Keep on pretending.
No trouble there. Dane’s life was one giant pretense, and the frightening accuracy of Alex’s indictment continued to ring true over the next twenty-four hours.
After Alex had left him there on the pool deck, he’d grabbed his cap and goggles and dove back into the water, swimming hard laps and pretending their conversation had never happened. The words spoken and not.
Through the night, he’d pretended to sleep, but each time he’d closed his eyes, Alex’s words, the nearness of his body, and the kiss Dane had dreamed about for years only a breath away, had kept him awake. Regretting. Wanting.
Despite his lack of sleep, he’d pretended to be on his game at the open practice, smiling wide, chatting with reporters and sponsors and standing close enough to his teammates not to raise any eyebrows. No schism to see here.
Yes, Dane was good at pretending, but after twenty-six years of it, he was so damn tired of it. And fuck his father’s no-cursing rule too.
By the time he returned to his room to change for the press conference, all Dane wanted to do was stop pretending for five minutes and collapse facedown on his bed. An impossibility, he quickly realized, when he crossed the threshold and found his father practicing a sermon, his mother on the phone by the balcony door, and her stylist fussing over a makeup counter’s worth of crap spread out across the king-sized bed.
Dane let the door slam shut behind him. “How did you get in here?”
His father paused midscripture and tore his gaze from his own reflection in the mirrored closet doors. “Who do you think paid for this single room? It certainly wasn’t the team.”
“Did you pay for the one in Colorado Springs too?”
“One of your sponsors,” his mother answered, hand cupping the speaker end of her phone. “Shower, dear, then Nicole will fix you right up.”
Nicole, in her early twenties, gave him the same schoolgirl heart-eyes she always did whenever they were in the same room. She was pretty enough—blonde and blue-eyed, his “type,” according to the rags. Another deliberate pretense on his part. He didn’t have the heart to tell her she was as far from his type as possible, and even if she were his type, she didn’t meet his mother’s bank account or last name standards.
Dane escaped to the bathroom, standing under the shower’s hot spray and letting his father’s familiar rise and fall cadence, his practiced fire and brimstone, lull him to near standing sleep. So much for only being here to support Dane and the team. He was clearly rehearsing for a sermon tomorrow, on pride and team unity. Two things Dane sorely lacked at the moment.
He hid from the truth in his steam-filled bubble as long as he could, until his mother’s every-five-minute countdown reached twenty. He toweled off and slathered on sunscreen, shooed his father out from in front of the closet long enough to retrieve boxers and an undershirt, then surrendered to the emasculation he’d avoided earlier in the week.
His mother finished her call and gestured for him to take a seat on the end of the bed. “We’ll have to trim that awful beard,” she said to Nicole. “He’s too sunburned to shave it.”
Nicole went to work, first restoring his dreadfully pale skin above his play-off beard in progress, while his mother grilled him from over her stylist’s shoulder.
“Who else is on the panel?”
“Coach—”
“I meant swimmers.”
He resisted the Let me finish on the tip of his tongue. “Alex and Bas.”
“Not the kid?”
“Jacob?” Dane asked, and she nodded. “No,” he replied. “They’re keeping him under wraps, for now.”
She hummed, satisfied. “Good, he’d steal too much of the spotlight, and between those other two, you’ll look the most professional.”
He jerked his chin out of Nicole’s too-tender grasp and glared up at his mother. “Those other two are also world record holders.”
“Yes, but they don’t compete with you for the camera. The one’s a tattooed California hooligan and the other wears a perma-frown.”
Because, as Dane was coming to understand, Alex carried the weight of the world on his broad shoulders.
“Shame too,” his mother carried on, while Nicole trimmed his beard into revolting hipster fashion. “He’s quite attractive. I could use him to connect with the Hispanic audience. Then again, he’s gay, so that wouldn’t do.”
No, it wouldn’t do for her Bible-thumping legion of home shoppers. His father strolled in from the hallway. “Didn’t you go to developmental training with the Cantu boy?”
Nicole noticed his physical jolt, even if his parents missed it. She patted his cheek, probably assuming his father’s booming voice, right behind them, had surprised Dane, but Nicole’s gentle touch did nothing to calm his racing heartbeat. He’d never mentioned Alex to them. How did his parents know they’d been at camp together? In the next second, he answered his own question. Of course they knew. They’d probably paid someone for a roster of all the attendees. He didn’t go anywhere without them knowing the who, what, when, where, and why of it all. If it didn’t suit their purposes, they’d find something else that did. That summer, his father had been on a televised global ministry tour and his mother had gone with, to be by his side and to pitch international rights for her shows. They’d needed a summer-long babysitter for him, and developmental training camp had fit the bill.
With his parents an ocean away, Dane had thought himself safe to be with Alex, at least within the confines of their four cinder block walls. Outside of their room, they’d been discreet, never appearing to be more than friends and roommates. And once home, he’d taken steps to protect the only tangible proof they’d been more, storing his photos of them together on an encrypted drive he updated regularly. Despite all his diligent efforts, had his parents still found out about him and Alex somehow?
He hoped his voice didn’t crack when he answered, “Yes, we were roommates.”
“Use that,” his father said. “Turn him around to God’s path. Lead by example, son.”
A wave of relief crashed through him, followed by an even bigger one of anger. He shoved his hands between his knees. Cracking his knuckles would be a dead giveaway. As would grabbing any of the makeup items beside him and hurling them in a fit of rage.
He forced his voice level, diplomatic. “I don’t think Alex would be interested.” He didn’t specify whether about an impossible change in his sexuality or an equally impossible change in his anticamera stance. His father didn’t care either way, no longer interested in the conversation and returning to his rehearsal.
His mother clicked her nails to refocus his attention on her. “Your answers are ready?”
The same answers he always gave. “Yes.”
Nicole set aside her scissors and stood, stepping out of the way so his mother could inspect him, like a fucking show dog. Her nails bit into his skin as she rotated his chin, checking both sides of his face. Back to center, she leveled him with an imperious glare. “And don’t deflect so much this time. I saw the footage from the airport presser we arranged.”
Alex jerked out of her grasp. “You set that up?”
“Of course,” she said, as if what they’d done hadn’t caused a hassle for his team and days of hell for him. “We leaked the arrival times to the national media, and they leaked them to sports and local.”
“You wanted them to see you there?”
“And you. Now, don’t waste the opportunity today. Don’t deflect, and don’t be so deferential.”
“Alex is the captain.”
“Yes, but you’re the star. Act like it.”
Act like it.
AKA, back to pretending.
Dane was so good at it he doubted his teammates, the press, or the average viewer at home had any idea how much he hated Media Day. Practiced smile and lines, all lies that made his stomach churn.
Never more so than today, sitting on the dais between Alex and Bas and pretending to represent the US men’s swim team. He was a team member in name and job only, a pariah in every other way. Part of him resented Alex for allowing the team to cast him out, but he couldn’t blame them or him. He’d given them every reason to believe he was the privileged ass Alex claimed. Or rather, his parents had, but Dane hadn’t said no. Just like he hadn’t said no the other time he’d turned his back on Alex.
Bas nudged his shoulder, and Dane snapped back to the present. Coach was finishing his introductory remarks, preparing to open the floor for questions.
Once he did, questions flew. The most at Dane, some to Coach and Alex, and a few for Bas too. Dane didn’t want to give the impression of hogging the spotlight, but he also didn’t want to raise any more red flags with his parents. He deferred when the question obviously called for Coach or Alex to weigh in and answered diplomatically when it didn’t.
“Dane, how’s the team gelling after losing its eldest member?”
“Alex can answer that one on behalf of the team,” he replied.
Curls tamed and dressed in an attractive if well-worn suit, Alex leaned toward the mic. “Morris Mayfair was our senior statesman, that’s true, and it was a tough loss, but we’ve got a lot of other repeat Olympians on the team. We miss Mo, but we’re managing fine without him.”
Managing.
Fine.
Dane smarted at the backhanded insult. That’s the best Alex could say about him? They’d already shaved several hundredths off their relay time.
“Dane, why weren’t you swimming in the medley relay to begin with?”
Alex’s shoulders tensed, and had he not been tilted forward, Dane was sure he’d have seen those brown eyes piqued with aggravation. Dane’s position, or not, in the relay lineup had never been confirmed, despite the scene in the locker room. Someone had leaked it. His parents, presumably, seeing as they were a virtual information sieve these days.
“That was my call,” Coach answered. “I wanted Ellis in the best possible shape for the five other events we have him slated for.”
“Dane, how are you adjusting to the extra event?”
I swam eight in college was on the tip of his tongue, but he withheld the remark. While indignation lingered over Alex’s insult, Dane’s anger over other matters, over the mistakes of his own making, outweighed his anger at Alex.
“Coach and Alex are working us hard,” he replied. “We’ll be ready for Madrid.”
“Coach, why wasn’t Dane captain? Not the best outing for Alex so far.”
Beneath his jacket, Alex’s shoulders jerked, tension radiating out and down his spine, his entire body noticeably tightening, and Dane shoved his hands between his knees for the second time that afternoon. The question was rude and patently untrue. Anything that had gone wrong to date was his fault, not Alex’s. He shifted forward to address the slight, at the same time Coach pulled a mic closer.
Bas beat them both. “The captaincy was voted on by the team,” he said, tossing loose dreads out of his face. “Alex was on the Olympic team four years ago, so he knows the drill. He also works for USOC and is the steadiest guy most of us know. If we didn’t have Alex at the helm, things could have gone a lot worse after losing Mo. He’s held us together.”
It was an impressive front by Bas, even if it wasn’t entirely true. But decked out as he was, in a tailored gray suit that accentuated his huge upper body and a blue paisley tie that brought out his striking blue eyes, the fly swimmer smiled wide and effortlessly charmed the crowd. Dane bet his mother was seething.
“Any response to the rumors you two are involved?”
Dane jolted, harder than he had in the hotel room, as fear lanced his chest and stopped his already racing heart. But then Bas laughed, and Dane realized the question was directed at his teammates. He prayed no one had noticed his reaction.
“Alex is my best friend,” Bas said. “Has been since we roomed and swam together at SC, but he’s not my type.”
“Because he’s gay?” one reporter asked.
“Because he’s Hispanic?” said another.
The opposite of affronted, Bas laughed louder. “Now you’re just being silly. I don’t care about either of those things. I’m bi and live in California where almost half the population is Hispanic. Sexuality and heritage have nothing to do with it. I’d never date Alex because he’s too damn bossy.” Bas playfully shoved Alex’s shoulder, and the crowd laughed with him. With them.
As Dane silently raged.
To be that easygoing, to be that carefree, to focus so little on what other people thought, to live and love as they pleased . . . The jealousy nearly strangled him.
“Alex, anyone special then?”
Rage and jealousy instantly banked, all of Dane’s attention snapped to his captain. He shouldn’t care about the answer—there was zero chance for him with Alex, regardless of yesterday’s spark—but he still held his breath, waiting on the edge of his seat for Alex’s answer.
“No one at the moment.”
Dane exhaled slowly through his nose and clenched teeth, not letting the crowd see his immense relief.
“Any team issues with your sexuality?”
“No, it hasn’t come up,” Alex answered.
Dane was impressed at how much a nonissue it was with the squad. He hadn’t heard or observed a single slur or askance look from team members or coaches. Then again, Alex and Bas had hit the swimming scene together in California, where one’s sexual orientation wasn’t as big a deal as in North Carolina. They’d never hidden their sexuality, and those who’d been on the team last go-round wouldn’t think twice about it. Romantically together or not, Alex and Bas presented a united front that anyone would be crazy to challenge.
“It must be an honor, representing America’s Hispanic and LGBTQ communities?”
Alex was more gracious with his answer than in the locker room last week. “It is.” He smiled and threw an arm around Bas’s shoulders. “We’re going to make this country and all of our respective communities proud.” As much as Dane knew Alex hated the cameras, his captain could turn it on when needed, and the heck of it was, Alex was still one hundred percent real. Same with Bas.
“Dane, how’s it feel to be part of such a landmark diverse team?”
“It’s great.” A practiced line but not a lie. “It’s important for kids, athletes, and adults to have role models who represent them, in all forms.”
“Like yourself?” Not a complimentary tone, nor a reporter Dane recognized. “Living at home with your parents, a serial dater, a broken engagement. Your high school sweetheart, was it?”
Alex’s spine went rigid again as he dropped his arm from around Bas’s shoulders. Mouth dry as the desert, Dane racked his brain for the canned answer. There was often a gossip-mongering pap in the crowd, looking for dirt on him or his family for the tabloids. This wasn’t the first time his abysmal love life had been brought up at a press conference. But it was the first time with Alex sitting by his side. The person Dane had hurt most with that particular lie. Fitting, then, that Alex’s back was to Dane as he answered. And thank God since Dane didn’t think he could deliver the lie if he had to look into Alex’s eyes and do it.
He searched the crowd for the reporter who’d asked the question, gaze catching on his parents at the back of the room. Their faces were calm, not the least bit concerned. They expected him to be the good son, their puppet, and dispose of the problem. He found the reporter, met his eyes, and answered as practiced. “We were young and in love. She went to Harvard, I went to Carolina, and long distance didn’t work out, not with our academic and athletic commitments. With so much of my time and energy devoted to swimming, I’m a terrible boyfriend. Nothing, no one, has ever stuck.”
Except the man beside him, but he couldn’t say that. Couldn’t even look Alex’s direction for fear of giving away the truth.
The pap opened his mouth to follow up, but another reporter jumped in and the conversation moved on, Coach and Alex answering team questions again. Dane, however, struggled in the mire of paralyzing fear, lingering anger, and mounting jealousy for a life he couldn’t have.
Alex’s words rattled around in his brain. “‘I can’t’ is what privileged asses use as an excuse.”
He was right. Dane could have the life he wanted. He just had to cut the strings. Say no to his parents and turn his back on the only life he’d ever known, save for one summer a decade ago when another path, another life, had presented itself.
A life with a boy he’d wanted so very badly then.
The man he still wanted so very badly now.
“This could be the last Olympics for all three of you. What comes next?”
“Swimming professionally and running my tattoo shop,” Bas answered. “I’ve got a tablet full of sketches back in my room, if anyone’s interested.”
The crowd laughed, then quieted when Alex leaned toward the mic. “I’ll swim as long as I can, then it’ll be double duty for me as a coach and teacher.”
“I’m trying to talk him into moving to California and joining my club,” Bas put in. “Get the gang back together more than just every four years.”
They hammed it up for the excited crowd, then looked over their shoulders at Dane, waiting for his answer. Like his parents, their expressions were bored, expecting the same ole canned response. That he’d either join his father’s ministry or his mother’s company. He’d been hocking himself and swimwear for years; nothing new there. Looking out at the press, they wore the same bored expressions. Even his parents had tuned him out—no prideful gleam in his father’s eye, no camera-ready smile on his mother’s face, about an answer that should make them happy.
An answer they already knew.
But Dane didn’t know it any longer. Not with two men beside him who had carved their own paths, who were living the life they wanted. Who were real. By contrast, Dane had only ever followed the path set out for him. He could choose to follow a different one, if he wanted it bad enough. If he wanted to be real, like them.
And he did.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” said the reporter who’d asked the question. “What was that?”
“I said, I don’t know.”
His parents pulled an immediate one-eighty, no longer bored. His father fumed, his mother glowered. And Alex . . . Dane didn’t know what that look was on his handsome face—pity, pride, surprise, a mix of things it hurt to even consider.
Dane spoke directly into the mic. “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. Some role model that makes me, huh?”
A wall of sound hit him, his name shouted from all directions, but the blood rushing in his ears, the pounding of his racing heart, drowned it out.
“I’m sorry. Excuse me.” He stood and bolted toward the stage stairs.
One step down, Alex grabbed him by the arm. “Dane, wait.”
He shrugged out of the grip. “I’m sorry,” he said, not meeting his gaze, afraid of what he might see there. “I gotta get out of here.” As fast of his trembling legs would carry him, he hustled the rest of the way offstage, out of the room, and toward the emergency exit at the end of the hallway.
His hand was on the door’s push bar when his father’s booming church voice rang out behind him. “Son! What in God’s name was that?”
Dane rounded on him, fury lighting. “Careful, Dad. Don’t want anyone to hear the country’s minister taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
“What part of ‘act like it’ didn’t you understand?” his mother admonished, catching up to his father’s long strides.
“All of it,” he snapped back.
“You have a script to follow. One that’s been approved by us, Roger, and your sponsors.”
“I’m tired of living my life according to your fucking script.”
“Language!” his father bellowed, while his mother glared up at him like she was seven feet tall, far scarier than her five-two-with-heels let on. “You wouldn’t have this life, including your sponsorships and trust fund, if not for our script, so you better think long and hard before you go off it again.”
“Some life,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“I said, yes, ma’am.” There was no use arguing when she was on a tear. He’d seen his father lose too many of those fights.
She stepped back, satisfied.
“Get back in there and clean up your mess,” his father added.
“Yes, sir.”
“Everything okay here?” Roger called from several feet behind them. Without a second’s hesitation, Dane’s parents turned their backs on him and rushed to assure his publicist. Not a care for their son who’d finally acknowledged the life they’d created for him was a lie, the last thing he wanted. He was just another tool in their empire, a puppet to perform according to their script.
Fuck the script.
They wanted to turn their backs on him? Well, he’d do the thing he should have done years ago. The thing they couldn’t even imagine.
He waited for them to make their grand reentry into the event room, so sure he’d follow, then did the opposite of what they expected.
Shrugging out of his coat and tie, he tossed them on the ground and slammed out the exit door, emergency sirens wailing behind him.