August, five days before the Olympics
ISAAC HAD done this three times before, so it probably shouldn’t have surprised him that his room in the Olympic Village remained unfinished. It smelled of fresh paint and plaster, the bedding had been left in a haphazard pile on the bare mattress, and the bathroom had neither a shower curtain nor any paper products.
The previous Olympics had been this way too, although that building had also featured shoddy construction. Everything here at least seemed structurally sound. Just… not quite ready for people yet.
He sighed and dropped his luggage on the bed. As a senior member of the American team, he’d managed to score his own room, due to his need for quiet and focus or whatever bullshit Adam had fed the US Olympic Committee. Singles were rare; Luke had told him on the plane that his jealousy was intense because he’d be bunking with a wide-eyed nineteen-year-old new to international competition. Isaac had laughed.
But the joke was on him. This room was a shithole. Bare white walls, a single dresser that seemed to be made of particleboard, a thin mattress on a cheap frame, and the most bare-bones bathroom he’d ever seen. Although maybe the other rooms weren’t much better.
His phone chimed with a text from Adam: Pool time in 30 mins.
And that was another thing. He’d been in this godforsaken city all of an hour, and Adam wanted him in the pool already.
At least the location itself wasn’t so bad. Madrid boasted a certain Old World beauty as the host city. Isaac had never been here before; the only city in Spain he’d ever visited previously was Barcelona. This, at least, was not one of those countries with an authoritarian regime that didn’t care much for—or actively condemned—men such as himself who occasionally liked to be with men.
A headache blossomed behind his eyes. Probably dehydration.
He dug his water bottle out of his backpack and walked over to the bathroom sink, only there was no water when he turned the knob. Of fucking course.
The Aquatics Center would have showers, though. Isaac quickly moved stuff around in his bags, changed into warm-up pants and a T-shirt, and hoisted his duffel bag onto his shoulder.
When Isaac walked into the Aquatics Center a few minutes later, an unholy racket echoed through the whole interior. “What the hell is that?” he asked Adam, who stood near the entrance of the locker room.
“They’re screwing the chairs into the stands.”
“Oh good God.”
“You stop noticing it after a while. I have your suits. USOC apologized about thirty-six times for the delay.”
Isaac grimaced. Officially sanctioned team swimsuits irked him. Usually they were state-of-the-art, so he shouldn’t have complained. But new racing suits were so… confining. Still, all kinds of ridiculous things could shave tenths of a second off his times, so he’d take whatever advantage he could get.
When he’d shown up at the Trials, he’d only been hoping to prove he could still swim well enough to make this team. But now that he was here, in the actual Olympic venue, he suddenly realized he wanted to win.
The competitive spirit still burned in him, it turned out. Clawing his way out from the bottle had been one of the greatest challenges of his life, and he’d been telling himself for weeks that he didn’t need to win. He just needed to prove to himself that he was still vital, that he could still do the thing he’d been training his body to do for more than two decades. Everyone in his life had been treating his making the Olympic team as a miracle. That he stood here in Madrid should have been enough.
But no, he needed to win. He’d gotten this far, hadn’t he? Why not push himself to be more, to be better?
Adam handed him a duffel bag. “Try the new suits. There are two of each style in there, plus the warm-up suit you have to wear during all broadcast races—which is all of them, basically. I do not care even a little which suit you wear as long as you’re comfortable. Lane Four is yours after you change. Luke’s got Lane Five.”
“Thanks.”
Isaac supposed official gear wasn’t so bad. He’d been seated behind a couple of synchronized swimmers on the plane, who had told him their official suits each had hundreds of Swarovski crystals sewn on. “That’s ridiculous,” Isaac had said. One of the gymnasts told him to shut up, but the other had nodded gravely.
He changed into a new suit and pulled on the waistband. It was snug, but not problematically so. He walked over to a mirror and examined himself. He’d had his whole body waxed the previous day, but he’d likely have to do some touch-up work before his first race.
He’d let his hair grow wild during his brief retirement. It had felt odd. Unnatural even.
He ran a hand over his smooth chest. He turned sideways in front of the mirror and admired his body. He didn’t look half-bad for a recovering alcoholic. He was thinner than he had been four years ago, and not as muscular. Sleeker, maybe. Adam had put him on a tough diet, making the legitimate argument that he no longer had the metabolism of a twenty-two-year-old.
Isaac walked back out to the pool. Adam made him do some warm-up stretches. He closed his eyes and listened to his body as he moved.
The thing was, he felt good. Better than he’d felt in a long time. Four years ago he’d shown up expecting to win, as if it was his due. He’d reigned as the best swimmer in the world. He had nine Olympic medals and twenty world championship medals. He was the most decorated swimmer since Michael Phelps. He’d walked into the previous Olympics expecting them to drape medals around his neck. And he’d won a silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle with almost zero prep. He’d swum the 4 x 100 relay with a hangover.
He’d been a cocky asshole. And he’d felt like shit the whole time, physically. Constantly nauseous and achy. Not to mention, everyone kept telling him it was over. He wasn’t as fast as he’d been at seventeen, at twenty-one. This would be his last Olympics. It was time to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
That was where his trouble began.
But now that trouble was behind him. He was here. He was in the best shape of his life. He was still swimming. He was sober. He felt good.
“Get in the water,” Adam said. “See how you feel.”
Isaac dove in and swam four laps without putting a lot of oomph into it, just to get used to the water temperature, the chlorine levels, the feel of the swimsuit, the peculiarities of this venue. He liked this pool. He could feel himself slicing through the water. He caught Luke slipping by him in the neighboring lane out of the corner of his eye and didn’t care. He did his flip turn, the way he’d practiced a thousand times with Adam, and he swam back again.
“Good,” Adam said when Isaac popped his head out of the water. “Get up on the block. On the clock this time.”
TIM WORE sunglasses on his way into the Aquatics Center, because even though most of the press had yet to arrive in Madrid, he’d grown accustomed to the paparazzi following him, and he’d grown fucking tired of it.
Tim found Donnie, his coach, standing at the base of the platforms. Donnie stared intently at a clipboard, and without even looking up, he said, “Suit up. I’ll get you in the rotation.”
“All right.”
A half hour later, Tim stood on a platform, ready to do the only thing he ever really wanted to do. Tim loved diving. He loved the thrill of it. He loved the physicality of twisting his body and making it conform to his will as he somersaulted through the air. He loved flying. He loved the sensation of entering the water just right.
Up here on the platform, no one knew who he was. No one else was here. So no one cared that he’d broken off an engagement right before the Trials. No one knew that Pat had seen Tim more as a meal ticket than a lover, that Pat had been mooching off Tim since his show had gotten canceled, that Pat had hoped being seen as an adoring partner in the audience at the Olympic Games would somehow revitalize his career.
Tim had left him as soon as he figured that out.
His heart still ached sometimes. The only time it didn’t was when he hurled himself off a diving board and into the waiting pool below.
So he dove. An easy one first. A simple forward pike. He jumped off the board, folded his body in half, and unfolded gracefully before entering the water.
When he got out of the pool, Donnie said, “Good. Keep your form tight. Your knees were a little bent on that one.”
Donnie got gruff when he was nervous, which was almost always the case when Tim or one of his other divers was about to compete. Tim embraced it, relished it, was glad to be critiqued on his dives and not his personal life choices.
Six dives later Tim felt invigorated more than tired, but his practice time was up. He retreated to the locker room, deciding to take a shower now, given the unlikelihood of having running water in his room.
Then a flashbulb popped in his peripheral vision.
Tim didn’t even stop to look at who’d snapped the photo or what the target had been. He’d been through this enough in the past year that he knew better than to look. Instead, he put his head down and beelined into the locker room.
As he headed to the showers, he nearly collided with a broad swimmer’s chest.
“Hey, whoa there.” The man before Tim put his hands out and clasped Tim’s arms.
“Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention.”
“Hey, you’re Tim Swan, aren’t you?”
Fuck. The guy had an American accent too. Tim didn’t want to look up, but he did slowly.
Isaac Flood.
They’d never actually met, despite being on the same Olympic team four years before. Not for any particular reason; their paths just hadn’t crossed. Well, and the swim team was super cliquey and tended not to mingle with the other athletes.
“Hi,” Tim said. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You were lost in your own head. I get it.”
Tim took a step back and tried to get his bearings. Good God, Isaac Flood was a big man. He had to be six three or four, with wide shoulders and arms that seemed three miles long. He had a broad chest and pale skin. His rich brown hair was tousled from being under a swim cap. He had gorgeous, depthless blue eyes. Tim had long thought Isaac Flood was sexy, but seeing him now, he realized he’d had no idea.
Tim took a deep breath. “Yes. I was lost in thought. Sorry for bumping into you. You’re Isaac Flood.”
“I am indeed.”
Tim nodded. “Maybe you’re the best person I could have run into. I mean, because you get why…. That is, you get so much media attention that you…. See, there was a photographer near the pool and….”
As Tim stammered, Isaac lifted an eyebrow.
“Forget it,” Tim said.
“You’re hiding from the media.”
“You could say that.”
“Dude, I know exactly what that’s like. I spent four weeks in rehab. The press wasn’t allowed within a certain radius of the facility, and I still spent all four of those weeks looking out for reporters hiding in bushes or whatever.”
Tim let out a breath. Of course. Isaac Flood, of all people, would know how Tim felt. “I wish I wasn’t so jumpy. I’m trying not to let it affect me.”
Isaac tilted his head. “So, what? The media is following you because you’re engaged to some actor. Who gives a shit?”
“Actually, we broke up six weeks ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be. And I don’t want to talk about it. All I know is that even the color commentators seem more interested in what I do with my dick than what I do when I dive. And frankly, I’m sick of it.”
Isaac pursed his lips and looked at Tim for a long, unnerving moment. He glanced around. They were essentially alone. Water ran in the shower area, behind a partition Tim couldn’t see around, so he assumed men were showering. But otherwise no one stood in eye- or earshot.
Isaac said softly, “Because you’re not returning Olympic champion Tim Swan, you’re gay diver Tim Swan.”
“That about sums it up, yeah.”
“And I’m not four-time Olympian Isaac Flood, but alcoholic fuckup Isaac Flood.”
Tim knew Isaac had an alcohol problem, because he lived in the world. Probably only one other aquatics athlete got as much attention as, if not more than, Tim, and that was Isaac. Because Isaac had been to three previous Olympics. Because he’d been a cute kid once. Because he’d been on a Wheaties box. Because all of his endorsement deals had been pulled after he’d gotten the DUI.
And yet, here Isaac Flood stood.
Maybe Tim could learn something here.
“You coming or going?” Tim asked.
“From the shower? Going. Just finished. I figured I’d get one in because the water’s not running in my room.”
“Same here. I’m headed for the showers, I mean. But, uh, I hope we run into each other again.”
Isaac smiled. “Yeah. Me too.”