Day 15
Transcript: Men’s Ten-Meter Platform Final
BELL: We had some exciting preliminary rounds.
HOLLAND: Goes to show, nothing is a given at the Olympics.
BELL: Australian diver Andrew McKinnon dove exceptionally well in the preliminary round, but then this happened in the semifinal. This dive looked so great in the air, but it was a total miss when he hit the water. He never recovered after that.
HOLLAND: Yes, he finished just out of the top twelve who made the final.
BELL: The Chinese divers also both looked off their game. Liu is usually such a beautiful diver, and he does things in the air that nobody else can do, but so many of his entries were just short of vertical.
HOLLAND: He qualified for the final in eighth place.
BELL: But he did make the final. The good news is that all of the previous round scores are thrown out, so if he dives well in this final, he’s got a good shot at a medal. The trick for Liu will be to shake any residual nerves from the previous rounds. We see this all the time. It’s these athletes’ first Olympics, and nerves make them tighten up.
HOLLAND: What do you think about our returning Olympic champion, Timothy Swan?
BELL: Well, I’ll tell ya, Swan looked fantastic all through the preliminary rounds. All of his dives looked good in the air, and he entered the water very well. Let’s take a look at this third-round dive from the semifinal. See, he gets out from the platform fast so he can pull into his tuck. Then, as he rotates, he sights the water here, and here again, and here again, and then he kicks out. He always knows where he is in the air and how far he is from the pool, so he can straighten out and enter the water perfectly vertical. His entry is smooth with hardly any splash.
HOLLAND: You think he looks good to repeat his gold-medal win?
BELL: If he keeps diving like this? Almost certainly. He’s an entirely different diver from what we saw in the springboard finals. He seemed a little uncertain there. But here, he’s diving very well. He’s in top form. Again, all of the previous round scores go away, so everyone is diving with a clean slate. Swan has looked great, but Liu has several world champion medals, so he’s a contender. I wouldn’t count out Schmidt from Germany either. Or the Italians, who were the bronze medalists in the synchro competition. Both divers have been diving very well in individual competition. And Timmy Swan’s synchro partner, Jason Evans, made the finals as well….
TIM MIRACULOUSLY held on to first place going into the third round of diving. He’d given his all to the prelims, following Donnie’s advice to be mindful of his form, thinking through everything but not tightening up. He’d trained hard all week, he’d gotten a good night’s sleep the night before, he’d eaten well and felt focused and ready to defend his title.
One thing that had made him feel better was the fact that Pat had flown back to the States. He’d called Tim the day before prelims to say he was giving up and going home. Tim had pushed him right out of his mind.
Donnie always said that when Tim was on his game, anything was possible. And Tim was on his game today.
He took a deep breath before ascending the platform for his third dive. When he got to the top, he looked out at the audience and toward Isaac, who sat with Luke and Katie in the stands again. Isaac was too far away for Tim to see more than his fuzzy face, but he imagined they made eye contact. Tim didn’t know why, but seeing Isaac there reassured him and reminded Tim that he needed to put his all into this, that he needed to focus and dive and execute it the way he knew he could.
Isaac kept fighting. Tim could too.
This was an arm stand dive. Not Tim’s favorite, but a way to show off how athletic and strong he was. He put his hands down and slowly lifted his legs into position, which showed the judges he had control over his movements.
He pushed off the platform, the same way he had a thousand times in practice, and immediately pulled into his tuck. He did four and a half somersaults before straightening out and hitting the water. He knew intellectually that he traveled toward the water at close to thirty miles per hour—Donnie had gotten his hands on a radar gun once to test this—and rather than being a nice cushion, the water felt a lot like pushing through a brick wall. He already had bruises from practice and competition. But he slid into the water, no sting on his legs to indicate he’d missed going in vertically, and Donnie was jumping up and down when he surfaced, so he must have done well.
He had this. That gold medal was his. Tim still had three more dives and three chances to fuck this up, but he could practically reach out and touch that medal.
An hour later Tim pushed himself out of one of the hot tubs and toweled off. Donnie was standing in the coaches’ area, trying to get his attention. Tim walked over.
“I assume you know your scores?”
Tim nodded. After five dives, he had accumulated 465.5 points. He was also two points out of first place, behind Liu, who had apparently shaken off whatever had caused him to flounder in the semifinal. Tim’s sixth and final dive could easily earn him 125 points, but so could Liu’s.
“I don’t want to give you some bullshit about how this is yours to lose, but it’s you or Liu for the gold medal. The guy in third… ah, Schmidt, I guess? He’s thirty points behind you. Unless you really blow this last dive, that’s too much of a deficit to take either you or Liu out of medal contention.”
Tim nodded. He’d made the same calculation. A handful of points meant gold or silver, and his heart raced as he thought about it. He wanted this, God he wanted this, and it was within his power to get it.
Donnie said, “I am going to tell you that I know you can do this last dive well enough to earn tens. You’ve looked fantastic through the whole competition. So, basically, you’ve got a medal. Don’t tense up and blow it.”
Tim laughed despite himself. Donnie had never quite mastered the art of giving a pep talk. Donnie laughed with him, likely recognizing that laughter helped. Anything to keep from tensing up.
Jason sat in eighth place, well out of medal contention, not that he probably even knew that. He had his waterproof headphones on and bobbed his head while he danced in and out of one of the showers. His eyes were shut.
Tim had to wait a while to do his last dive, since he’d qualified near the top of the rankings. He tried to stay warm, but mostly he fidgeted through ten other dives, hopping under showers, dunking himself in the hot tub, toweling off and then getting wet again.
It was the most nerve-racking part of diving: knowing that even if he did everything to the best of his abilities, he could still lose if someone else was better.
His last dive was also the trickiest, at least in terms of the difficulty score. It was a reverse four-and-a-half somersault dive, which had a high difficulty level but which Tim found easier than dives in which he had to transition between somersaults and twists. That had been his fourth-round dive, his lowest-scoring dive, the one that had allowed Liu to pull ahead. But Tim’s worst—which, as he’d seen on the video Donnie had taken on his phone, was a hair short of vertical but otherwise a pretty solid dive—was a lot better than many divers’ best, so Tim felt okay with it.
And now: four and a half somersaults, starting from the arm stand position.
When he got to the top of the platform, Tim looked out at the audience. Isaac’s head was turned in his direction, so Tim imagined they made eye contact again.
Tim didn’t have anything to prove, he realized. He’d won this event four years ago and performed very well here. He was one of the best divers in the world and had been for five years. He was young enough that he probably had another Olympics in him, barring injury. He loved this sport, loved hurling himself through the air. But this wasn’t redemption. He wanted to show he was still good, but he’d done that. So if he won gold or silver, it didn’t matter. He wanted the gold, yes—he wanted it more than anything in the world right then—but he didn’t necessarily have control over whether he won it. Diving wasn’t a race; there was no objective indicator of who was the best. Just a group of flawed humans giving numerical values to each athlete.
All Tim could do was dive to the best of his ability.
He took a deep breath, tossed his shammy toward where Donnie stood, and walked to the end of the platform. He got into the arm stand, slowly lifting his legs into the air. He held the arm stand for a long moment. Then he bent at the waist and threw himself off the platform. He got into his tuck quickly, somersaulting through the air. He sighted the water, knew he had control over this dive, and when it was time, he kicked out and straightened. Hitting his hands on the water hurt like a bitch, but he knew he’d gotten his body position right, that he went into the water vertically.
And there it was. The best dive he could have executed.
He swam to the side of the pool and pulled himself out. The audience roared. Tim liked that, though he knew better than to think the volume of cheers would be reflected in the scoring. But then the score flashed on the scoreboard: all nines and tens. Final score: 134.4.
Tim walked by the coaches’ area. Donnie grinned and said, “That’ll do, pig.”
Tim rolled his eyes.
He was done now, so he didn’t bother with the showers or hot tub. Instead he found his shammy and stood near Donnie to wait for the last dive.
Liu was performing a back four-and-a-half, according to the scoreboard, which had a degree of difficulty 0.3 below the dive Tim had just done. Tim did the math. If Liu got all tens, he’d score a 135, which would be enough to win. And Liu could get tens across the board; Tim had seen him do it before. Even if he didn’t, the two-point lead Liu already enjoyed might be enough.
It would be close.
Liu got into position at the end of the platform. Then he jumped in the air, his body position perfect, his somersaulting clean. He kicked out, straightened his body, and went in straight but… splash.
A lot of splash.
Physics dictated that splashes like that could only happen if Liu had done something wrong—if his entry position hadn’t been quite right, if he’d moved his feet at the last second, if he’d failed to enter vertically. It was hard to tell what had happened, even in the replay on the screen, but what it meant was that Liu’s final dive was not perfect. Liu needed 133 points to win gold.
His score: 121.5.
Tim had won the gold medal.
Holy shit.
Donnie hugged Tim before Tim even really knew what was happening.
He wasn’t a fluke. He’d won that gold medal fairly at the last Olympics, even though everyone tried to talk him down—he was cute, he’d had a good day, the wind had thrown off everyone else. But Tim had just proved he’d belonged in the diving finals four years ago, and he belonged in the final now. He was the best platform diver in the world, and no one could take that from him. He’d worked his ass off, he’d thought through every part of the competition, and he’d put everything he had into his six dives today. This was his. He’d earned it.
Isaac was in the audience. Tim tried to see him, but he was at a bad angle in relation to the stands and couldn’t really see anybody, including his own family. But his parents had been there to see this. And Isaac had been too.
“Amazing.” Donnie slapped his ass. “Go change, kid. I want to sing the national anthem with you.”
ISAAC’S MOTHER was already back in Raleigh, but she’d called him that night anyway. When Isaac joked, “Ma, do you know how much this call is costing me?” she’d replied, “Oh, hush. You’ve got endorsement deals from here to Neptune. You can afford to talk to your old mother.”
She’d been calling to get his flight information so she could pick him up from the airport on Monday. Isaac felt some sadness at that; he, Luke, and Katie had been all over Madrid together in the days since Isaac’s little breakdown. Isaac and Luke had even done a filler segment for TBC where they toured some Madrid landmarks with a camera crew, including El Rastro, an open-air market where they found all manner of weird stuff. Isaac’s favorite site had been the Prado, but then, he’d always liked art museums.
They’d also taken in a lot of Olympic events; on top of the diving, they’d gone to see a bunch of track-and-field competitions, including cheering on American sprinter Jason Jones Jr. in the 100-meter sprint.
And he’d spent every night with Tim.
He was a bit embarrassed about his overreaction to Pat and that night at America House; he’d come very close to falling. Staring at that pint of beer, a battle had waged in Isaac’s head. He still thirsted for that beer, but he’d worked so hard. He and Tim had talked about it quite a bit in the intervening days. Tim seemed to understand that Isaac would have bad days, and Isaac promised to recommit to therapy when he got home so he didn’t fall into the trap of depending too much on Tim to help him on those days, especially since they’d be separated by geography.
And even with that one rough night, these had been the best two weeks of Isaac’s life, and he didn’t want them to end. He didn’t want to fly home to Raleigh and face the real world. He’d have to deal with the financial nonsense of his endorsement deals, for one thing, and how many of them were contingent on his continuing to swim. He’d have to decide if he wanted to stick around for another couple of World Cup seasons or if he wanted to retire. And then there was the big question: Would he stay in Raleigh?
The sun had gone down. Luke and Katie were probably doing it like rabbits and Tim was out with his family and the dive team, so Isaac was alone in his room. He hit the email icon on his phone, immediately regretting it as several hundred messages loaded. He scanned the names and subject lines, wondering which emails were worth his time.
He stopped on Re: Coaching positions at CU.
He held his breath.
He’d emailed the staff at the University of Colorado one night while waiting for Tim to return from training. It had been an impulse, although not one that he particularly regretted.
The reply said: Actually, one of our coaches is retiring at the end of this season, so we’re starting to think about replacements. Let’s talk when you return from Madrid.
So there it was.
Isaac held his breath for a moment, imagining his life beyond Madrid. Could he see himself ensconced in some mountain retreat with Tim? Could he coach? Could he see a way forward?
He could.
He let out the breath and smiled to himself.
A moment later there was a tap at the door. “It’s open,” Isaac called.
Tim opened the door and slid inside. “I think I’ve escaped them.” His gold medal still hung around his neck, and he was still wearing the official warm-up suit. He looked good, but tired.
“Yeah?” Isaac said.
“My parents went back to the hotel a half hour ago, but I was with Jason and the rest of my team at America House, but then I got really tired? So I told them I had to call it a night and we could party more tomorrow, but a bunch of people followed me back to the building. I had to get a security escort up here.” He sighed. “I lied to the security guard and told him I was on this floor and I could get to my room alone.”
“Okay.”
Tim flopped down next to Isaac on the bed. Then he slipped his gold medal off and handed it to Isaac. “I think you know what this means.”
Isaac laughed. “You want to have sex?”
Tim stood and pulled off parts of the warm-up suit. “Yep. How well supplied are you?”
“Well, they give out condoms like they’re energy bars around here, so pretty well. Are you serious?”
“Yup.” Tim had stripped down to a USA Diving T-shirt and his briefs, which were turquoise. “I have two more nights with you before we fly home, and I intend to make the most of them. I don’t have to train anymore, so if we fuck and I’m sore tomorrow, it’s all good. Get naked.”
Isaac laughed. “Tim, I—”
“Look, I’m riding a pretty intense wave of adrenaline right now, but I’m going to crash really hard soon, so I’d like to have sex with you while I’m still awake enough to participate. And as you’ll recall, we had a sex-for-medals agreement.”
“Well, I mean, by that measure, we should fuck… um, a bunch. How many medals did I win?” It was hard to concentrate when Tim was so naked. Because now he was. Naked. And standing at the side of the bed stroking his cock.
“Who cares? I won a gold medal today. That’s all that matters. Get naked, Isaac.”
Isaac slid off the bed and went into the bathroom. There was a bottle of lube in his toiletries bag, and he had the condoms from his welcome bag, so he grabbed those too and headed back to the bed. Tim lounged there, sprawled out on the skinny mattress, looking completely beautiful.
“I loved watching you today,” Isaac said. He dropped his supplies on the corner of the bed and then pulled his shirt off. He decided not to bother with stripping gracefully or putting on much of a show, because Tim was hard and his skin was flushed, so he was clearly ready to go. In fact, he picked up the bottle of lube, looked at it for a second, and then poured some on his hands.
Isaac’s heart pounded.
“That was some of the best diving I’ve done in… wow, years, maybe. I kept thinking about what you said. About just doing everything I had in me to do. So that’s what I did.”
“You were nearly perfect.”
“Yes. That’s… me at my best. I can do that.”
It wasn’t arrogance in Tim’s voice but rather awe, like he’d surprised himself today. Isaac knew the feeling. He pushed his sweats down his hips and hopped a little to get them off, until he was naked too. He slid on top of Tim.
“You can do amazing things,” Isaac said. “I’m not even saying that to stroke your ego. I had a lot of fun watching you today, and so did Luke and Katie. You earned that medal.”
Tim put his arms around Isaac. “Thanks. But honestly, I’m happy about it, but I really want to fuck right now, so maybe you could do that instead of talking?”
Isaac grinned. God, he wanted Tim. He’d been trying not to think too much about what it might be like to be inside Tim, because it was off the table until the competition ended. But now they were both finished with their respective events, and they could spend all night fucking.
Well, probably Tim would conk out after this first bout, but that was okay.
Isaac kissed Tim’s shoulder and reached for the lube. They worked together to prepare Tim. Their fingers kept tangling at the entrance to Tim’s body, and Isaac watched it up close while also kissing and licking Tim’s hard cock. Tim threw his head back and groaned.
“I’ve wanted this for two weeks,” Tim said.
“God, me too.”
“Kiss me, Isaac.”
Isaac granted the request, sneaking up Tim’s body and planting his lips on Tim’s. Tim spread his legs wide, inviting Isaac between them. So Isaac rolled on a condom and then positioned himself.
“Not much foreplay going on here,” Isaac said.
“The last two weeks have been foreplay. Do you know how sexy you are?”
“Do you know how sexy you are? I kept secretly hoping the impact on the water would pull your suit off.”
Tim smiled. “We use a special glue that keeps that from happening and also prevents wedgies, but I appreciate the thought.”
“Don’t tell me things like that. It ruins the illusion.”
Tim laughed. “Isaac? Please fuck me.”
Isaac bent his head and kissed Tim thoroughly while he shifted his hips and pressed the head of his cock against Tim’s hole. His pulse raced as he did it, his anticipation at high, prerace levels, not to mention the fact that this man beneath him, this man could make him laugh, could make him feel pride and affection, had shown him things he hadn’t seen in himself before, had woken up all these things in Isaac that Isaac had thought died the moment a cop had yanked him out of his car.
He had his life back.
He didn’t want to squander the opportunity.
He pressed forward, sinking slowly into Tim, who clutched at his back and moaned.
Tim and Isaac roamed their hands over each other’s bodies as Isaac pressed forward and they adjusted to being with each other this way. It had been a sexy two weeks, and if penetration had never been part of the equation, Isaac still would have gone home happy. But being inside Tim was something else entirely, tight and… connected. He felt connected to Tim.
Isaac loved Tim.
He couldn’t say it yet, though, so he expressed himself with his body, caressing Tim, shifting his hips, stroking in and out of Tim’s body. He kissed Tim tenderly and was rewarded with Tim’s arms around him, with Tim squeezing his muscles around Isaac’s cock—which nearly blinded Isaac, it felt so intense—with Tim’s cries and moans as they made love.
Warmth spread across Isaac’s chest, and he cherished this man who had reminded him of all the things he needed in life, this man who had inspired him to be the best person he could be. Because Isaac had won his medals—he’d walked away from that pint of beer—for himself, but he’d done it a little for Tim too. And he suspected Tim had done the same thing today.
Tim sucked marks across Isaac’s collarbone. He dug his nails into the small of Isaac’s back and threw his head back when Isaac got the angle right and hit Tim’s prostate.
Tim said, “I love this. So good.”
And Isaac smiled. He smoothed Tim’s hair off his sweaty forehead and kissed him. Then he thrust, picked up his rhythm, ran his hands all over Tim. He pinched Tim’s nipples, which made Tim shiver. Then he wrapped his hand around Tim’s cock.
Tim lifted his legs and wrapped them around Isaac’s waist. Isaac kept thrusting, trying to keep up a rhythm but losing it a little as Tim pushed him closer to orgasm.
“I’m close,” Tim whispered.
Isaac hated that it would be over so soon, but his lizard brain pushed him toward finishing it all, so he kept thrusting, kept stroking Tim’s cock, kept moving them together toward some impossible future that maybe was possible after all. When Tim broke, he cried out and clutched at Isaac’s hair, then came hot against Isaac’s belly. His body clamped down hard against Isaac, but Isaac kept thrusting, kept seeking his own orgasm, and then… oh God, there it was. Just utter insanity, everything white and flashbulbs bursting and Isaac came inside Tim and held him close as he moaned and whimpered through all of it.
Isaac kissed Tim’s face everywhere as he drifted back to reality. Tim looked up at him with a sleepy smile.
“Totally worth the wait,” Tim said.
“You’re going to fall asleep on me now, aren’t you?”
“I won a gold medal for you. Don’t you think I deserve a little sleep?”
Isaac slid out of Tim and got up to take care of the condom. “Yes. You do.”
By the time Isaac got back to the bed, Tim had fallen asleep in the position Isaac had left him, his legs splayed. Isaac cleaned him up a little and tucked him in. Tim never even stirred, just breathed steadily.
Isaac slid into bed. It wasn’t really comfortable, but he wouldn’t have sent Tim away for anything. Instead, he curled his body around Tim’s and said, “I can’t wait until we can do this in a decent-sized bed.”
Tim murmured something that might have been “Hmmm?”
“Sleep, my gold-medal winner. Just sleep. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
TIM WOKE up slowly. When he was conscious enough to form rational thoughts, he noticed the room was dark but for the white glow of Isaac’s cell phone screen, which illuminated his face.
“What are you doing?” Tim asked.
Isaac hit the button on his phone that made the screen go dark. “Just checking my email.”
“Trouble sleeping?”
Isaac mumbled an assent. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t. Anything good in your email?”
“Mostly fan mail. I’m trying to clean out my inbox to focus on the messages that are actually important. Although even then, it’s mostly my mother forwarding articles about me.”
“Good press?” Tim rolled slightly to better cuddle up against Isaac.
“Yeah, but through the filter of my mother. She won’t send me the articles that say mean things.”
Isaac put his phone on the side table and slid over into Tim’s space. Tim adjusted his hold on Isaac, snaking his hand around Isaac’s midsection.
“I want to thank you,” Tim said.
“For?”
“For not saying anything about our relationship. I could just focus on diving today.”
“Of course.” Isaac stroked Tim’s back. “Although the security guards had a role there.”
That was true. Tim and Donnie had met with security at the Aquatics Center a few days before to give them photos of Pat before Tim felt confident Pat had actually gone home. Only approved reporters would be let in during the competition. Whether others snuck in or not, Tim didn’t know about it, and he’d felt safe enough to push it out of his mind.
And once Pat flew back home, the tabloid media seemed to have lost interest in Tim.
Tim understood that media coverage was part of being an elite athlete, but there was a line between doing puff pieces for TBC or the occasional Sports Illustrated story and the kind of media attention Pat had brought into Tim’s life.
“I try not to dwell,” Tim said, tracing patterns along Isaac’s skin with his fingers. “Pat was bad for me. Our relationship went sour before I ended it. I see clearly now what kind of man he is. I don’t miss him, and I don’t regret telling him to go home.”
“That’s good,” said Isaac.
“I never want that particular media spotlight on me again. If I get press coverage, I want it to be for diving, not for who I date.”
Isaac was silent for a long moment. He exhaled loudly, shifted his weight a little on the bed. “You do realize that if we go public with our relationship, we’re in for some of that, right? I just did that big interview with Marcus Holt. They edited out some of what I said, but the bottom line is that half the world knows about my alcoholism right now. I did lose a couple of sponsorships over it, but not as many as I expected, probably because of my medals. And because of those, I’m in the spotlight. You know, one of those emails I just checked? It was Sports Illustrated trying to get in touch with my new agent because they want me to do a photo spread or maybe even a cover.”
And Tim did know that, at least in the back of his mind. He didn’t love the idea of his sex life being so public, but it would be, with someone like Isaac.
But Isaac would never show up at one of Tim’s meets with a camera crew. He’d never call a photographer he knew to tip them off that he and Tim would be in a certain place that day. And he would never use Tim, not the way Pat had.
“I’ll be honest,” Tim said. “I’m not looking forward to that. I don’t want to hide, but I don’t want to talk to reporters about us either. I want what we have to be between us. Which I guess is not possible.”
“Fuck ’em,” said Isaac. “We can say as much or as little as we want. You don’t want to talk about our relationship with the press? I don’t either. But maybe I want to, I don’t know, hold your hand sometimes.”
Warmth spread through Tim’s chest. He laid his head on Isaac’s shoulder. Isaac could be so heartbreakingly sweet sometimes. “There are some important differences between you and Pat. First, if we go public, it will be on our terms. It will be on my terms. You and I will decide what’s right or wrong for us to say.”
“That’s true.”
“Second, I know you’re not using me for your own gain. We’re just… together.”
“I am really gonna kill that guy.”
Tim sighed, happiness bubbling up through him. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at Isaac. He wanted to see Isaac’s eyes when he said this last thing. “Here’s the most important thing, though. After Pat and I had been together for a while, my gut started telling me something wasn’t right. Those feelings all turned out to be correct. When I broke up with Pat, I promised myself I would trust my instincts from then on.”
Isaac bit his lip. “I see where you’re going with this, but are you sure? Because if I ever fall of the wagon….”
“I’ll help you get back on. Because my gut tells me that you are a good man, Isaac, one with some flaws and some demons, but a good man in your heart.” Tim placed a hand on Isaac’s chest. “And you care about me genuinely, just as I care about you. Somehow I just know that. Probably we weren’t destined to be together or anything like that, and I’m sure once the bubble of the Olympics pops, we’ll have problems and arguments and, I don’t know, couple stuff. But I also think we’ll have something really great together.”
Isaac closed his eyes and tilted his head away. He brought a hand up to his mouth. He looked back at Tim and said, “You’ll help me.”
“And not because you depend on me, but because I want to, because I care about you, and because I know that even if you are an alcoholic, and even though I know vodka and beer call to you, I also know that you want so much more from life than that. You didn’t even sip that beer. I know you want to be sober, to live your life the way you swim. Right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.” Isaac swallowed. “God, how you get me. You see right through me.”
Tim was on a roll now, convinced more than anything that this was right, that this would be good. He knew they’d struggle. He knew putting up with post-Olympics media attention would be the worst. But he also knew that he and Isaac could weather the storm. His gut told him that it would be worth it in the long run. “You’ve said a dozen times since I’ve met you that the key to being an elite athlete is pushing your body to its limit, and I think that’s how you approach life. You partied like there was no tomorrow, then you drank like it, and now you live like it. You pushed yourself to do the impossible last week, and you did it, you pulled it off. That’s how I know we’ll be okay, even if you’re an alcoholic. Because you, Isaac, can do anything.”
Isaac nodded slowly. “That’s not true, but I’ll go along with it. You’re pretty fucking amazing too, by the way.”
“Well.”
Isaac lifted his hand and smoothed the fringe of Tim’s short hair away from his forehead. “I know that I’m a better man than your ex, for the record, but I’m glad you can see that too. And I’m glad that today, you have no regrets, that you got up on that ridiculously tall platform and made your body do things no human body should do, and that you were rewarded for it. I don’t have the words to express how great you are. How sweet and smart and talented.”
Tim flushed and ducked his head, feeling suddenly bashful in the face of all this praise.
But Isaac put his hand on the side of Tim’s face and moved him until Tim was looking right at Isaac’s eyes again.
“I don’t believe in destiny,” Isaac said. “I think you make your own way in the world. I don’t really understand all the science behind alcoholism, but part of it is probably genetic, and I suppose you could argue I was destined to have a problem with booze. But I can choose being sober over being drunk now. And I am so glad I did, because it meant that I met you.”
Tears stung Tim’s eyes. He leaned down and kissed Isaac.
This man.
If Tim had been given free rein to choose his mate, he wasn’t sure Isaac would have been the man he’d pick, but now that he’d gotten to know Isaac, he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.
“The media attention is going to suck,” Tim said.
“Fuck ’em.”
“Eh. It’ll be worth it.”