Sitting up in bed, awake for the past couple of hours, Jacob stared out the open window, watching as the sun spread across the Spanish hills, spilled over the sandstone Olympic Complex, and crept toward Madrid’s city center. Rays had just reached the border of the tightly packed buildings when church bells rang from all directions, a symphony playing the start of a new day.
Jacob glanced over his shoulder. Neither Sean nor Kevin stirred. Sean was used to the morning bells from his previous time in Europe, and Kevin had gotten used to them last week in Vienna. Jacob usually beat them both awake, unable to stop his mind from racing for more than a few hours a night. Used to be, he’d hit the water at a meet and zone out, focused on swimming, and he’d be so tired afterward he’d crash. But that had all changed with this meet.
All those warnings about the Olympics were true, except his drama had started weeks ago, before they’d even got here, and the pressure had mounted steadily. He had a heat later this morning, which after his statement at the press conference, he needed to win. And he had a teammate he didn’t know whether to confront or dodge, especially after their handhold yesterday. They’d been standing together, against Dane’s parents, but it’d felt like he and Bas had turned a corner. Like maybe things would improve. But he’d thought that after their night together in Vienna too. One night of better before it’d all gotten much worse. Jacob didn’t know if he had it in him to hope for better again and crash back to reality a second time.
And then there was also Julio, who was swimming in his heat today.
Jacob sank back down, intending to hide under the covers a little while longer. He’d tugged the sheets as far as his chin when banging on the door joined the symphony of bells from outside.
“You up, Pup?” Dane called through the door.
Whipping back the sheet, Jacob scurried out of bed, tripping over his own shoes as he reached for his T-shirt. He righted himself and dug through his bag, searching for a pair of sweats.
The banging started again. “Yo, Pup!”
Sean lifted his head, eyes half-open. “What the fuck?”
“I got it, I got it,” Jacob said, giving up the search for the sweats. He hurried to the door and cracked it open, finger to his lips. “Shh, you’ll wake the dead.”
Dane smiled, way too chipper for six in the morning. “Good, you’re up.”
“I am now.”
“Lies, you were already awake.” He waggled a finger at his face. “No eye crusties. You’re with me this morning.”
Jacob opened the door wider, leaning on the edge. “Doing what?”
“Cooking breakfast. I’m tired of the cafeteria shit.”
“It’s not been shit.” The menu had been chosen, calibrated, and prepared for an athlete’s diet.
Dane gave him a baleful look. “It’s been boring as fuck.”
Jacob chuckled, resting his head against his hand. “Not everyone is an amateur chef.”
The door across the hall opened, and Bas poked his head out. Dreads loose, face soft with sleep, Jacob couldn’t help but stare. And want. And hope Bas was in there alone. Still half-asleep, Bas didn’t seem to notice his ogling, scratching his chest and making the temptation worse. “Are you two going to have a whole conversation out here?”
“If we have to,” Dane said.
Bas turned to Jacob, eyes half-lidded. “Pup, whatever it is, do what he says. Please.” He shut the door, and Jacob wished he was on the other side of it with him. Not standing over the threshold of his triple, arguing with the red-headed rooster.
“He’s swimming today,” Dane said. “So is Alex. I want to do this for them.”
And Jacob wanted to crawl back in bed for a couple more hours of shut-eye before his heat, but Dane looked so damn earnest. “You’re swimming too,” he said, not forgetting Dane’s freestyle relay final tonight. “So are they,” he added with a tilt of his head back to the room where his roommates slept.
Dane sighed dramatically. “Fine, we can make enough for them too.”
“Where are we going to do this? You can’t just bust into the Village cafeteria and mess up their routine.”
“The kitchenette on the other end of the floor.” That could work. It had all the cooking basics—fridge, stove, microwave, sink, a couple of tables. Athletes kept and cooked what they needed there for their personalized diets, in addition to the big cafeteria’s more general offerings.
“What do you need me for? You’re the chef.”
“I need your pickpocket skills to filch some things from the main kitchen.”
Jacob banged his head on his hand. He knew swiping Coach’s training center card back in the States was going to come back to haunt him. He just didn’t think it would be like this.
“Come on, Pup. It’s for a good cause.” He peeked through his lashes at a grinning Dane. “Live a little.”
Turn the corner.
Jacob sighed, because the drama queen deserved it thrown back at him. “Let me find my sweats and brush my teeth.”
Dane smiled big, not the publicity one, the real one he’d been flashing more often since coming out and reuniting with Alex. Jacob, improbably, was smiling too as he ducked back into his room. He finally found his sweats, on the floor next to his bag, and quickly washed up in the bathroom.
He nearly ran into Sean on his way out. “What’d Big Red want?”
“To cook breakfast.”
“’Bout fucking time we got some real food up in here.”
“Who said you were invited?”
Sean raked a hand through his dark hair, making it even more of an unruly mess than it already had been. “Haven’t we been good to you, Pup?”
Jacob stepped past him, hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, you have. Which is why I already put you on the list.” Sean held his fist out for a bump. “Lounge in an hour,” Jacob said, bumping back. “And get him up too.” He jutted a thumb at Kevin before slipping out the door.
Dane was across the hall, chatting with Bas, who stood leaning against his doorframe in just his boxer-briefs, dreads up, looking more awake. Looking gorgeous. “Hey,” Bas said, and Jacob jerked his gaze up from where it’d wandered south. “How you doing today?”
“You should get some more sleep,” Jacob replied. “Hour before we eat.”
“By those bags under your eyes, I’d say you need more sleep too.” He turned his blue gaze on Dane. “You really need him for this adventure?”
“I’m fine,” Jacob said. “I’ll take a nap later today, after I swim.”
Disbelieving eyes swung back his way, but Dane swooped in with the save. “Let’s go, Pup,” he said. “While we can still sneak in and out of the cafeteria. Bas, grab Alex on your way.”
“Will do. Try not to get caught.”
Jacob felt Bas’s gaze lingering on his back until the stairwell door shut behind him. His comment apparently also lingered with Dane. “He’s right,” the freestyler said, once they hit the promenade outside. “You look like shit.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“For real, Pup.”
“I haven’t been sleeping great.” Jacob didn’t hold back as much with Dane. He figured Dane appreciated the truth more than most, especially after spending so much of his life surrounded and controlled by lies. And in a way, they were the two on the outside looking in, on Bas and Alex, on the team, and on the Olympics.
“How are you doing, really?” Dane asked, as they walked through the morning quiet of Olympic Village.
“You pulled the short straw, huh?”
Dane’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Jacob pointed at himself. “Dealing with the messed-up kid.”
“Not at all. This is me thanking you for yesterday. And like I said at the presser, I’m a first timer too. Don’t know about you, but all this—” he waved a hand at their surroundings “—sure as heck is getting to me.”
Jacob halted midstep. “Seriously? Because you don’t show it.”
“My past as a windup doll for my parents does occasionally come in handy.” He plastered on the fake smile and gave a beauty pageant wave his mother would be proud off.
Jacob doubled over laughing; it felt good. When he righted himself, Dane was smiling his real smile again. They were so clearly distinguishable, Jacob was shocked no one had been able to tell before. Had his true one really been tucked away that long?
“Don’t tell Alex,” Dane said, as they set off again. “But that’s also why I’m cooking this morning. I need to do and think about something else besides yesterday.”
“I get that,” Jacob said, nodding. “But the nerves, really? You’ve been in the spotlight forever.”
Dane shrugged. “We lost a teammate, almost lost our captain, I came out, you left the country for the first time, Bas’s ex showed up.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Dane said, as they reached their destination.
With only minutes to spare before the cooks arrived, there was minimal talking as Jacob worked fast, picking the lock as his father had taught him, first on cars, then other doors. Inside, Dane quickly gathered what they needed, Jacob holding open a bag for him as he dumped things in: peppers, onion, garlic, chorizo, cheese, a piecrust, a few more odds and ends, and a dozen eggs placed carefully on top.
They were back in the lounge kitchenette, Jacob cracking eggs, when he asked, “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Alex was the one.”
Dane’s knife didn’t falter in its quick, precise cuts through a bell pepper. “You’re not thinking of Julio, are you?”
“God, no.” Just the thought made Jacob beat the eggs harder.
Grinning, Dane moved on to the onion, his dicing skill and speed downright scary. “I wanted to be near Alex. Always. Even when we were apart. Even when I thought I hated him.”
Jacob understood that feeling, maybe not to the depth Dane did for Alex, separated from each other for ten years, but he missed Bas. Hell, he hadn’t slept well since the night he’d slept like the dead in Bas’s arms.
“Now I can’t imagine being apart,” Dane said, as he tossed the peppers and onion into an oiled skillet with a smashed clove of garlic.
“Do you regret it? Coming out?”
“I know it’s going to be hard, but no. It’s what both of us needed.” He added the chorizo to the pan, mixing it with the peppers, onions, and garlic. “You thinking about making a similar statement? I know we talked on the trip here—”
Jacob shook his head. “Still flying under the radar, for now.”
“Trade.” Dane held out the box grater and block of cheese and took the bowl of eggs from Jacob. Letting the sausage simmer, he added dried mustard, salt, and pepper to the eggs and whipped them good. “You’re bi, right? Like Bas?”
Jacob nodded.
“I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to assume,” Dane said. “I saw the pictures, saw you flirting with Leah, but then the other night with Julio . . .”
Jacob threw a pinch of shredded cheese at him. “I said don’t remind me.”
Dane laughed, grabbing the shredded cheese and tossing it into the bowl. He poured heavy cream into it and set it aside. Next, he dumped the sausage mixture onto a paper towel-lined plate and shoved it in the freezer, retrieving the piecrust therefrom.
“Bas isn’t mad at you,” Dane said, as he poured the egg mixture into the piecrust. “Alex told me the history there. He’s angrier at Julio.”
“Julio didn’t know who I was either.”
Dane placed the egg-filled pie on a baking sheet and rested back against the counter. “He knew you were his breaststroke competition. And Bas thinks he knew more.” He tapped the tattoo visible below Jacob’s short sleeve. “Also how Bas looks at you.”
Jacob tugged his sleeve down. “Like a teammate?”
Dane dipped his chin, forcing Jacob to meet his skeptical eyes.
“Bas doesn’t want that,” Jacob said.
Dane smirked. “You do?”
Jacob stared at his shoes, cheeks heating.
“Don’t be so sure you know what Bas wants.” Dane pushed off the counter and retrieved the cooled sausage mixture. “I saw how Bas reacted when he found you and Julio together in the lounge that night. He wouldn’t have reacted that way over a teammate.”
“What are you saying?” Because Jacob wanted to hear it out of someone else’s mouth, not just the ramblings of his own imagination.
“You’re at the Olympics. If there’s ever a time to take a chance, I don’t think it’d be wasted.” He scattered sausage into the egg pie, like he was scattering water on the seeds of Jacob’s hope. “Either way, what happens in Madrid, stays in Madrid. Olympic motto.”
“Oh, is that right?” Jacob said, finding himself optimistic for the first time in days. “And how would you know, fellow first timer?”
Dane opened the stove and slid the pie in. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “But I’m fucking an expert.”
“I think your secret’s blown, matey.” Jacob tossed a rag at him, both of them laughing.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Dane said. “Why the pirate fascination?”
Jacob shrank a little, thinking the pirate thing was another sign of his immaturity, but then Dane clarified. “It’s funny as heck. The T-shirts too.” He pointed at the one Jacob had thrown on this morning, his favorite faded gray Dead Men Tell No Tales one. “I’m just curious. And I have a collection of gaming consoles as far back as the Atari 2600, so you can’t out-geek me.”
Jacob’s breath caught. “You have a 2600?”
“Two, actually. One of the few benefits of having a home-shopping hostess mother.” He tossed the rag back at Jacob, hitting him in the chest. “But back to pirates . . .”
Throwing the towel over his shoulder, Jacob flopped into one of the kitchenette chairs. “My dad was a Marine.” He fished the dog tags out from under his collar, showing them to Dane. “I’d ask him to tell me about his tours, but they were too . . .”
He glanced away, swallowing hard, and Dane, lowering into the seat beside him, clasped his forearm. “It’s okay, Pup. You don’t have to tell me.”
Jacob cleared his throat. “No, it’s fine. He would spin them into pirate tales instead, appropriate for a kid’s ears. It was our thing.” He shrugged. “I guess it stuck.”
“No wonder you like the water.”
Jacob hadn’t thought of it that way before, but he had to give it to Dane, maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe he was meant to do this.
Dane twisted in his chair, peering into the oven.
“Speaking of adventures,” Jacob said, “what happens with you and Alex, after all this?” He was likewise genuinely curious where the new, high-profile couple went after Madrid.
“I’m moving to Colorado Springs.”
“That’ll be a change.”
“A good one.” Dane smiled, then dropped his voice to a whisper again. “There’s talk, once Alex’s mom gets better, of us moving to LA.”
To where Alex had gone to school, to where Bas still lived, to where they’d all swim for the same club. Bas would have all his friends there. Jacob would be an afterthought, again. His hope began to dry up.
Dane nudged his shoulder. “You’ll have to come visit us.”
Jacob worried a nick in the table. “You guys have your lives, all of you.”
“You don’t think you’re a part of that life now?”
“I’m just the kid.”
Dane laid a freckled hand over his and waited for Jacob to give him his eyes. When he did, the blue-gray ones staring back at him were warm and bright. “You’re family, Jacob. The family I’ve chosen. I’m not letting you off that easily.” Smiling, he lifted a hand and lightly popped Jacob upside the head, as his own mentor Mo was prone to do. “Now get with the program.”
Bas smiled through the backslaps and handshakes as he strode into the locker room, the gold medal for the two-hundred-meter fly at home around his neck. He was stoked about it, really he was. Another gold to go with his other medals, and he broke his own world record getting it, but his excitement faded each time his thoughts strayed to breakfast.
As he’d approached the lounge, Bas had almost stumbled at the sound of Jacob’s laughter. Trailing behind the other guys, no one had seen his misstep or the goofy grin that stretched across his face, so happy to hear Jacob back to his old self. He’d looked it too. Turning the corner into the kitchenette, Bas had seen Jacob smiling and cracking pirate jokes with Dane. But then Jacob had caught sight of him and fumbled through a hasty exit.
According to Dane, Jacob had seemed to be doing better, eager for his race tomorrow, which he’d qualified for in this morning’s heat. First place, ahead of Julio. And, when Bas had asked Alex what exactly he’d told Jacob about Julio, Alex claimed to have framed the situation as best he could. Bas had no reason to doubt his best friend. Problem was, there was no good framing it. Bas needed to explain it to Jacob himself, acknowledge that how he’d handled things was wrong, to Jacob and Julio, and clear the air before Jacob’s next race. He didn’t want to be the one holding Jacob back from gold. That was the opposite of looking out for him and his team.
In front of his open locker, Bas shrugged out of his too-toasty track jacket and dug his phone out of his bag.
Need to talk, he typed in a text to Jacob.
Before Bas hit Send, Julio, dressed in his Team Spain sportswear, sauntered into his row, the Spanish fly swimmer who’d won silver on his heels.
“Amazing run, Stewart,” the younger man said. He pushed past Julio, hand outstretched. “Was an honor standing on the podium next to you.”
Bas shook his hand. “Thanks, man. You did great too. Congrats.”
A stranger would have thought Bas had told him he’d won the lottery, his smile was so big. Both Bas and Julio laughed. Julio tapped the other swimmer’s hip. “Go on, Gio. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Bas straddled the bench and motioned for Julio to also sit. “I’m glad you’re here, J. I wanted to talk.”
Julio’s eyes landed on his chest, on the tattoo of his initials. “You didn’t have that four years ago.”
No, he hadn’t. And Julio had only just gotten the SS tattoo on his right shoulder. Jacob had inked the Spanish rose on his delt a year earlier, but that tattoo hadn’t only been about the two of them. It had also been about Julio’s Spanish heritage and his time living in California and attending USC. SS, however, was clearly about Bas, and those two letters, in stark black ink, in simple serif font, were a commitment that had scared the shit out of then-twenty-two-year-old, commitment-phobic Bas.
He rubbed a hand over his JE tattoo. “I got it as a reminder.”
“Of me?” Julio looked at him through long dark lashes, not a trace of teasing in his eyes, just all earnest interest. Julio had given him that same look the night he’d pushed up his sleeve and showed off his new ink.
Then Bas had wiped the floor with it, and not in the good way.
Bas snagged his track jacket off the bench and shrugged it back on, zipping it up over the tattoo. “Of me being a dick.”
Julio rocked back, eyes wide.
“Look, J, I’m sorry for what happened. I’ve owed you an apology for years. Leaving you the way I did, it’s one of my biggest regrets.”
Julio reached out a hand, running it up Bas’s thigh. “Sebastian.”
Bas laid a hand over his, stilling its motion. “I said the way I left, Julio, not that I left. That’s why I got the tattoo. To remind me of that.”
Julio withdrew his hand. “I don’t follow.”
“We weren’t a good fit, Julio. I don’t do commitment, it doesn’t run in my blood, and you were never going to be comfortable with me being bi. When you went back to Spain, I should have missed you more; that’s when I knew it wasn’t working. You deserved better, in a relationship, and in the way I ended it. I should have made that call before or after the Olympics, not during, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have acted the way I did after. It threw you off your game, and I’m sorry about that, more than you’ll ever know.”
A minute passed before Julio rose, looming over Bas. “Like Jacob is off his game now?”
Bas hung his head. Julio had read him all right. And knew him too well. “He definitely deserves better.”