours.”
His eyes widen. “No way!” he protests. “You earned every bit of that.”
“It wouldn’t have happened without you.” I slide my free hand up his arm to cup his nape. “I love you so much.”
And I kiss him.
Right there on the floor, in front of my teammates, the other gymnasts, the fans in the stands, my family and friends, God, and anybody else who wants to have a look. It occurs to me after a second that I should have checked with him first, but when I try to back away, he reels me back in.
When we finally break apart and the noise of the crowd filters back in, Darryn’s grinning from ear to ear. “I love you, too,” he says. “So fucking much. But you keep that plaque. You earned it. Besides.” He winks. “A year from now, I’m gonna win some of those for myself.”
I laugh as I wrap my arms tighter around him. “Sounds like a plan.” I tilt my head to one side. “Now how about we take this celebration somewhere a little more private?”
Darryn’s smile turns sultry, and he leans in to touch his lips to mine. “How fast can you shower?”
“With you waiting?” I give him my best medal-winning grin. “It’ll be a new personal record.”
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Acknowledgments
First up, all the love to my accountability group buddies, Sasha Devlin and Dylan St. Jaymes. It might have taken 15 months to get this story to THE END, but I never would’ve made it there without y’all. Love you, ladies!
Thanks also to my beta readers, Dylan, Dani, and Sarah; to Thea Nishimori for assistance with Japanese-American cultural references; and of course, my editor, Amy Acosta, who helped me shape this book into everything it should be.
Special recognition goes to Nadia Comaneci, who first made me a gymnastics fan, at the tender age of seven and a half, and who (along with her husband, Bart Conner) was kind enough to sign autographs for me during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Finally, a note in memory of Kurt Thomas, who died in June 2020, while I was working on edits for this book. The first US male gymnast to win a world championship gold medal, he created the “Thomas flairs” that figure into this story.
About the Author
Shae Connor lives just outside Atlanta, where she’s a government worker by day and writes sweet-hot romance by night. She’s been making things up for as long as she can remember, but it took her a while to figure out that maybe she should try writing them down.
Shae is part Jersey, part Irish, and all Southern, which explains why she never shuts up. When she’s not at her laptop, she enjoys cooking, traveling, watching baseball, reading voraciously, giving and receiving hugs, and wearing tiaras. She also serves as director/editor of the Dragon Con on-site publication, the Daily Dragon.
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