“I’m so sorry, Timmy. I know you’re mad about the money, but I needed to get to this audition in LA. See, they were filming a movie near Boulder. Wouldn’t that have been perfect? I did it for us, don’t you realize that? I wanted for us to be together. I love you so much. I still want to marry you.”
Tim believed Pat was being earnest. He didn’t trust Pat and sensed he still had an ulterior motive somewhere, but flying to Spain at his own expense seemed like a grand gesture, even for Pat, who generally spoke in grand gestures.
Still, Tim had no intention of taking him back. And now that they’d confronted each other and Tim had told Pat where he could stick his apologies, he felt a lot better. The anxiety of facing Pat had been worse than actually facing him, and Tim realized quickly he didn’t love Pat anymore—if he ever had—and he would not be letting Pat’s presence do anything to compromise his chance at the platform medal.
“I don’t love him, Isaac.”
Isaac nodded slowly. Tim wanted to protest, to say he was falling in love with Isaac, that it felt completely different from being with Pat, that he never wanted to be with Pat again, but he felt the pull of fatigue like something heavy dragging him under water.
“You’re exhausted,” Isaac said.
“I am.”
Isaac opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but instead he pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Here, let me get you out of some of these clothes. Then you can sleep.”
“No, tell me what you were going to say.”
Isaac kissed Tim’s forehead. “I will later. We have all the time in the world.”
ISAAC HELPED Tim out of his warm-up suit and stripped him down to briefs and a T-shirt; then he tucked Tim into bed. Isaac wanted to lie down with him, but his mind buzzed now. He paced instead.
He’d just figured it all out.
He pulled out his phone and called up the results of men’s gymnastics. He smiled to himself, remembering the pep talk he’d given to Jake Mirakovitch. Whether he’d influenced the results was an open question, but he couldn’t get over the idea that if he’d had someone like himself to talk to when he’d made the national swim team, his life might have taken an entirely different track.
That coaching might be a part of his future was an idea he’d been flirting with for a while, but it had really gelled as he’d talked to Tim tonight. He knew everything there was to know about swimming; he knew how to teach the strokes, knew how to train, how to build speed and endurance. He knew the workouts required for conditioning out of the pool, knew about diets and calorie intake, knew about warm-ups and cool-downs. He could teach someone to swim at the elite level—he had faith in himself about that at least. But more to the point, he had a depth of knowledge about what being an elite athlete was like that Adam didn’t have. Adam had swum competitively at the NCAA level when he’d been in college, but hadn’t ever made it to a World Championship or an Olympics. He was an amazing coach, but he lacked firsthand elite athlete experience.
But Isaac had it. He knew what it felt like to rise to the highest places and fall to the lowest. He could use that knowledge to help athletes who struggled not just with the physical tolls of elite sports, but the mental and emotional ones.
He could see his whole future before him, and he liked it.
He stopped pacing and looked down at Tim. Tim was dead to the world, curled onto his side and fast asleep. A little stream of drool leaked down the side of his chin. Isaac smiled.
He felt happy.
It struck him as a little odd. He’d been unhappy for so goddamn long. Five years, probably. Depression over the end of his swimming career, caused by listlessness and boredom, had driven him to drink to begin with, and he was determined not to let himself go to that place again. He needed a purpose, and he thought he’d found one. He’d talk to Adam after he flew home about what kind of training he needed. He’d….
Well, what if the University of Colorado needed an assistant swim coach?
Isaac sat on the side of the bed, careful not to jostle Tim too much. What if… what if Isaac moved into Tim’s pretty house in the mountains, and he came home from a day of coaching a college swim team, and Tim came home from a long day of training, and they fell into bed together, exhausted but happy? What if they spent their days off together, hiking or skiing or just fooling around in bed? What if Isaac sat in the stands at Tim’s dive meets, and Tim came with Isaac to important swim competitions? What if they had each other? What if Isaac wasn’t alone anymore?
The thought of uprooting his life in Raleigh, as shitty as his apartment was, terrified Isaac. He’d never lived farther than an hour’s drive from his mother, and now he could see her, or Abby and her husband and his little nephew, in ten or fifteen minutes if he wanted. Having his mother nearby had been crucial to surviving his return from rehab. She’d been his rock, his support system, and her faith in him had never wavered. Tears sprang to his eyes as he thought about being so far away that he couldn’t just drive over to her house for a pep talk and a hug anymore. Could he really live without that? He felt a pang at the thought of his nephew growing up without Uncle Isaac around too, because he loved that kid to pieces. He loved his whole family, and Luke and his other friends, and even Adam. Could he really leave them?
He’d come to Madrid and done what he’d intended to do—he’d competed the right way, with his whole being, and he’d been handsomely rewarded for it—so maybe it was time to turn the page and start the next chapter of his life. He hated to leave Adam and Luke and his family, but it wasn’t like he’d be moving to China. And he couldn’t leave right away anyway, not if he wanted the endorsement money. He’d have to swim competitively for another year or two. He’d talked to Sheri about that after dinner. He had the potential to make enough money from endorsement deals to fly cross-country once a month if he wanted, though. And he wanted to.
It was probably better not to make any rash decisions until after the Olympics, until after the bubble popped. The Olympics were magic; could he and Tim really make a relationship in the real world, with all their other obligations and responsibilities, truly work?
He looked at Tim again. He hadn’t moved. Isaac reached down and wiped the drool from Tim’s chin, and Tim stirred but didn’t wake up.
What if Isaac loved this man?
Because he was pretty sure he did. He’d never really been in love before, but every time he looked at Tim, he thought, This is it. He’s the one for me.
But what about Pat? How did Tim feel? He’d said he didn’t love Pat, but he’d been half out of it with exhaustion. What if Pat charmed Tim back? Tim had loved the man once. If Pat was here, he was probably planning some kind of siege campaign to win back Tim’s heart. What if Isaac couldn’t compete with that? What if Tim didn’t return Isaac’s feelings?
Then again, Tim was here. And Isaac was having a hard time distinguishing between the distorted thoughts his old demons made him think and what was real and in front of him.
Isaac lay down next to Tim and smoothed Tim’s hair away from his face, then kissed his forehead. “I love you,” he whispered experimentally, to see how it fit. He liked it. Tim stirred and settled again against Isaac’s arm, so Isaac pulled him into a hug and lay back against the pillows.
It was probably the post-gold-medal excitement and adrenaline or whatever that was making him feel this way. Probably as soon as he got on the plane home, it would fade. But Isaac thought that this? Forever? Sounded pretty damn awesome.
The trick now would be to hold on to it.
Chapter 23
Day 12
TIM TOSSED his unicorn shammy off the side of the dive tower and clapped his hands a couple of times. He shook out his body and did a little dance toward the edge of the platform.
Donnie shouted from the base of the platform, probably to tell Tim to knock it off, but this was a practice dive. It didn’t count. It should be fun. He danced harder before he took a deep breath and got into an a
rmstand. Then he shifted his weight and propelled off the top of the platform.
He nailed the entry. The dive felt perfect. When he got out of the water, Donnie was shaking his head. “Stop grandstanding.”
“I feel good, Donnie. I got this.”
“Do you want me to bolster your strange happy mood, or do you want me to tear you down?”
Tim laughed. “Give me the bad news.”
“The Australian judge has been really tough on form. During the springboard, she docked the Chinese divers half a point or more on almost every dive. I got the official results and rewatched the video to try to figure out what she was criticizing them for. It has to be form. Legs not perfectly together, hands in the wrong place, that kind of thing. So that’s something you have to think about. That dive?” Donnie pointed at the platform. “It was great! In any other competition, that would get you a nine or a ten easily. But your feet were just slightly apart in the tuck and your left hand wasn’t in quite the right place during the twist. You kind of had it here.” Donnie demonstrated.
“Oof,” said Tim. “Did I really do that?”
“Yeah. Bottom line is that the details matter. I don’t know if the same judge will be watching the platform competition, but I can tell you, the judges have been equally harsh on the women.”
Donnie handed over a page full of notes, meticulous details on every practice dive Tim had done that day. Tim looked it over. Some of the notes were helpful—misplaced hands during twists, a habit Tim didn’t realize he’d picked up; not getting enough height out of the armstand dives—but some of it seemed petty and nitpicky. Then again, maybe those nits needed to be picked for the sake of Olympic competition. He’d just have to put his all into it, that was what Isaac had said.
“Seriously, though? You’re in fine form,” said Donnie. “I’m only being hard on you because I think you have a solid shot at the gold medal. But remember, you can’t control the other divers. You can’t control how perfect or terrible the other eleven men in the final will be. You can only control yourself. You’re capable of doing all six of these dives flawlessly, you’ve gotten a lot of practice in over the last week and a half, and you’re ready for competition. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Donnie clapped a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “That gold medal is yours. Let’s show the world your winning four years ago was not a fluke.”
“It wasn’t,” said Tim with conviction.
Tim thought he saw a glimmer of tears in Donnie’s eyes, but Donnie blinked a few times and it was gone. He glanced at his watch. “Go change, big guy. I have to go make Jason stop goofing around and concentrate, and then I have a meeting with the other coaches tonight.”
Tim nodded, found his discarded shammy, and walked into the locker room.
Isaac was leaning against Tim’s locker when Tim walked to it. “You win a few gold medals and they just let you go anywhere, huh?” Tim said.
“Fun story,” Isaac said. “A Hungarian swimmer tested positive for PEDs and the Anti-Doping Agency is cracking down on everyone, so I had to come in for another drug test, even though I finished swimming four days ago.”
“Ugh, really?”
“Double-fun story is they did a blood alcohol test too, and I think the doctor thought he got me. He was all, ‘You’ve been partying for three days, haven’t you?’ Well, joke’s on them.”
Tim shooed Isaac out of the way so he could put his stuff away in his locker. “They’re really cracking down?”
“Yeah, especially on swimmers and runners. Runners are getting the brunt of it, actually. I’ve heard the Olympic Stadium has more people in white doctor’s coats than a hospital. But since I’m still in Madrid….” Isaac sighed. “As much as I enjoy peeing in a cup while some dude watches, I had better plans for my afternoon.”
“Such as?”
Isaac gave Tim a long appraising look, sweeping his gaze from Tim’s head to his toes. Tim became acutely aware of how little he was wearing—just his dive suit. He felt heat rise to his face and chest.
“That blush is adorable,” Isaac said.
Tim rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
“I saw you practicing. You’re…. You amaze me. How you jump from that height and do all those somersaults without injuring yourself, I will never know.”
“I’ve injured myself plenty over the years.”
“You make it look easy. I don’t love heights like that, but you make me think I could just climb to the top of that tower and hurl myself off it.”
“Don’t. They upped security around the dive pool since that reporter got into practice. They’ll probably arrest you.” Tim nudged Isaac out of the way again, because he kept shifting back in front of Tim’s open locker.
Isaac put a hand on the back of Tim’s neck. “I did want to mention one other thing.”
Isaac’s tone had grown so serious, Tim turned to give his full attention. “What?”
“I called Marcus Holt to see if he still wants me to do the interview. Swimming is over, so I thought I might have missed my window, but I thought about it, and I decided that it might be worth talking about my alcoholism.”
“Are you sure?” Tim asked, aware suddenly that he was in a locker room and other men were around. A couple of water polo teams were trickling in to get ready for their match in an hour. How many of these guys spoke English was an open question, and Tim’s little aisle was still empty, but Tim was suddenly very conscious of the fact that they could be overheard.
“I am,” Isaac said, keeping his voice low. “Holt still wants to talk to me. I’m meeting with him this afternoon.”
“Are you sure?”
Isaac looked pensively into the distance. “Being frank about my alcoholism will cost some endorsement money. Big corporations want to sponsor athletes with stories of triumph over adversity, not those of us who struggle daily. But….”
“What?”
“I didn’t sleep much last night and kept thinking about my purpose. And I think the glossy sheen everyone always puts on the Olympics is actually doing a disservice. Because we, as athletes, put ourselves through a blender of training and injuries and triumph and shame. There’s so much pressure to be the best—that’s why these athletes turn to things like doping. I needed to take my pain away, so I turned to alcohol. And I think if we talk about that, if I talk about it, maybe I can help some other athletes out there who, just like you did last night, are beating themselves up for being less than perfect. I want to tell those athletes that they don’t have to be perfect, and tell the public that this pressure we put on athletes to perform like monkeys for an adoring public can do real damage.”
Tim stared at Isaac for a long moment. That was one of the reasons Tim had no regrets about being out publicly. If he could show someone struggling that being gay was okay, that there was no reason he or she couldn’t reach for the stars, then everything was worth it. “That’s… that’s amazing, Isaac. I think that’s a really worthwhile message. But I think you also have to be sure. If you say all that out loud, a lot of people will be angry.”
“Maybe it’s time to muddy up the glossy sheen on the Games. We’re not all machines. There are athletes here who struggle with all kinds of things. They have addictions, they have a hard time making ends meet, they have injuries that will never heal completely or chronic illnesses, they’ve dealt with racism or homophobia or any number of things.”
Tim nodded. “Do you plan to talk about me?”
“No. I mean, I thought about that too, because I think you’re a part of the story now, but I can leave you out, if you’d prefer.”
“I would. Just because I don’t need the distraction right now.” Tim exhaled sharply, suddenly picturing the platform final crowded with reporters who wanted to talk not about tucks and pikes but rather about Isaac, about their relationship and what it all meant and…. Not to mention, if Pat was still around and somebody recognized him…. Tim didn’t want that to overshadow everything.
&n
bsp; Because there’d been a time when it had. He and Pat had been in the midst of one of the most vicious arguments they’d ever had, and things had been unresolved when Tim had gotten on a plane to Helsinki for Worlds. They’d been arguing about money too; Pat wanted access to Tim’s bank accounts, but Tim had been reluctant and yet still unable to say out loud that he didn’t trust Pat, not entirely. Tim had successfully pushed the whole matter out of his mind to focus on the preliminary rounds, but then, right before finals, Pat appeared.
Of all the times for Pat to get over himself. There had been a hundred meets at which Tim had looked longingly into the stands, hoping the man who supposedly loved him would be there, cheering him on. But Pat never came—he was always busy—so Tim had resigned himself to do this alone. So it figured that when Pat did finally show up at a meet, he did it with what looked like an entourage, waltzing into the city with a bunch of reporters and photographers on his heels. In fact, he talked to reporters before saying a word to Tim, so the reporters hounded Tim on his way into the finals. Pat then made a big show of being the supportive boyfriend, waving and cheering from the stands. It was bad enough that nothing between them had been resolved, but on top of that, Tim was so thrown off, he’d missed most of his dives and finished a dismal eleventh out of twelve. Afterward Pat had said, “But I thought this was what you wanted.” And Tim had said nothing because he couldn’t figure out how to tell Pat that he wanted the support, but not like this. He didn’t think Pat would understand the distinction.
He didn’t need any of that here. No Pat, no reporters, no photographers, nobody wanting to ask him about his relationship or his sexuality or any of it. He was in great physical shape, he felt prepared, and he was in a good place mentally. That medal was his to lose, like Donnie kept saying. The last thing he needed was that cloud of microphones and cameras in his face.
Here Comes the Flood Page 23