Chapter 20

"Well, we did better than last year," Oleg says, looking glumly at his menu.

"Who cares?" Kirill retorts. "We didn't even medal."

An hour ago, the Russians had fallen short in the team final yet again, landing in the dreaded fourth-place position: close enough to see the podium, might as well have been last for all that it mattered.

Even more frustrating was the fact that none of them had made any major errors. Instead, it was the little things, like Oleg taking a small step out of bounds on floor, Kirill having to adjust his grip mid-handstand on parallel bars, Sasha missing a connection on high bar. A tenth here, three-tenths there—it had all added up, and before any of them knew it, they were over a point behind bronze.

Oleg, not normally one to shy away from a confrontation, doesn't respond to Kirill. Shortly after they'd arrived at the hotel restaurant, Kirill had ducked out to take a phone call; his face had been as dark as a thundercloud when he returned, and Sasha wouldn't be surprised if his father had yelled the exact same thing at him.

"At least we beat the Americans," Kirill continues, savage satisfaction in his voice.

He catches himself a few seconds later, glancing at Sasha and falling silent. Sasha doesn't say anything, though he can't help but look again at the doors to the lobby. There's been no sign (or sound) of the Americans, and he wonders if they're eating somewhere else, or if they weren't in the mood for a team dinner.

Unfortunately, Danny's injury had dealt a major blow to their lineups. The athletes they'd replaced him with on floor and vault couldn't match his level of difficulty, and although Danny had done well on the events Sasha was able to watch, his simpler dismounts had whittled down his scores, shaving away extra tenths they couldn't afford to lose. Some costly mistakes from his teammates, including two falls on pommel horse alone, had ruined any hope of recovery; in the end, they'd placed a distant fifth, well behind the Russians.

"Is there anything good on tonight?" Ilya asks, changing the subject.

Kirill spends most of the meal on his phone, ignoring the conversation. The others leave him alone, knowing he'll come out of it eventually; and sure enough, after their plates have been cleared away, he looks up and starts nodding along to one of Oleg's stories. He's not smiling, and Sasha's not sure how much he's actually paying attention, but at least he's not snapping at anyone.

"All right, what do you guys want to do?" Oleg asks while the coaches are taking care of the bill. "Should we hang out in our room?"

He glances at Ilya, who nods eagerly, and Sasha decides he better intervene before Kirill gets anywhere near Oleg's brandy. "We have training tomorrow," he reminds them. "And you both have the all-around on Friday."

"Yeah, well, don't worry, Sashka, we'll get you tucked into bed before midnight," Oleg promises, winking at him. "Kirill?"

"I can't. I'm meeting someone."

They all stare at Kirill, who smirks, clearly enjoying their reactions. "Her name's Marina," he says, holding up his phone to show them a dating app profile. "She's from Moldova."

Sasha is completely unsurprised to see that Marina is blond-haired, blue-eyed, and pouting—she looks like a carbon copy of every other girl Kirill's gone out with—but Oleg and Ilya's mouths drop open. "Wow," Ilya murmurs. "Does she live here?"

"No, she's on a business trip. Her hotel's right around the corner. I'm meeting her at the bar, and then…" Kirill shrugs, a small smile leaving little doubt as to the evening's activities.

"Does she know how short you are?"

"What about Tanya?"

Kirill shrugs again, unfazed by Oleg and Ilya's questions. "My height's in my profile. And it's not serious with Tanya."

Oleg looks green with envy, but Ilya casts a nervous glance at the coaches' table, lowering his voice to a whisper. "What if someone sees you leaving? Or what if they check on us?"

"If anyone sees me, I'll just—" Kirill waves his phone, pretending he's been intercepted. "‘Oh, sorry, Coach Yuri, my father wants to yell at me some more about what a piece of shit I am.'" That shuts Ilya up, and Kirill turns to Sasha. "You'll cover for me, right?"

On the one hand, this is an objectively horrible idea—it's almost eleven, and they're supposed to be at the practice gym tomorrow by nine-thirty. On the other hand, arguing with Kirill isn't actually going to accomplish anything… and if he's gone for a couple of hours, that's time that Sasha might be able to spend with Danny.

"Yeah, sure," he says, and then, since Kirill seems a little surprised by how easily he agreed, he adds, "But I'm not waking you up if you get back late."

Kirill grins. "Yes, you are."

He's right, and they both know it, so Sasha just rolls his eyes and starts texting Danny under the table.

*

"How does it look?"

Danny lifts up the ice pack, showing Matt the swollen, purple mess underneath.

"Shit. That's not broken?"

"No, it doesn't feel like it." Danny replaces the ice, then leans back against his pillows, resisting the urge to roll or crack his ankle—that'll only make things worse. "I still can't believe I did that double front, though."

It was so stupid. He'd been totally in the zone on parallel bars, coasting through his routine, and he'd thrown his usual dismount without thinking. It wasn't until the second flip that he'd realized his mistake, and then he'd had about three-tenths of a second to brace himself for the pain before his feet slammed into the mat.

"Dude, I can't believe you walked off the podium after." Matt grimaces at the memory. "I would have been, like, nope, that's it, I'm done."

Danny laughs. "Honestly, I don't even know. My dad was so pissed." His smile starts to fade, however, as he relives the rest of the team competition, a disaster from start to fifth-place finish. "Man, this sucks. I feel like I fucked it up for everyone."

"Bro, are you serious? You know that, like, literally any of us could have sprained an ankle, right?"

And Danny knows that, it's not like he'd injured himself on purpose, but… he'd felt so useless in that arena, watching their chances at a medal slip further and further away with every rotation.

"I mean, look," Matt continues, as if he can't believe he has to say this, "even if you were fine, Adam did whatever the fuck that was on vault, and then I fell on pommel horse—and, like, the fact that they even put me on pommel horse is like, that's how screwed we were. But you know what? I'd rather lose a worlds medal than an Olympic medal. So now we're gonna go home, and you're gonna PT the shit out of your ankle, and then we'll be back on the podium next year."

Danny can't help but smile—if they gave out awards for pep talks, Matt would win first place every time. "Sounds like a plan," he agrees, and as if on cue, his phone starts lighting up on the mattress. "How much you wanna bet this is my dad with a new rehab spreadsheet."

"Dude, I freaking love your dad's spreadsheets."

But when Danny picks up the phone, it's not his father after all.

Sasha:Kirill is going out tonight

For several seconds, there's nothing else; Danny can see Sasha typing, then stopping, then typing again. He holds his breath, hoping he's right about what this means.

Sasha:Can I come to your room?

Score.Danny looks up at Matt. "Can I ask you a huge favor?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Is there any chance you could, like… leave the room for a couple hours?"

A big, shit-eating grin spreads across Matt's face. "Ooh. Is Sasha gonna kiss your ankle and make it better?"

Danny rolls his eyes, but he's also blushing, which of course Matt notices.

"Better tell Andy to update his spreadsheet," he says with a smirk. "Russian nurse coming in at midnight."

Danny grabs his ice pack and throws it at Matt, who just laughs and whips it right back at him. Since Danny barely manages to catch it before it smacks him in the face, he decides not to go for round two. "Seriously, though, is that okay?"

"Dude, don't even worry about it," Matt assures him. "I'm kicking you out tomorrow if Jules can get away."

Jules, or Julia Garcia, is one of their biggest stars on the women's side. Earlier this year, she and Matt had bonded over being the oldest members of the national teams, at twenty-two and twenty-five, and they've been dating ever since ("We're, like, Grandma and Grandpa," Matt keeps telling people).

As Danny's texting Sasha back, Matt clears his throat. "Uh, do you need, like, condoms or anything?"

Danny's head snaps up. "Oh. Um. No," he says, his face suddenly hot. "No, we're not, um… yeah, no, we're good. But thanks."

"Okay." Matt scratches his head, looking as awkward as Danny feels. "Well, just so you know, I have some in my nightstand if you need ‘em. No judgment. I don't have any other shit, though."

"Thanks, man." Danny stares down at his phone, pretending to read a response from Sasha, but he's not seeing anything on the screen. He doesn't think Sasha wants to have sex yet—he'd been pretty clear about that at the American Cup—and to be honest, he's kind of glad, because he's not ready, either.

The thing is, he's still on the fence about anal. He'd gone through a whole phase this summer of watching gay porn late at night—headphones in, volume down, phone angled so Buddy couldn't see the screen—and most of the videos were one graphic closeup after another, dudes pounding into each other while grunting things like, "Yeah, take it, right up the ass." Obviously the actors were exaggerating for the camera, but… if even the fantasy version looks uncomfortable, is that really something Danny would want to do to Sasha? Or have Sasha do to him?

He looks up at Matt, wondering if it'd be weird to ask him about it, and then the words start coming out anyway. "Have you ever, uh, done that? Like, with a girl?"

Matt shakes his head. "I wish. But that's a no-fly zone for Jules. You?"

"Nope."

"Ah. What about Sasha?"

"No." But then Danny hesitates, remembering how Kirill's hand had lingered on Sasha's shoulder at breakfast the other day and Sasha hadn't shaken him off. "I mean, I don't think so."

He's probably overreacting. Like, yeah, Sasha and Kirill seem to have a lot of sleepovers, and yeah, lately he's been noticing that Sasha's in half of Kirill's Instagram photos, but that doesn't mean anything, right? He's just being, like, insecure or whatever, letting it get to him because he's jealous that Kirill sees Sasha all the time and he can't.

Only… they've never had that conversation. About dating other people, or not.

Matt gives him a curious look. "You don't know if he's had sex?"

"Um, we sort of talked about it? At the American Cup?" Even if Sasha hadn't told him about his lack of experience, Danny would have been willing to bet on it from those first few kisses, the way he'd seemed a lot more comfortable when Danny was taking the lead. "But… maybe he has since then."

"Okay, bro, I'm confused." Matt rolls over to the edge of his bed, reaching for the protein bar stash in his suitcase. "Aren't you calling him, like, every week?" he asks, empty wrappers crinkling as he rummages around. "Like, this isn't a casual thing, right?"

"It's, like, every other week," Danny mumbles. And he kind of wishes it were more; he's been wondering how to mention that to Sasha without sounding pathetic.

"Oh, excuse me," Matt says as he hauls himself back up, protein bar in hand. "So you're calling this guy like all the time and you're also not dating anyone and, like, what, he's seeing other people? Or you just haven't asked?"

"I don't think he's seeing other people." Plural, at least. That would be way too much talking for Sasha. "I mean, there's someone he hangs out with a lot, but I don't know…"

He's overthinking this. He has to be, because otherwise Sasha's been taking Danny's calls and then turning around and hooking up with Kirill, and that's not the Sasha who tracked down a stranger at the Olympics just to apologize for something his friend did.

"Dude. Get your shit together," Matt says, Grandpa Miller coming in with the tough love. "You obviously want to make it official with him. Or, like, unofficial cause of the whole gay thing, but yeah." He unwraps the top of his protein bar and bites into it, then goes horribly still, revulsion sweeping across his face as he chews. "Ugh, this is disgusting. Dude—"

He tosses the rest of the bar to Danny, who raises his eyebrows at the bright yellow packaging. "Lemon cream pie? Really?"

"That is not mine," Matt says, shuddering as he swallows. "It's Jules's."

"Aw, you guys are sharing protein bars? That's so cute."

"Yeah, fuck you."

Danny grins, then bites off a corner of the protein bar and immediately regrets it. "Oh, wow, yeah, that's really bad."

"Just throw it out, I don't even want to look at it."

Once the offending protein bar is in the trash, Danny redirects the conversation. "Okay, but, like, can I even ask Sasha about being official or whatever? Cause we see each other, like, once a year. And if we don't make the Olympics, then… I don't even know when I'm gonna see him again. So, like… that's insane, right? Like, you wouldn't do that, would you?"

"Uh… no," Matt admits. "But who gives a shit? You want to. And maybe Sasha does, too. So I think you should go for it. The worst thing that happens is he says no, and then you know."

"Yeah…" Maybe Matt's right. Maybe instead of freaking out over what Sasha might or might not be doing with Kirill, Danny should actually, like, talk to him and find out.

"Well, I'm gonna go see if people wanna get food," Matt says, pushing himself off the mattress. "So the coast'll be nice and clear for your Russian nurse."

Danny rolls his eyes, but only a little, because he'd probably hug Matt right now if he could put any weight on his foot. "Thanks, man. I really appreciate it."

"No problem." Matt claps his shoulder on the way to the door. "Now lock that shit down, bro. You got this."

I got this,Danny repeats to himself as he sits back and waits for Sasha. I totally, totally got this.