“Ah, the pressures of stardom.” Topher chuckled. “I made a few ads during my heyday. But when I came out, that all dried up. I was a little too flashy and controversial for most endorsement deals.” Topher sighed and then whisper-shouted, “That means I was a little too gay.”
“Well.” Jake paused. “I mean, you should know, I’m not in the closet. My family and friends all know I’m gay. It’s just not public, I guess.”
“That’s… good.” So Jake lived in a glass closet. In truth, that was a relief. Topher didn’t like the idea of dancing around someone’s closet door.
“And not even for any specific reason. It never comes up in interviews,” Jake said. “The bigger story is always my perpetual failure.”
“You certainly didn’t fail today. I saw it from the stands.”
Jake made a soft sound that might have been a gasp. “You did?”
“I did. How does it feel to be an Olympic medalist?”
Jake sighed. “I don’t even know how to process it. I still don’t believe it’s real.”
“Did you all celebrate tonight?”
“A little. My mother snuck me a glass of champagne, even. But everyone was so tired, the party didn’t last long. You really came to watch?”
“Yeah. Today I was shooting a video diary about what it’s like to view sporting events as a Winter Olympian spectator. Julia Moss, who won a bunch of skiing medals two years ago, came with me. It was a whole thing. I had to duck out of the gymnastics arena before the medal ceremony to make it to some swim finals, but I did see your last rotation. You looked great.”
“Thanks. I didn’t know you were there.”
“I didn’t think to mention it the other night, and I didn’t want to text in case you were busy.”
“I probably was.” Jake sighed. “God, I’m tired.”
Topher shifted his weight on the bed. He was no stranger to hotel beds—he’d been traveling to skating tournaments his whole life—and he imagined that this room was far more spacious and comfortable than the Olympic Village where Jake was staying. “Do you have a roommate over there?”
“Yeah. Corey O’Bannon. He’s soaking in the tub right now. I did the same earlier. I’m still pretty sore from today.”
“That sucks.”
“No, I like it. It feels good. It feels like I really tried today. I put everything I had out there, you know? I walked away with no regrets. If I wasn’t sore, I’d be worried I didn’t try hard enough.”
“You deserve that medal, Jake.”
“It was a team effort, but I’ll take it. I… I’m surprised by how much I want the all-around medal. Like, this is nice, and we worked better as a team than we ever have, and I’m really proud of it. But an individual medal? That’s… I mean, it’s not the icing. It’s the whole fucking cake.”
“I understand what you mean. Well, not that figure skating is a team sport, or it wasn’t in my day, but I’ve gone to international competitions when my teammates medaled but I didn’t, and I was always proud that my friends did well, but winning my own medals was always sweeter. Of course it was.”
Jake chuckled. “If anyone eavesdropped on our conversations, they’d think we were the most selfish people.”
“I disagree. What do we do this for besides aspiration? I dreamed about winning an Olympic gold medal from the first moment I strapped skates on my feet. When I was a kid, when my coach made me do school figures, and I’d pretend I was skating at the Olympics so that skating a dozen figure eights in a row didn’t feel too much like repetitive drudgery. I mean, yes, some people take up a sport for the athletic challenge, or to get into better shape, or just for fun. I worked with a woman at my old training facility who wasn’t very good and she knew it. But she loved skating. She was never going to make an Olympic team, but she came to training every day anyway for the joy of it. But those of us at the elite level are always working toward those medals. And the kids watching at home, they dream about those medals too.” Topher let out a sigh and sank into the pillows. He felt a pang of disappointment. He’d never have a chance at a medal again. He’d mostly made his peace with that, but every now and then it hit him like a gut punch that he’d never compete again.
But Jake would.
“Get that gold medal, Jake.”
“I will certainly try.” Jake paused, then asked, “Can I ask, what exactly are you doing in Madrid?”
“It’s kind of a long audition for the job of calling figure skating in primetime in two years. I’m making friends with the network and proving how good I am on camera.”
“Oh, I bet you’d be great at calling figure skating.”
Topher laughed. “You barely know me.”
“No, but I can tell you know the sport and you understand what the athletes are going through. I was out of competition with a concussion for part of last year, and I watched a lot of sports on TV while I was recovering. One of the guys they always send out to call gymnastics, Al Henley? His only job has been as a sportswriter and sportscaster. He’s never been an athlete, at least not professionally. Most of the time he sits back and lets the experts make the call, or he acts as an audience surrogate to ask the questions that only gymnastics insiders would really know the answers to. But every now and then he says something really boneheaded, or he chastises a gymnast for screwing up something without understanding how truly difficult it is.”
“Yeah. Natalie Pasquarella was telling me about that. Natalie’s trying to replace him, by the way. Henley’s a million years old. He was on my flight over here, and we chatted a little. He’s a really nice guy, but he doesn’t have a good understanding of how sports have evolved even in just the last ten years. Gave me a lecture about how the end of the perfect ten is a black mark on the sport.”
“Eesh. But I’ve heard that plenty. What people need to understand is that nothing is stagnant. As long as there are barriers to break, athletes will keep breaking them.”
“Yeah. That’s the thing with Olympic athletes. Never tell them they can’t do something. They’ll find a way. Did you say you had a concussion last year?”
“Yeah, I hit my head in competition. At the World Championships, actually. Wiped out landing a vault. The network made you ask me that question about it in my interview, remember?”
“Oh God.”
“That’s the Jake Mirakovitch story, isn’t it? Best gymnast in the world. Always bites it when it counts.”
“Not anymore. You were great today.”
Jake was silent for a long moment. Topher was content to let him stew over whatever he was going to say. Eventually Jake said, “I know it’s within my ability to do this. What might do me in is my fear I’ll screw this up.”
“You won’t.”
“One of the commercials I shot was contingent on my not falling on my face. Like, I shot the commercial and got paid for my time, but if I didn’t win at least one medal, it wouldn’t air and I wouldn’t get the rest of my money. You can’t have the dude who failed selling your product, can you? The endorsement only matters if I win.”
“That’s awful.”
“It’s insurance. TBC wanted me to be the golden boy of this Olympics, but it wouldn’t be the first time they’d backed the wrong horse.”
Topher sighed, his stomach dipping again. “Case in point right here.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean you specifically.”
“No, but the whole system sucks. You know, the year after my last Olympics, I skated in an exhibition tour. It was fun, but in some ways it felt harder than competition. Like, if I fell on my ass at the Olympics, which I did more than once, I was disappointing myself, my coaches, my team. But falling at an exhibition—which I did once—was worse because I was disappointing fans who had paid money to watch me land that jump.” Topher could feed off a crowd sometimes, but having the expectations of hundreds of spectators piled on triggered his nerves like few other things did, and he’d been completely miserable on the tour. It had been one way to hang on to skating as
he felt his body giving up. And yet that ache grew in him now, the heavy realization that the thing he’d worked toward his entire life was no longer something he could participate in. “I hated letting audiences down, so I got out. No more skating in front of crowds anymore.”
“Retirement is going to blow,” Jake said.
That was an understatement. Topher had found solace in cooking, in fashion, in trying to get this commentary gig. He still got on the ice sometimes when the ache got particularly bad, and just gliding around often eased him. But Lord, he missed competing. “No one really thinks about that, huh? You were homeschooled, you said. So you’ve basically trained your entire life for this week. And when it’s over, what do you do?”
“My body can’t take a lot more. I know that. I have maybe one more season in me. But I’ll fall to pieces if I try for another Olympics. Too many old injuries. My body fucking hurts right now.”
“So you retire at… how old are you again?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Right, so you retire before you hit thirty, and then you’ve got the whole rest of your life to figure out what else to do with yourself.”
“That’s the tricky thing. It’s why I shot all those ads. I don’t want the attention. I want a nest egg, money I can live off while I figure out what to do next.”
“That’s smart. You have any ideas for what that will be?”
“Nope. I mean, I’ll probably work at my parents’ gym for a while. I like working with the little kids, actually. They’re so cute, and they’re always really excited about what they’re doing.”
“You have your own place in… where are you from again?”
Jake chuckled. “Houston, Texas, baby.”
Topher laughed too. “We’re from different planets, babe. I live in New York City.”
“I do have my own place. It’s an apartment in the suburbs. Easy drive to the gym.” Jake sighed. “I love my parents, but I couldn’t live at home and also train with them all day.”
“I can’t even imagine. My mother can barely skate. Her main role in my training was driving me to and from the rink. I don’t remember exactly what sparked my interest in skating, actually.” Topher let out a breath. He’d been skating since before memories had started recording themselves in his brain, it seemed. Likely he’d seen skaters on TV and wanted to try it. “So you want to coach?”
“I don’t know. I can’t picture my life past gymnastics. I guess I always figured that after I retired, I’d finally have time to really date and fall in love and get married and all that. Maybe I’d coach. Maybe I’d wait tables for a while. I just don’t know.”
Topher opened his mouth to respond to that, to appreciate the sentiment behind the words, but Jake said, “Oh, I hear Corey draining the tub. I should probably go in a minute so he can sleep.”
“I want to see you again. How do we make that happen?”
Jake was quiet for a moment. Topher almost worried he’d get turned down, but then Jake said, “Well, for now, I can try to meet you at the America House tomorrow night. Odds are pretty good our women’s team will win gold. I can’t stay out late because I’ll have to get up the next day for the all-around, but I could hang out a little.”
Topher frowned at that. He wanted time alone with Jake, to explore the burgeoning attraction between them. “What about somewhere more private?”
“I don’t know. The logistics of that are tricky. The press isn’t allowed into the athlete dorms, and it’s hard for me to get away right now. I don’t know how I’d explain my absence.”
“Another interview, at least.”
“I know I said after the team competition, but I’m wiped. How about after the all-around? But… yeah. Understand I’m not turning you down. I want to see you again too. Somewhere private.”
Jake’s meaning wasn’t lost on Topher. “After the all-around. We’ll figure something out.”
“Okay. I hope so.”
JAKE SAT on his bed with his phone in his hands as Corey walked out of the bathroom wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
“Who were you talking to?” Corey asked.
“How much of my conversation could you hear?”
“Hardly any of it. I had my earphones in until I drained the tub. I could only hear that you were talking.”
Jake nodded. “So, okay, I want to tell you something, but it cannot leave this room.”
Corey’s eyes flashed. He’d always loved gossip. He tossed his toiletries bag in his suitcase and then settled on his bed. “Tell me.”
“That was Christopher Caldwell.”
“The figure skater?” Corey’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Does he want another interview?”
“No. Well, yes, but that wasn’t why he called. He, um, well, I kind of kissed him the other night.”
Corey’s eyebrows shot up. “You what?”
“It’s crazy. Something is wrong with me psychologically. Because I should be focusing on this meet, and I am, but I also haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since we met doing that interview, so when I ran into him at the party after the qualifiers, I kind of, well….” Jake held out his hand in a fill-in-the-blank gesture.
“So are you guys, like, a thing now?”
“Hardly. We’ve been texting since that night, that’s all.”
“But he called you.”
“I kind of asked him to.”
“So, you want something to happen?”
Jake closed his eyes and thought about it for a moment. Topher hadn’t been much more than a pleasant distraction from the overwhelming pressure Jake had been trying not to think about, but Jake also could not shake the idea of them together. Preferably naked. With a bed nearby. “I do, yeah. Which is insane because I should be focusing on the competition. I don’t normally get crushes like this, not during a meet. But, I don’t know. He’s fun to think about. Do I think anything will come of it? No, not really. I like him, but he lives in New York.”
“He reminds me a little of Bryan.”
“Yeah?” Jake considered. Bryan was Jake’s most recent ex. They’d met while Jake was recovering from the concussion, so they’d been able to spend a good amount of time together, but once Jake went back to training full-time, things had fallen apart. Bryan loved fashion and liked to play around with gender, which was something that had drawn Jake to him initially. Jake admired people who were comfortable enough in their own skin to express themselves so boldly. Topher had that going for him as well, although his personality was really different from Bryan’s. Bryan hadn’t understood the life of an elite athlete, not the way Topher did. “I guess I can see that,” Jake said. “They do have some things in common. But Topher has also been an Olympic athlete, so he understands. We were just bemoaning the fact that logistics will keep us apart, at least until the competition is over.”
“That’s the dream, isn’t it? An Olympic fling?”
“It’s not my dream. It’s fun to think about it, but planning it is a bit of a buzzkill, actually. But didn’t you hook up with that fencer four years ago?”
“She was a fan. What can I say?” Corey laughed. “I am weirdly happy for you. I hope things work out. And I promise not to tell a soul.”
“It isn’t because I’m ashamed or anything. I just don’t want to deal with press attention—or my dad—if it’s the kind of thing that fizzles before we fly home.”
“Believe me, I understand. Especially now that we have to do real press. I’m hella nervous about going on Wake Up, America! tomorrow. I think I liked it better when we were losing and everyone ignored us.”
“I’d rather have the medals.”
“Seriously, though, if you didn’t come back here one night, I wouldn’t tell Valentin.”
Was that something Jake could pull off? Could he sneak into Topher’s hotel without being noticed by anyone? Could they hook up without anyone knowing? It seemed so unlikely, and yet it was incredibly tempting. If Jake hadn’t been sore all over, he might have c
alled Topher back to ask where he was staying. “Don’t tell me things like that. You really think I could pull that off?”
Corey laughed. “Sure. Why not? You’re a grown adult. But now we should get some sleep. The van to the TV studio leaves promptly at eight. That’s what Viktor said, right?”
“Yeah.”
Corey fiddled with his covers and flipped off the light, so Jake got under his own quilt and glanced at his phone one last time. Topher had texted, Sweet dreams.
They will be, Jake texted back.
Chapter Ten
Day 4
TUESDAY MORNING was bright, sunny, and warm, which happily coincided with the network’s plans for Tourism Day. Topher stood with Julia, Natalie, and a retired soccer player named Keith in a green room with Joanna, who held a stack of papers in her hands.
“Okay, I’m sending you off in pairs. I’ve got an itinerary for you, and you’ll each have a car and driver as well as a camera guy. If you want to take cell phone video and post it on social media, we’d love that too. Let’s see. Topher and Natalie, I like the chemistry with you two, so I’ll pair you off. Keith and Julia, are you okay working together?”
Everyone nodded. Topher knew Julia had a little crush on Keith, and she grinned as she hooked her arm with his. Keith smiled bashfully. So they’d be fine. And this was ideal for him. Topher liked Julia, but he felt like he and Natalie made a more natural pair.
“Good,” said Joanna. “Here are your itineraries. We basically divided a list of ten major tourist attractions in Madrid in half, so you’ll each see five today. I know that doesn’t give you a lot of time at each spot, but the point is to create kind of an overview of what there is to see in Madrid. Each of your spots will probably be less than ten minutes. Got it?”
Keith asked about how much walking there would be—he had a bum knee, it turned out—so Topher looked over the itinerary while Joanna and Keith chatted. Both pairs were starting at El Retiro Park, just south of the broadcast center building, and then Topher and Natalie had a central section of the city, basically: the Prado, the Palacio de Santa Cruz, the Plaza Mayor, the Casa de la Villa, and then they’d wrap up at the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande.
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