Chapter Three

 

 

CHRIS FUCKING hated candlestick extensions.

He rolled up on his shoulders, arms back to support him, toes pointed.

“Eighty-nine.”

Yup.

Hated them.

He held the stretch for a count of fifteen, rolled back down, considered beating whoever invented these things to death, and rolled up again.

“Ninety.”

Brian was still sound asleep. Chris couldn’t hear him snoring, but the door was closed and it was early for a Sunday.

They’d settled into a thing—workouts five nights a week, and then he put in a solo twelve-hour day on Saturdays while Brian did… stuff. He wasn’t sure Brian knew Chris was doing the twelve-hour workout, but it was different, being with Brian. Before, the coaching was 24/7, no breaks, no time off.

This was….

He felt like a slacker.

“Ninety-one.”

Which was why he was up on a Sunday doing conditioning rounds, driving himself crazy.

“Ninety-two.”

“Good grief, you haven’t really done ninety-two of those, have you? Don’t you ever sleep in?” Brian yawned, his hair all mussed, blinking sleepily.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” He only had eight left; then he’d move to piked leg lifts.

“Oh, you didn’t really.” Brian stretched and then crouched next to him, watching him. “How long have you been up?”

“What time is it?” Ninety-four.

“’Bout eight thirty. Damn, you look good doing that. Good at that. It looks like you’re good at that.” Brian stood and headed toward their little kitchen. “You want some coffee?”

“Sure. I hate them. An hour and a half.” Ninety-five. Coffee. Four more of these; a hundred leg lifts. Coffee.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to like them. I don’t think you’re supposed to like any of them. You’re just supposed to do them.”

He could hear Brian putting coffee in the filter, filling the pot with water.

“I like some of them.” Ninety-eight. “These? No.”

Ninety-nine.

“How’s your shoulder?” Brian asked, wandering back and crouching next to him again. One of Brian’s warm hands landed on his back right above where his shoulders were on the floor.

“It’s okay. These are tough on the back.” He let himself rest against Brian’s hands a second.

“They are. I’m sorry we couldn’t get you in to see the PT before next week. He should have some strengthening exercises you can do. For it and your ankle.”

The warm hand disappeared as Brian sat down and stretched out to lean over his legs. “God, I feel like such a slacker.”

“You do?” Chris let his legs drop out, forcing the split. Oh. Stretch.

“I feel like I should be stretching and doing drills and all that shit too, you know? Of course, then I’d pop my knee out again. But still, I remember that drive, that need to be on the top of your game all the damned time. It’s a hard thing to let go of.”

“Well, can’t you do some? Be careful on your knee?” Hell, most coaches he knew were on the top of their game all the time. It was simply a different game.

“Well, sure, and you’ve seen me—I keep it up, kind of. But you’re at it all the damned time.” Brian shrugged, sighed. “I’m sorry. The last thing you want to hear is your coach having an existential crisis.”

“It’s cool.” Oh. Damn. Maybe he should do the rest in his room. “I hear you. Let me get some jeans on and I’ll come pour cereal.”

“Wait. Chris. Shit. I’m sorry.” Brian touched his arm and then took his hand away again. “I worry sometimes that I’m shortchanging you, you know? You’ve got so much fucking talent, and you should have a top-notch coach. Someone who’s brought winners to the circle already, not someone who’s unproven.”

“Look. I….” Chris took a deep breath. “You picked me. I picked you. If you don’t want to be my coach, I’ll be cool, but I’m here.”

“Oh, I want to be your coach. It’s practically all I think about.” There was no hesitation there; Brian met his eyes as he spoke. “I had a bad night and haven’t had my coffee yet. Blame it on me being a first-time coach.”

“A bad night? Is something up?” Leg lifts. He settled back on his butt, legs spread, hands out.

One. Two. Three. Four.

“No. Well…. Oh, fuck it. I should just tell you.” Brian took a deep breath. “Chris, Baxter Serens called, and, well, he didn’t outright offer to take over as your coach, but he sure as hell inferred that he wanted to. That you deserved someone like him over an unknown like me. And he’s right. You do. I mean, it would suck like hell for me, but you deserve a coach of Baxter’s caliber on your team. He can give you stuff I can’t. And as much as I told myself I didn’t have to tell you, you deserve to know that that opportunity exists.”

Chris went stiff, fucking ice-cold. “You can tell that smarmy motherfucker that he needs to stay the fuck away from your gymnast.”

Bastard.

Serens thought he could call here? Interfere with training?

Brian blinked. “That’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting….”

“Yeah. Well, it’s what you got.” Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Fucker.

“Yeah, but why?” Brian’s hand landed softly on his stomach, stopping him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy as I can be that you aren’t in the least bit interested, but I feel like I’m missing something here.”

“Serens coaches the guy who set me up. You watch: those rumors about me? Lead right back to him every goddamn time.”

“Oh fuck! He set me up, and I walked right into it—swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.”

Brian shook his head, got up and started to pace a little. “Dammit. They are fucking low to keep pulling this shit.” He stopped suddenly, a grin slowly dawning over his face. “But I tell you what—if he’s calling here and trying to shake me up? He knows that you’re serious fucking competition. You’ve got them running scared, Chris.”

“Is it going to work, man? Is it going to shake you up?” Chris liked Brian. He wasn’t sure about the coaching yet, but he knew personally that he and Brian could be friends.

Brian came back over to sit next to where he was stretching out. “It almost did. He hit right where my own doubts were, that maybe I was holding you back, that someone with more experience would do better by you. But you know what? I believe in you. And I’m not coaching you for my glory—I’m coaching you because I want to see you soar like I know you can.”

He gave Chris a wild grin. “We’re going to show assholes like Serens that they’re right to worry. We’re going to show Harry and Jeff that they were so fucking wrong in letting you go. You and me. You’re hurt and I’m nobody, but we’re going to show everyone what two people with the same goal and a whole lot of determination can do. I am taking you all the way to the podium, Chris. All the way.”

Chris lowered his legs, held one hand out. “Then let’s do it, man. I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Brian took his hand in a strong grip and they shook, eyes holding. “I’m behind you one hundred percent, Chris.”

“Cool. Does that mean I can do my stretches in the living room?” Hell yes. Finally, that little rush, that spark of excitement. Maybe Chris had made the right decision.

“Uh-huh.” Brian got up and pushed the big couch back a little, the coffee table going in the other direction until it was flush against the wall next to his TV on its small television stand. “We’ll liberate a couple mats from the gym tomorrow. In the meantime you’re stuck with the floor.”

Then Brian headed back to the kitchen. “I’m making you a shake instead of coffee.”

“What? I thought we were having coffee and Froot Loops!”

Brian laughed. “I found this recipe site on the net last night while I couldn’t sleep. Tons of high-protein recipes. I think we’ve got the ingredients for the strawberry-banana one. I won’t tell you what the strawberry and banana flavors are hiding.”

“Yeah? Not too high on the carbs, though?” He was trying so hard not to get flabby, to keep himself in shape. Of course, he needed a cup of coffee too.

“You were going to have Froot Loops and you’re worried that a bit of fruit might have too many carbs?”

Chris could hear things coming out of the fridge, a knife cutting stuff up. “You’re going to be working hard enough it shouldn’t matter how many carbs you have, Chris. The only thing we need to watch out for is you feeling logy. I’m going to start a diary. List what you’ve eaten and how you feel working out. See if there’s a correlation, like between milk products or fruit and a good or bad day, that kind of thing.”

The blender whined, putting an end to any conversation for a couple of minutes. Brian spoke again once he shut it off. “Have you noticed anything like that on your own?”

Chris shrugged, tried to think. “I don’t eat pasta or bread, anything with wheat. I can have corn stuff for breakfast.” He’d been trying to do what he’d done before, as best as he understood it.

“Cool. I’m not going to change your diet so much as fine-tune it, you know? Some stuff is going to give you energy for longer, which’ll be good for practicing. Other stuff will be a higher boost for a shorter time period, better for competing.”

Brian wandered back with two glasses full of a thick pink liquid. “Let’s give it a try, shall we?”

“It’s pink.” Still, it smelled good, and God knew he wasn’t picky. He slurped it and hummed. Yeah, that worked. It had that weird clinging protein aftertaste, but it wasn’t terrible. “Can we do strawberry-pineapple next?”

Brian grinned. “We’ll need to revamp the shopping list, but yeah. And mango-orange, papaya-pineapple. There was a bacon one too, but I’m thinking bacon and milk or yogurt blended together is wrong.”

Chris gagged, looked at Brian in horror. “No pig smoothies, dude. Gross. Now I need my coffee.”

“I’m thinking we could drive down to the piers. Go jogging. Buy our groceries at the market and then come home. You can have a coffee after our jog.” It seemed that once Brian had decided he was back on track, he was really back on track.

“You are an evil man. I want good coffee, then, if I have to wait.” He leaned forward, balancing himself on his arms, slowly raising himself off the floor.

“Yeah, there’s that coffee shop down by the market.” He could feel Brian’s eyes on him, watching, assessing, sliding over him.

“Okay.” Chris leaned forward, legs stretching back, muscles shaking as he fought for balance.

“You’re favoring your right side still. You’re going to have to trust it to hold you, or you’re always going to be a bit off-balance. Not a lot, but enough.”

“I don’t want to overextend it.” Chris let himself push a little harder on the right side before losing the hold.

Brian helped him sit back up and slid his hand over the muscles. “Yeah, but sometimes you hold back because it aches, needs a little heat and pressure to loosen it back up. You’ve got to be able to push past some of the pain. Only not to the point of overextending.” Brian laughed. “It’s such an exact science, isn’t it?” Brian’s hand lingered, not really massaging but warming, touching, easing the pressure a little.

“I guess.” Oh man. So good. Easy. “Every day I try to push a little further.”

“Good. That’s good.” Brian kept touching, both hands moving on his back now. “I’m thinking we should make the massages once a day instead of every three days or so. It really seems to make a difference on the muscles.” Brian shifted, legs bracketing Chris’s ass, body warm behind him.

Oh man. He…. Whoa. Think about mud. Worms. Gross things. “You’ll spoil me.”

“The good coffee is spoiling. Making sure you aren’t hurting is part of the job as coach.”

Brian pushed in a little closer, fingers starting to massage now instead of warming. Chris could feel Brian’s breath against his neck. He closed his eyes, the sensations driving him a little nuts, making him hard. He didn’t stop Brian, though. His muscles needed it.

His muscles.

Yeah.

Brian worked his shoulder until there wasn’t a single ache left. At least not in his shoulder.

When Brian stopped, it was rather abrupt, Brian scrambling up. “Better?” He sounded a little hoarse.

“Uh-huh.” Better. Hard as a rock. Wanting. “You ready to run?”

Brian cleared his throat, nodded. “Yeah. Let me, uh… get changed.”

Changed? The man was wearing a T-shirt and sweats….

“Changed?” Chris turned and half stood, almost rubbing his cheek against a hard cock.

Brian stumbled back, cheeks flaming. “Um. Yeah. Changed. Or… something.”

“’Kay.” Chris bit his lip and rushed for his room before he… uh, yeah.

Celibate.

He was celibate.

Dammit.

The door shut behind him, and his hand dropped to work his aching prick.

Celibate.

 

 

BRIAN WAS in trouble.

And he was digging in a little deeper every day.

He’d been around gymnasts since he was, like, eight. And sure he’d had the odd crush, admired the occasional body. Okay, lots of bodies. But it had never been anything permanent, never been a problem.

But Chris… well, Chris was hot. He was cute. Funny.

And the attraction was getting deeper, not fading away.

Brian’s stupid prick was refusing to be good and stay down, no matter how many lectures he gave it, no matter how often he’d take a walk and thump it.

So far it hadn’t affected his coaching, but he had to be careful not to get too comfortable when giving Chris his massages because he invariably finished up with hard, aching wood.

And he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

How to fix it.

Hell, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He liked Chris as a person, not only as a gymnast, and under different circumstances, he might have asked for a date.

So he soldiered on, made sure he was being professional, giving Chris the best damned coaching he knew how. And he worked out a lot. He split his time in the evenings between watching Chris work, spotting him, and working out himself, keeping his body busy and tired.

Tonight they were working on landings.

They started slow, simple releases from the bar, and when that seemed to be causing no panic or trouble, Brian upped the ante by getting Chris to release, somersault, and land. Chris was graceful and gorgeous, flying through the air and sticking the landings over and over again. Brian was hard as a rock but ignoring it, keeping his focus on Chris, watching for any sign of weakness, of hesitancy.

Chris landed, landed, landed. Then the cocky son of a bitch threw a double layout, flying through the air before hitting the ground.

“How’d that one feel?”

Brian got a grin. Chris’s mismatched eyes danced. “Good. I want to do it again.”

He grinned back, Chris’s enthusiasm as infectious as always. “Well, don’t let me stop you. Show me what you’ve got.” Given how well the landings were going, he was going to move the training on the vault up.

Chris got up there, started to do a routine. Over and around—a nice rear-piked Stadler, a couple of release moves, a giant. Then a Kovacs, Chris executing the somersault but missing the bar altogether and hitting the mat hard.

Fuck.

Brian made it to the mat in seconds and knelt next to Chris, hands on his back. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Let me do it again.” Chris struggled to his feet.

Brian nodded, stayed down to run his hands over Chris’s ankles. Everything seemed okay.

“All right, chalk up and do it again. Pay attention to each move as you do it—don’t anticipate the landing.”

Two more times up, two more down. The third time Chris caught himself with one hand, entire body jerking.

“Okay. Okay. Stop. Come down.” He went over and wrapped his arms around Chris’s waist, helping him down.

“Okay, talk to me. What went wrong? Is your shoulder bothering you again?”

“I…. No. No, it’s been too long. My timing’s off.” He could feel Chris vibrating, knew that frustration. Maybe they needed some trampoline time.

“Okay, let’s leave it for now. The landings aren’t going anywhere.” Brian winked and nodded toward the trampoline folded up at the other end of the gym. “Let’s go fly.”

“Let me do a few more on the bar. I can get it.”

Right, before or after tearing all those muscles to hell? “You can get it right tomorrow. We’re doing trampoline now.”

Chris growled, looked at him, frustration visible. “I can figure it out.”

“I know you can. But your body’s had enough tonight, and I say we’re moving to the trampoline. Tomorrow we’ll start on the bar instead of doing it several hours in.” It was the first time he’d had to put his foot down, first time Chris had fought him on anything.

“I…. Okay. Okay. I hate giving up. Tomorrow, first thing, right?”

Brian put his hand on Chris’s shoulder, looked into the amazing, weird two-colored eyes. “You’re not giving up, Chris. It’s first on our list tomorrow, as soon as we see the girls off.”

“Okay.” He gave Brian a wry grin, a nod. “Yeah, coach.”

He bounced on his toes and nodded. That’s right. He was the coach. “Come on, the trampoline is fun.”

“Goofball.” Chris helped him get the trampoline down and set up.

“Up you get. Before I decide I ought to show you how it’s done.” Brian loved the trampoline; it’d always been like playing, like being free of the earth and gravity.

“Oh, listen to you….” Chris laughed, climbed up, giving Brian a great view of that nice ass.

He pressed his crotch into the side of the trampoline, trying to keep his cock from putting on a show of its own. It didn’t get any easier as Chris started to move, body flying through the air, somersaulting, twisting.

“Throw some seat drops in there. Mix it up.” There. He wasn’t gawking—he was coaching.

“’Kay.” Chris was getting tired, clumsy, the twists almost not making it around.

He let Chris jump a couple more minutes and then called a halt to it. “Time to call it a night. Let’s go home and I’ll rub you down. Those muscles have to be pretty tired.”

“Uh-huh.” Chris bounced a couple more times and settled, breathing hard. “Supper? Soon? I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple power bars to hold you till we get home. Unless you want to go out?” They’d recently gotten paid, and he had to admit a nice steak dinner would go down well. He was not asking Chris out on a date. Not.

“Ooh! Let’s go out.” Chris bounced down, overshooting it and landing against him with a thud.

His arms automatically went around Chris, steadying the long, lean body. And he didn’t want to let go. He met Chris’s eyes, lips parting, but he had no idea what to say. He knew he should step back, let go, turn away. But he didn’t.

“I don’t….” Chris pushed closer, the scent of pure male heady. “You’re hard for me?”

Brian licked his lips, trying to catch his breath. “All the fucking time. I’m sorry. I won’t. I don’t…. It won’t affect my coaching. I won’t let it.” He wouldn’t. He hadn’t yet.

“You’re sorry? Really?” Chris groaned, rubbed those lean hips against him.

“I thought I was.” He’d thought it wouldn’t be welcome. God, Chris’s eyes were fascinating this close.

And the body he’d been admiring for weeks felt so fucking good against his. Groaning, he pressed their lips together.

Chris made a sweet, deep sound, wrapping a hand around the back of Brian’s neck and holding on. His mouth opened, tongue barely touching Brian’s bottom lip. A shudder went through Brian, and he touched Chris’s tongue with his own. Lightning shot through him, straight to his cock.

“Not here.” Chris pulled back, staring at him. “Not here. Not in a school.”

Brian nodded, managed to let his hands drop away—the hardest thing he’d ever done, letting go. He was gasping for breath, almost light-headed.

What if Chris changed his mind by the time they got home?

What if he didn’t?