August (12 months since everything changed)
I don’t move until Jeremy is half-asleep, lazily watching me through hooded eyes. I kiss the corner of his mouth and push myself up on arms that feel like wet noodles.
“Gonna get a towel to clean us up,” I whisper.
He whines with displeasure, but doesn’t protest when I climb off the bed. Jeremy’s meticulous about keeping things neat, and I know he’ll be annoyed if he wakes up sticky and filthy tomorrow, so I find a washcloth, run it under warm water, and carry it back to the bedroom. I get a sated smile as I wipe him down, and his dick makes a halfhearted attempt to wake back up. But Jeremy’s clearly exhausted from a week of competitions and a long trans-Atlantic flight, and he looks like he’s going to pass out at any second.
Once we’re clean, I drop the washcloth in the hamper—after reminding myself that I’ll get hell for tossing it on the floor—and find my sweatpants. Tugging them on earns me a raised eyebrow from the sleepy man curled up on his bed, but I just lean over and kiss him, pulling the comforter over his gorgeous body.
“I should let you sleep.”
He sighs and nods. “Thank you.” His voice is barely audible, punctuated with yawns. “I liked that.”
“Yeah, I kinda guessed.”
Jeremy laughs softly. My heart clenches, and I want to climb right back into bed with him, but I know he’s not ready for that. With Jeremy I want to be careful not to push too hard, too fast. But, honestly, I’m not ready for that either. It’s been years since I last had anything more than an extended hookup, and I need to take this slow . . . for both of us.
I find my shirt and tug my hoodie on, not bothering with the zipper. “You guys aren’t training in the morning, so I’ll see you after lunch, okay?”
He hums in agreement.
One more kiss, because I can’t resist. Then I flip the light switch off and close Jeremy’s bedroom door to create a physical barrier between me and the temptation of his soft, warm skin.
I toe my shoes on at the door, then find a dry-erase marker and scribble a little note on the white board Jeremy has hanging in his kitchen.
Keep being strong. I’ll be here to congratulate you every time you’re victorious.
Then I’m out the door and into the warm Ohio summer night.
I tuck my hands into my pockets, hunch my shoulders, and start walking . . . but not to the dorms.
Tonight I’m walking to the natatorium. The pool is closed overnight, but it has a key card system that lets us go in and use the gym and mat room whenever we want. I’ve heard Jeremy and Val talk about coming in off-hours to burn stress, or early in the morning if they can’t sleep.
The huge building that houses the pool and gym is eerie at night. The only lights are in the hallways, and everything echoes when my key card grants me access. The halls smell like chlorine, but it’s become a comfortable scent.
There’s a storage room in the back of the building where they store all of the mats no one needs. I’m almost certain no one ever comes in here, especially right now during summer vacation.
It’s my current home. And it’s a hell of a lot better than some of the other places I’ve slept before.
I have two suitcases against the wall, and I dragged a few squishy mats over as well. Honestly, it’s pretty damn nice. And the room is about the same size as the dorm I had been living in up until a few days ago, so it’s not like I feel cramped. My laptop is charging on the floor, and I tap it awake and put on some music while I start getting ready for bed.
Being homeless isn’t anything new for me. I went from my parents’ sprawling ranch house to Aaron’s couch when I was eighteen, and a series of couches, guest rooms, and the occasional night in a shelter after that. When I got the scholarship to dive at UT, it was a step up; a chance to have a guaranteed bed for four years.
So I’m used to it. It doesn’t bother me, but I know if I say something to Andrey, or to Jeremy or Val, they’ll make a big deal about it. Which means I’m not going to say a word; as long as Andrey keeps letting me dive with them, everything will be fine, and not having to attend classes this fall means I can get a job and find an apartment. I have until Labor Day before school starts back up, which means I have a month to sort out new living arrangements. Plenty of time.
The bathroom down the hall has towels, free shampoo and soap, and unlimited hot water. I shower and brush my teeth, then find clean shorts and a T-shirt and curl up on my comfy new bed.
I wish I was still with Jeremy. Someday I want to fall asleep beside him, all that smooth skin pressed against me, and wake up when the sun rises to go another round. But tonight I’ll go to bed with the memory of him coming apart beneath me, the way he trusted me to bring him over the edge and catch him when he fell.
“Hey.” Val finds me doing armstands and practicing my kick off a week into August. I balance easily on my hands, watching her upside down for a second, then donkey kick and spring off onto a set of mats, landing unsteadily on my feet. When I glance up, Val is waiting, hands on her hips.
My arms are a bit sore, so I stretch and shake them out, motioning for her to talk. She seems serious, but that’s nothing new; both she and Jeremy wear seriousness as their default emotion. Except now I’m thinking about Jeremy, and how last night he was anything but serious as I brought him off torturously slowly on the couch, a movie forgotten on the TV in favor of his writhing body spread out on the cushions.
“Things are getting serious between you and Jeremy.”
“What?”
Val stares at me. “You know what.”
“Okay, then.” I find a bottle of water and slide down to the ground to stretch out my legs. Andrey’s working with Jeremy, so it’s not like he’ll know if I slack off, but my muscles are warm now and I don’t want to lose that. “Is this where we have the ‘you hurt my best friend and I’ll rip out your spleen’ chat?”
A faint blush stains Val’s cheeks, but her embarrassment doesn’t lessen her determination. “Not quite,” she says. “This is where we chat about how Jeremy is going to hurt you, and you don’t seem to care.”
“I care! And I’m not going to hurt him. I— Wait, what?”
Val unwinds enough to sit on the ground next to me, crossing her legs. “Brandon, I’ve known Jeremy since we were kids. It’s not— He’s not going to change. Not for you, and not for anyone else.”
Jeremy has changed so much in the year that I’ve known him that I am one hundred percent convinced Val is wrong.
“Jeremy is never going to be your boyfriend, Brandon.” The words are flat, tiny, sharp pieces of glass seemingly intended to wound, though I get the impression that she’s not pleased to be saying them. “He’s not going to come out. Whatever you’re doing . . . god knows I’m happy. More importantly, I’ve never seen Jeremy so happy. But you have to realize that he’s never going to move that beyond the four walls of your apartments.”
Val might be wrong about Jeremy changing, but she’s right about this, and I know it. But that doesn’t mean I want to accept it.
“He’s not the same man I met a year ago. He’s changed his mind about a lot of things. He could change his mind about this too.”
“He won’t.”
Whatever Val knows, it appears to make her certain in this. And Aaron’s words echo in my head as well: “Guys like Jeremy don’t just come out.”
I flop back on the floor, arms spread out to the sides. From this angle, I can only see the top of Val’s head, where her hair is starting to come loose from its bun. “I won’t let him hurt me.”
Val’s face comes into view as she sighs and pushes herself to her feet. She towers over me, staring down with a combination of pity and resignation. “Just be careful, Brandon.”
I nod. “Yeah, I will.”
“You will what?” Andrey sweeps into the room. “You will do three sets of dragon flags now that you are well rested from your little break?”
I swallow my groan—barely. Dragon flags are torture; you put your weight on your shoulders and pull your legs from flat on the ground to vertical above your head using only your core muscles. “Sure, Andrey,” I say instead.
I shoot Val a dirty look as I get up, and she smirks and raises an eyebrow at me.
On the bright side, twenty reps of dragon flags are enough to take my mind off of Val’s words. At least until Jeremy comes in while I’m doing my last set, toweling his hair down after a shower. He’s dressed in only a pair of shorts, and he pauses in the door of the weight room to watch me for a second.
The way his eyes skim over my body, his cheeks going pink and eyes darkening, makes me think Val might be wrong. But then his face shutters and he straightens, all business again, and my stomach sinks.
“What’d you do to make Andrey mad?”
I breathe through the last few reps, then collapse against the bench, feet flat on the floor. My body is on fire, and it takes me a second to speak. “Slacking off, what else?”
Jeremy comes over, grabbing my water bottle on the way, and offers me a hand to help me sit up. He passes the water over and waits until I’ve sucked down a few sips before talking. “You haven’t been doing that much lately. Slacking off, I mean. You’ve changed a lot in the last year.”
His words echo my own to Valerie before. “Yeah, maybe I have. I found a reason to enjoy diving, I guess.”
“Which is?” Jeremy sounds genuinely curious.
“You.” I find my towel and scrub it down my face, catching the sweat that’s dripping into my eyes.
When I pull the towel away, Jeremy’s staring at me strangely. “What did I do?” he asks.
“You were you.” There’s no way that I’m going to tell him that his homophobic slurs and angsty self-hatred were what spurred me to start working hard and to challenge him . . . or that getting to know him made the challenge less about proving him wrong and more about proving myself to him. “Besides,” I say, desperate for a different subject, “you’ve changed quite a bit yourself in the last year.”
He seems to chew this over for a second, then nods. “Yeah, maybe I have.” He offers his hand again, this time to help me stand from the bench. “This is kind of the halfway point, isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
Jeremy shakes his head. “I mean, it’s been a year for you, since you got here. And now it’s a year to go for me, until the Olympics. Halfway.”
I see what he’s trying to say, but Val’s words are still lingering in the back of my head, especially now that Jeremy’s standing in front of me. And I can’t help but think of a roller coaster, like the ones at the big theme park in Dallas that I used to go to with Aaron. You start climbing, and you get higher, and higher, and you’re on top of the world—halfway. And then after that is the fall.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
But now all of the things that could possibly go wrong are piling up in my head. What happens when Andrey realizes that I’m not on scholarship anymore and kicks me off the team? Or when they realize that I’m homeless and have no way to pay registration fees for competitions? Or, Val’s voice whispers in my head, What happens when Jeremy has had enough? When the fear of being caught makes him end whatever it is between you?
Jeremy is studying me now with a frown.
“Sorry.” I yawn. “I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to grab a shower. Are you taking off?”
He nods shortly. I see him open his mouth, but I cut him off before he can invite me back to his apartment, or offer to stick around and grab dinner with me.
“Cool, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jeremy’s frown is a bit disappointed, but he just nods and waves good-bye.
Once I’m in the shower, I let my shoulders slump and my head fall forward against the wall. It’s been easy enough for the last week, working out a little longer than everyone else, or finding an excuse to stick around once they’re done. One time I walked out with Val and Jeremy, waved good-bye like I was heading to my dorm, and circled around the block to come back to the pool. And I might have a job lined up, at a bar that will let me work lunch shift between trainings and come back late at night to close.
But now there are too many voices in my head, making me wonder why I’m doing this. I could hitch down to Texas, find Aaron and crash with him, or maybe get my spot back at the U of T—I bet they’d take me back in a heartbeat, now that I’ve gotten better. What it boils down to, I realize, is that I’m staying because of Jeremy.
And Val’s words make me wonder if that’s going to be a bad decision in the end.