“You know a thing or two about viral videos too, huh?” Melissa said. “I mean, ours didn’t get as many hits as yours, but it was still pretty good.”
“What video did you do?” Isaac asked.
“I assume she means the one I made when I came out.” And if there was a single thing in his life that Tim had the most mixed feelings about, that was it. It was important to come out publicly, but he hadn’t anticipated how much attention he would attract.
How much attention Pat brought to them.
It had been Pat’s idea to do that video, and Tim had been so deliriously in love, he’d gone along with it. But now everyone knew his business. Tim would bet no one in the media even knew if Melissa was dating anyone. But everyone knew that Tim was gay and that he’d recently ended an engagement.
Well, except Isaac, who didn’t seem to know about any of it.
Isaac was squinting when Tim brought his attention back to the conversation. “Yeah, I guess I remember that. The coming-out-video thing.”
“It sucks about your breakup with Patterson,” said Melissa. “Was it, like, a fame thing?”
Tim’s pulse kicked up and his stomach flopped. “A what?”
“Melissa…,” Isaac said, a warning in his voice.
Which she apparently didn’t hear. “It’s, like, how Hollywood marriages never last? One partner gets more famous than the other, and then there’s all this jealousy and drama and blah-blah.”
“I’m not an actor.” Tim looked at Isaac for help, but Isaac seemed engrossed by something on the ground.
“No, but you’re a household name.”
“No, that wasn’t—fame had nothing to do with the breakup.” At least, not in the way Melissa implied. Pat hadn’t resented or been jealous of Tim’s fame; he’d thought Tim was his ticket to more fame. Pat wanted the pair of them to make headlines in the tabloids, which Tim had no interest in. Pat could keep his fame. Tim just wanted to dive.
Melissa held up her hands. “All right.”
“This ex-fiancé of yours is an actor,” said Isaac, his tone flat.
“Um, hello? What rock do you live under, Flood?” asked Melissa.
Isaac shrugged. “I mean, I knew that. He’s on some TV show I don’t watch.”
“Not anymore,” said Tim.
“Oh, yeah, I heard it got canceled,” said Melissa.
Tim was losing patience. Not only had Melissa interrupted Tim’s nice conversation with Isaac—a guy he admired, who was, incidentally, smoking hot—but she was dredging up things Tim would rather not think about. He had no interest in reliving the last few months. He wanted to put it all behind him and focus on the Games. “I have practice scheduled soon. I better go.”
Isaac looked up, concern on his face. “You want to, I don’t know, get a meal or something later?”
Tim glanced at Melissa but focused his attention on Isaac. “You have your phone on you?”
Isaac nodded and pulled it out of his pocket. He handed it over, and Tim programmed his phone number into it.
“Text me later.”
“I will.”
Melissa raised her eyebrows, probably assuming that since Tim was so publicly gay, he was hitting on Isaac, even though he wasn’t. Isaac was a good-looking man—no, he was ridiculously hot, in point of fact—but Tim needed a friend more than he needed a boyfriend. Especially a friend who understood how oppressive the spotlight could be.
“Have a good practice today, guys,” Tim said. Then he left.
Chapter 3
ADAM FROWNED. “You’re in the air too long.”
Isaac nodded as he pulled himself out of the pool.
But Adam was still talking. “You gotta get into the water faster off the block. You’re hanging too much. Don’t show off, Isaac, just get in the water.”
“What was the time?”
“Three forty-five. You’re probably going to need to shave a second off that to get past the preliminary heats.”
Isaac grunted. The 400 free was his event to lose. He was the returning Olympic champion, and he’d held the record time for five years, until some young whippersnapper had broken the record at Worlds earlier that year. A time of 3:45 was embarrassing; he routinely swam that race four or five seconds faster.
“In the water faster,” Isaac said.
“And tighter turns. MacLean from Australia does turns better than you. Rolls sooner, gets off the wall smoother.”
Isaac rolled his shoulders but didn’t respond.
“And Hiroshi’s strokes are longer,” Adam continued.
“Are we done cataloging my faults?”
“Come on, Isaac. This is the Olympics, not a pleasure cruise. You came here to win, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re too tight. Go take a breather. We’ll do it again in thirty. Get in the water faster, use your whole body, get longer strokes, make your turns tighter. You absolutely have it in you to win this. I’ve seen you swim better than this.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Isaac stretched his arms above his head, then shook out his body. He could do this. Why was he so tense?
Because he couldn’t lose this. He could not. Sobering up and getting his body back into fighting form had been the most difficult thing he’d ever done. And he hadn’t worked that hard just to lose.
“Don’t be sorry. Calm down, loosen up, and do it better next time. I want to do some sprints too. Ryan and I are trying to work out who to put in the relay final. If you can get your hundred meters below forty-eight seconds, you’re in.”
Isaac went back into the locker room, pondering the relay. He generally preferred middle distances over sprints, but he always had fun at the relays.
But now he just wanted to find a quiet spot to sit, put on some music, and mentally fix his 400 free.
So, of course, Tim Swan, wearing nothing but the tiniest of swimsuits, stood right there in the middle of the locker room.
“Oh, hey,” Tim said as if he weren’t practically naked.
“Practice?” Isaac asked.
“Yeah.” Tim stretched his arms. “Springboard yesterday, platform today.”
Isaac nodded. “How are you feeling?”
“Great! I mean, I’m worried about the Chinese divers because they fly through the air like gymnasts, especially Liu, but if I maintain my form and don’t make any major mistakes, I’ve got a good shot at a medal. You?”
“I suck, so….” Isaac shrugged.
“Get out. You do not suck. What makes you say that?”
“I’ve been turning in slow times all day.” Isaac sighed. “I’m too tight. I have to figure out how to loosen up.”
“Are you nervous?”
“No. Well, maybe a little. I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself. Which is making it feel like all my muscles are tied in knots.” Isaac rolled his head and shook out his shoulders.
“Sit.” Tim pointed to the bench in front of the row of lockers.
Unsure, but willing to go along with it, Isaac straddled the bench and sat down.
Tim moved behind him. “May I?”
“Do what you will.”
Tim put his hands on Isaac’s bare shoulders and just rested them there at first. Then he rotated his thumb and dug into Isaac’s tight muscles. He gradually increased the pressure.
“I know the swim team has been playing around with some Chinese medicine techniques,” Tim said. “Cupping can get the blood flowing back into your muscles if they feel tight, but I like this better. There are acupressure points in your back, and stimulating them locally can help relieve pain. But if you work out how all the points in the body are connected, I can actually put pressure elsewhere and have it give you relief where you need it. For now, though, how is this?” Tim dug into a spot near where Isaac’s neck met his shoulder.
Isaac groaned involuntarily, but the pressure from Tim’s hands seemed to make the muscle pop, and tension flowed out of it. “That’s good.”
“Yeah?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah. I don’t know jack about Chinese medicine, but keep doing that. I think it’s working.”
“I mean, the main goal is to get your blood flowing. That’s the purpose of this pressure.” Tim pressed the heel of his hand into the space between Isaac’s shoulder blades, and it hit Isaac right where he needed it. “You want to get your blood circulating. That will help ease the muscle tension. Although, also, you could relax.”
Isaac laughed. “How do you know all this?”
“I studied sports medicine in college. I thought about going to med school for a while, but I decided to keep diving instead.”
Tim’s hands spread out across Isaac’s back. Those hands felt huge, despite Tim’s relatively small frame. Well, Tim wasn’t small so much as smaller than Isaac.
“God, that’s good,” Isaac said with a sigh.
Tim chuckled. “It’s like you’ve never gotten a massage before.”
“I usually wait until after the meet is over.”
“So how do you relieve tension before a meet?”
“Sex.”
Tim’s hands froze on Isaac’s shoulders. Isaac realized what he’d said, so he backpedaled. “Not so much anymore, but when I was younger, I’d go out the night before a meet if I was tense and find a distraction.”
“God, really?” Tim resumed the massage, digging his fingers into the base of Isaac’s skull. The pressure there seemed to loosen something up in Isaac’s lower back. Tim’s hands were magic, relieving tension wherever they touched. A shiver went up Isaac’s spine; it had very little to do with the massage itself and everything to do with the potential of how that touch could go further. Perhaps while they were both horizontal.
Isaac cleared his throat. “Really. I know. I used to get hammered the night before meets too. I won a lot despite myself. I thought I was untouchable. Top of the world, right? Isaac goddamned Flood. Legend. Best swimmer since Michael Phelps. Did you know two of the world records I set are still mine?”
“So basically what you’re telling me is that, because you’re Isaac Flood, you goofed your way through meets. Did you do that your last Olympics too?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. I can’t do that anymore, though, and not just because I’m trying to hang on to my sobriety. I’m not as fast as I used to be. My body is different.”
“You really were the best, then, if you could get drunk and have anonymous sex and still win gold medals.”
Isaac groaned. “I’m not the best anymore.”
“Is that why you’re so tense?”
He thought back on the last Olympics and all the squandered potential. He’d had dozens of opportunities during those Games to train and learn, but he’d partied instead. Would he have won more medals if he’d been sober? Probably. “I want to do this right. I don’t want to just go through the motions. I want to put my all into it this time around. Go out on a high note, not as a has-been.”
“You are doing it right.”
Isaac closed his eyes and leaned back a little, into Tim’s hands. Tim’s fingers dug and poked into Isaac’s muscles, but in the most delightful way. Isaac’s skin seemed to come alive under his touch; it ached and tingled. Tim’s hands were warm and smooth, arousing Isaac’s muscles, soothing his old aches. If it wouldn’t have been wholly inappropriate, he would have thrown his head back and moaned, because while Tim’s touch was clearly meant to be therapeutic, it was nearly sexual too. How easy would it have been to turn around, to bury his face in Tim’s hair, to hug him and massage him in the same way, to grope and touch each other and get off right here in this locker room? After all, Tim was all but naked, sitting behind Isaac, massaging his back. Isaac was suddenly very conscious of Tim’s nudity.
“Lean forward,” said Tim, so matter-of-factly that Isaac figured he couldn’t be as turned on as Isaac was. “This might hurt a little.”
Isaac leaned forward. He couldn’t see what Tim was doing, but he sure as hell felt it when Tim put pressure on the knottiest muscles in Isaac’s shoulders. Isaac cried out, because it hurt like a bitch, but when Tim began to rub the muscles more gently, some of the tightness leaked out.
“You’re good. I’m hiring you as my personal masseuse.”
Tim laughed. “No such luck, big guy. I have to go climb up to ridiculous heights so I can jump and do three flips before I land in the water.”
Tim stepped away, so Isaac stood and took stock of his body. A lot of the tension had eased. “Still,” Isaac said, turning around. “You’re a goddamned miracle worker.”
Tim smiled. “I try. You better now?”
“Holy hell. Yeah.” Maybe the distraction of sexual arousal had helped ease his tension as much as anything else, though clearly Tim knew some things about the way muscles functioned if he was able to relax Isaac’s with only his hands. Good Lord. Isaac’s whole body sang. He felt like he had the power to do anything now. “I’m gonna go swim around the warm-up pool, and then I’m going to finish the hundred meters in forty-seven seconds, and I’m gonna anchor that goddamned relay if it kills me.”
Tim laughed. “Sounds like a solid plan.” His gaze settled somewhere near Isaac’s collarbone. “If the tension comes back, talk to the team doctor. See what they can do to help loosen those muscles. Acupuncture might work for you too.”
“Like, with the needles?”
“Don’t knock it. I see my acupuncturist once a week. There’s actual science that supports its therapeutic benefits.” Tim glanced at the clock in the corner. “Crap, I gotta go. Take care of yourself, all right?”
Isaac watched Tim go, momentarily distracted by the way Tim’s muscles rippled in his back as he moved, the way his round butt filled out his swimsuit. Thinking about the massage again, mentally picturing Tim nearly naked and sitting behind Isaac, his hands all over Isaac’s bare back, had Isaac’s skin tingling again. He grabbed a water bottle from the cooler in the corner and poured it over himself, trying to stave off an embarrassing situation.
But good God, he wanted Tim.
For months Isaac had tamped down the part of himself that wanted anything except to win swim races. He’d seen plenty of people—male and female—to whom he’d been attracted, but none that he’d wanted as viscerally as he wanted Tim Swan.
And if he was not mistaken, Tim wanted him right back. Maybe he could engineer a naked encounter before he flew home in three weeks.
So resolved, he pushed it all aside and walked out to the warm-up pool. He dunked himself in it and swam around a little before walking back out to the main pool. Adam was yelling something at Luke but looked up when Isaac approached.
“Luke’s in the relay,” Adam said. “As are Conor and Randy. Do you want that fourth spot?”
“Yes, Coach,” said Isaac.
“Forty-eight seconds.”
Luke stepped back. He didn’t say anything, but he crossed his arms over his chest. Isaac got up on the block and got himself into position. Adam got out the stopwatch and said, “Ready? Set. Go.”
Isaac shifted the angle of his entry and got in the water immediately, with very little time spent in the air. He felt good in the water, like he easily sliced through it. He put a conscious effort into tightening up his flip turn, then tore up the water on the way back—back straight, fingers together and pushing through the water like paddles, head straight. He caught the fifteen-meter mark out of the corner of his eye and felt good about his laps. He touched the wall and lifted his head.
Adam grinned. “Forty-seven point six. Hot damn.”
Luke slapped Isaac on the back as he got out of the pool. “Welcome to the relay team.”
TIM’S SYNCHRONIZED diving partner, Jason, was already standing at the ladder to the platform when Tim got to the diving pool. Jason’s dark skin seemed to glow under the bright lights of the Aquatics Center as he surveyed the platform. “We only have thirty minutes,” Jason said as Tim approached. “Water polo practice is happening after that.”
Donnie walked over. “Are you boys ready?”
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Isaac still filled Tim’s head; all Tim saw was his broad back. Tim could still feel how warm and smooth his skin had been, still hear the groans Isaac had let out as Tim worked his muscles. They’d shot to Tim’s groin as if they were making out, and Tim had forced himself to think of math problems and dive codes to get his body to calm down.
Now he shook his head and tried to focus on Donnie and Jason and diving.
“I want you to watch this,” Donnie said, pulling out his tablet. He cued up a video and hit Play.
The Chinese team.
There were so many variables in a dive—how hard you pushed off the platform, how far out from the platform you jumped, the rate of your rotations, whether you positioned your body vertically as you entered the water. Two divers in a synchronized pair could each execute a dive perfectly but still look different from each other. However, the Chinese divers were so in sync, they practically moved as one. The camera angle in Donnie’s video made them seem like they were one, because Tim could only see the diver in the foreground.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Donnie said. “You guys had this in practice at home, but now your synchronization is off. I don’t know if it’s nerves or what. All week Jason has been jumping farther off from the platform and Tim is starting his dives a fraction of a second sooner, which means you guys sometimes don’t complete the rotations together. This one’s from yesterday.”
Donnie played another video—less professional, clearly shot with Donnie’s phone—showing Jason and Tim, and he was right. Jason jumped a little harder, got out farther from the platform, and as a consequence, hung in the air a half second longer than Tim did before he moved his legs into the tuck. Tim completed the dive a hair sooner. And that meant their synchronization was off enough to be noticeable.
“So,” Donnie said. “Calm down and ignore the change in venue. It’s a platform, right? Just like the one we train on in Colorado. Got it?”
Jason nodded. “Just a platform.”
Donnie made eye contact with Tim, so Tim nodded too.
“Now I want to try this two ways. First, Jason, ease off and don’t jump out so far. Then we’ll try it with Tim jumping out farther. Tim, count out loud if you can and shout when you start rotating. We’ll tweak it until you’re back in sync.”
Here Comes the Flood Page 3