Day 7
TIM SAW Isaac off to his car to the broadcast center before joining his diving teammates for breakfast. Jason and Kayla flirted like wild, which was new, but Tim thought it all in good fun. Jason came with Tim to the gym afterward, where Donnie made Tim perform what felt like five thousand aerial somersaults while jumping on a trampoline. Tim was sore now, especially his abs, and coated in a gallon of sweat. Jason looked similarly drenched when they wrapped up their workout.
“I could use a shower and a cold drink,” Tim said. “I’d kill for a lemonade.”
“Oh yeah,” said Jason, wiping his face with a towel. “You know where they have good lemonade? America House. The bartender makes it fresh-squeezed.”
“Too much sugar.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “I think they have unsweetened iced tea too.”
“I guess that’d get the job done.”
After quick showers, they walked together over to America House. Since only Olympians were allowed in the dorm buildings, it was the main place athletes went to meet with their families. Ginny was there having lunch with her parents; Tim and Jason waved to her as they walked to the bar.
Cold iced tea in hand—and a few jealous looks at Jason’s lemonade—Tim found a booth near one of the TVs. It showed the American network’s broadcast, which happened to be airing an interview with one Isaac Flood.
Everyone else in the room seemed to be watching the interview, so Tim could hear Isaac talk.
“I worked really hard for this,” Isaac was saying. “You can’t just wake up one morning and decide to go to another Olympics. I’ve been training for a year and a half. I radically changed my diet, and I’m in the best shape of my life.”
“Do you think some athletes are naturally gifted?” asked Nikki Kenmore, the Wake Up, America! cohost. “I mean, you had so much raw talent when you were younger.”
Isaac laughed. “That’s true to a point. My mother basically tossed me in a pool when I was an infant, and I’ve been swimming ever since. After that, it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. Genetics might have given me my height and my long limbs, but the rest of it’s all training.”
Nikki grinned as if she didn’t believe him. Isaac did have an incredible body that seemed designed specifically to move him quickly through water, but Tim understood exactly what he meant.
Nikki said, “So what’s next?”
“Well, I’ve got at least one more race. Two if I do the IM relay on Saturday.”
Nikki laughed. “And what about after that?”
Isaac shrugged. “Guess I’ll go back to Raleigh.”
“More swimming?”
“Yeah, maybe. I’m not a hundred percent on that yet, but I think I’ve got a few more world championship races in me.”
“Do you have another Olympics in you?”
Isaac smiled but then shrugged. “We’ll see. Four years is a long time in the life of an athlete.”
The interview wrapped up soon after that. Tim sipped his iced tea and watched as the show went to commercial, letting himself dwell on the idea that Isaac would go back to Raleigh when the Games ended. Or sooner. Just that morning Tim had heard some of the swimmers talking in the locker room about getting flights home on Monday.
The very idea of losing Isaac so soon left Tim bereft. They’d only just found each other; it seemed cruel for Isaac to leave so soon. He knew intellectually that when the Games ended, they’d go back to their own home cities, but even contemplating that made Tim feel hollow. They had so much more to learn about each other, to explore together. There had to be more of a future for them than the end of the Olympics. Right?
Isaac intended to stick around past the end of swimming, Tim thought, but they hadn’t talked about it. He thought he remembered Isaac saying his flight home wasn’t until after the Closing Ceremony, but he couldn’t swear to that.
Tim’s phone chimed. He looked down and saw a new text from Isaac.
Miss u. TBC is making me do entertainment show interview.
That sounded like Isaac’s nightmare. The American network, TBC, owned a half-dozen channels and had a lot of hours to fill. And that included their evening block of tabloid-esque shows that covered celebrity news. Tim had seen the Hollywood Tonight reporters talking to people after the incident during practice, so he knew they were still hanging around Madrid. But the idea of Isaac going on the show seemed so strange.
Tim texted back, Sounds terrible.
Isaac returned: I’ve been warned I’ll have to answer love life questions. Wouldn’t it shock the hell out of the people back home if I told them I’ve been hooking up with a dude?
Oh boy. Tim’s stomach flopped. I’d love that, but I don’t want to go public about us until after the diving finals.
It wasn’t that Tim was ashamed of the relationship or even unsure about it anymore. He just didn’t want the press attention to distract him from what he was there to do. He was pretty sure Isaac understood that, but he made a mental note to clarify with him later. He’d happily go public about dating Isaac Flood thirty seconds after his last dive.
Isaac texted back a smiley face, then: Understood. I’ll be vague. I’m off the market. Dating a nice young fella.
Tim laughed, inadvertently snorting, which made Jason look at him with both eyebrows raised. “I’m texting with Isaac,” Tim said.
“The guy who was just on TV?” Jason shook his head. “The Olympics are surreal.”
IN 1972, Mark Spitz—Isaac’s idol—won seven gold medals, then the record for most medals won in a single Olympics. Michael Phelps, probably the greatest swimmer of all time, came along later and won eight.
Isaac wouldn’t be breaking those records—he hadn’t qualified for enough races—but he walked out to the blocks for the 200 IM final with four golds and a bronze acquired only in this past week. If he medaled tonight and swam in the IM relay tomorrow night, he had the potential for seven medals this Olympics. Not a record, but still really fucking impressive.
He was pushing his body to the limit of what it could do. He was tired and sore, although his muscles hummed now with anticipation.
He excelled at middle-distance races, liked them more than sprints. He’d always had the balance of speed and endurance that was best suited to the 400. The 200 IM was more like a sprint, doing each stroke for only one length of the pool as fast as he could manage. The challenge with the IM was that every swimmer had a strong stroke—his was breaststroke—and a weak stroke—his was butterfly. The lead in the race would change hands four or five times, probably. The trick was to not fall too far back in the first two weaker strokes so that he could make up the time in the last two stronger laps.
He plotted out his strategy while one of the Australian swimmers with a goggle problem stalled the proceedings. Racing was as much about strategy as it was about strength, speed, and stamina. Swimmers had to calculate when to conserve energy and when to push it, and Isaac had made a lot of wrong guesses in his career that had cost him races.
He did not want to lose today.
Winning five medals was nothing to sneeze at, and the 200 IM was hardly his best event. He’d earned a shitty lane assignment thanks to his barely squeaking through the semifinal, so here he was at Lane Eight, all the way on the edge of the pool. It meant he couldn’t take advantage of the wake of the swimmers on either side of him—strategy and physics—and he wouldn’t be able to see the swimmers who would probably capture the lead. Harvey, a swimmer from the UK, did a fast butterfly lap, and he’d likely maintain some kind of lead for the first hundred meters, but Isaac wouldn’t be able to see him.
Maybe that was ideal. Maybe it was better for Isaac to swim his own race.
He was better rested now, he reasoned as he got up on the blocks. He’d gotten a solid nine hours’ sleep the night before. He’d done a workout with Adam earlier that day, but he hadn’t raced, so his body felt good. Tired, but good.
The beep of the race starting spurred him into Pavlovian action, as he threw himself off the block and started to swim what felt like the butterfly lap of his life. His arms and shoulders burned as he got to the wall, making the backstroke feel like a fucking vacation. He followed the lines of the beams that ran the length of the Aquatics Center ceiling to make sure he was going straight, and he hugged the rope a little to get some of the kick from his neighboring swimmer, and then he saw the little flags that indicated it was time to turn.
Then it was the breaststroke lap.
For whatever reason, this combination of arm and leg movements was the one his body was ideally suited for, and he glided through the water. He sprinted, only surfacing to breathe once in fifty meters, though when he popped his head out of the water, he heard the crowd screaming their heads off. He imagined he could hear Adam screaming too, and his mother and sister, and maybe even Tim.
So when he made the last turn, he wanted to win. He wanted his fifth gold medal of these Games for everyone who had believed in him when he’d been on the bottom, for his mother, who’d put him in swim lessons, for Adam, for seeing his potential and agreeing to train him even though he was an alcoholic, and for Tim, for making this week the best week of his whole fucking life.
For the first time in five years, probably, Isaac thought his life might have taken a turn in the right direction, and nothing would signal that better than a win here.
He told himself it didn’t really matter as he reached for the wall. He’d already accomplished so much.
Except it fucking did matter. And when he finished the race and popped up to look at the scoreboard, there it fucking was: Gold: Isaac Flood.
He shouted. Just noise, nothing coherent, but he shouted and slapped at the water. He looked back at the scoreboard to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. His body pulsed with adrenaline, with tingly giddiness, and he looked around, seeing other people bearing witness to this too. He accepted the congratulations of the swimmer in Lane Seven, still not completely convinced he’d done it.
He was out of the water before he even knew what he was doing. The officials were trying to clear the pool to get it ready for the next race. Isaac got pulled aside by Mindy Somers again but didn’t hear her first question because his ears were ringing so much.
“What?” he asked.
“You just won your fifth gold medal, Isaac, and your sixth medal overall for these Games. That has to feel incredible.”
“It does,” Isaac said. “God, it feels amazing. I can’t believe I pulled that off.”
“You made up a lot of time in the last one hundred meters. Was that part of your strategy?”
Isaac wanted to laugh. “Well, I knew the first hundred were my weaker strokes.” Isaac had to stop to pant because he hadn’t gotten his breath back yet. “So I just tried to swim well, but I knew I could make up the time with the breast and the free. What was the time?”
“Uh. 1:56.”
Isaac nodded. A sub-two-minute race was… really fucking good. “Oh. That’s… that might be a personal best.”
“It is, yes. Now’s the time to have it, right? At the Olympic Games?”
“Yeah.” Isaac wanted to curse, but the TV camera loomed large in front of him.
“We’ll let you go, but congratulations again, Isaac.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
After a couple of laps in the warm-up pool, Isaac was done for the night, so he got his things and went back to the locker room. He had to change into the official warm-up suit for the medal ceremony—God, he really had just done that—but more than anything, he wanted to get back to the Athlete Village so that he could be with Tim.
He knew the other swimmers would want to party again. A bunch of them were flying home Monday and were also done racing because Saturday’s contests were limited to the long-distance races and the IM relay. Which meant roughly three-quarters of the swim team wanted to spend the weekend in an alcohol-and-sex-fueled haze. Isaac had already been invited to three parties. But all he wanted was Tim.
Adam stopped him on his way into the locker room. He grinned. “Goddamn, Isaac.” Adam bit his lip and shook his head, a rare show of emotion for him. Then he pulled Isaac into a hug. “Goddamn. I can’t believe you had that in you.”
“I wanted it,” Isaac said.
“I know. And I know how hard you worked for it. You deserve it.” After slapping Isaac’s back, Adam backed up and said, “When we went to the Trials, I knew you’d win some races there, that you’d qualify for a bunch of things here. But when I got to Madrid, I thought you had a chance to medal in a couple of things, but I knew our odds were long. To see you swimming the way you have been….” Adam bit his lip again, clearly trying to keep whatever he was feeling at bay. But his voice broke when he said, “I’m so proud of you, Isaac. So proud. Of what you’ve done, of how far you’ve come. We… we thought we’d lost you for a while there, and I’m so glad you’re back.”
Isaac’s chest seized, and tears prickled at his eyes. It meant a lot to hear that from Adam, who was always so stoic. Isaac said, “I’m glad to be back,” and it sounded watery.
Adam hugged him again.
Isaac knew he wouldn’t come to another Olympics. He might swim another year or two, maybe try for a few world champion medals, but this was the twilight of his career. It was a spectacular twilight, the kind that looked like someone on acid had painted it on the sky, but the sun was setting nonetheless. His body knew that, which was probably why he’d been able to pull so much from it this week. But it was definitely the end.
Adam had to get back to the pool to coach someone for the next race, so Isaac went to find his locker and change.
And there was Tim.
Tim stood leaning against Isaac’s locker, casually examining his nails as if he just happened to be there, but Isaac knew better and wanted to whoop with joy.
“Did you see that?” Isaac asked.
Tim grinned. “My friend Ginny and I caught the races tonight. I got in here by lying to the security guard that I forgot something here earlier and flashing my pass.”
“Smart guy.”
Tim looked up and down the aisle, so Isaac followed his gaze, likely making the same mental calculations. The locker room was crawling with other swimmers, but in this little row of lockers, there was no one but Isaac and Tim. “I had to see you,” Tim said softly.
“Thank God,” Isaac said. Then he kissed Tim.
That felt amazing, because it was all Isaac wanted. He wanted to win swim races and kiss Tim. If he could have those things forever, his life might just turn out all right.
One of those things was not in the cards, but he held out hope for the other.
He was falling in love with Tim, wasn’t he?
It didn’t scare him the way it once might have, back when he was still drinking and living by the seat of his pants. Instead he embraced it, and embraced Tim. He put his arms around Tim, who in turn pressed his palms into Isaac’s back, and they stood like that, kissing against Isaac’s locker.
A clang on the other side of the row of lockers snatched Isaac’s attention away, though, and he pulled away from Tim gently. “This feels like… I think this might be one of the greatest moments of my life,” he said, his voice low.
Tim nodded. “I’ll sing the national anthem extra loud during the medal ceremony. Just for you.”
Isaac laughed. “You know, I never sing. I always forget the words when I’m up there.”
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t even think I know the words to the second verse on a good day. That probably makes me a bad American.”
Now Tim laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
Isaac sighed and said, “I have to change, but thank you, Tim. So much. It means… well.” He shook his head. “It means a lot that you would come back here to see me.”
“Say, when are you flying home?”
“Uh, week from Monday?”
“Really? You’ll be here next week?”
“Yeah. I know a lot of the swimmers take off once swimming is over, but when I booked my trip, I thought it might be my last Olympics, so I wanted to take advantage of the experience. Figured I’d take in some of the events, do some tourism in Madrid, the whole nine.”
“Come to see me dive.”
Isaac smiled. “Yes. I will definitely do that. I want to see that.”
Tim stood up on his tiptoes and kissed Isaac’s nose. “Good. Now go get your medal. You’ve earned it.”