Chapter 7 #2
“Okay, okay,” Danny grumbles, hauling himself onto his hands and knees so he can grab the box of tissues from his nightstand.
As soon as Sasha’s satisfied with the clean-up, Danny nudges him back down to the mattress for more cuddling.
Sasha adjusts his position like twenty times and complains that he’s cold, but after Danny pulls a fuzzy blanket over them and tells him to shut up, he settles.
The room goes quiet, the gentle hum of the air conditioner barely audible over their breathing.
“Did we just have sex?”
Sasha stops tracing shapes on Danny’s shoulder. “What?”
“I kind of feel like we just had sex,” Danny says.
He’d read something online recently about how sex can mean different things, especially for bi and gay people.
The article had even said oral counts, too—which he probably should have figured out on his own, since duh, “oral sex.” But while he’s not sure he’d rank oral quite that high, at least not for himself, he can’t help thinking that whatever he and Sasha just did felt a lot like sex as he knows it.
Missionary? Check. Thrusting? Check. Mind-blowing orgasm? Check check check.
“No?” Sasha’s staring at Danny, like he can’t tell if he’s being serious. “Not sex. Sex is…” He colors, his cheeks turning shades of sunset. “Other thing. Different.”
“Hm.” Danny lets it go and grins, just to make Sasha blush even more. He knows exactly what “other thing” is—and considering how red Sasha’s gotten, he has to wonder… “Do you want to have sex?”
Sasha’s eyes widen, round as the rings. “Now?”
Okay, that’s a no—or a not yet. Because unless Danny’s imagining it, Sasha seems more alarmed by the timing than the suggestion.
“Not now,” he clarifies, and Sasha relaxes beneath him. “And… not here.”
Here meaning Rio, the Olympics, the two most important weeks of their lives. Here meaning an apartment he shares with seven of his teammates, where every moment he and Sasha can get alone has to be coordinated with Matt and depends on their luck not running out.
“Not here,” Sasha agrees quietly.
“Yeah. I just…” Danny exhales, dropping his chin onto Sasha’s chest. “I don’t want to be in a rush, you know? Like… I don’t want to have to be, like, checking our phones or worrying about someone walking in. I just want it to be, like, the two of us.”
Sasha looks at him with eyes like the ocean, thousands of currents underneath that he can’t see. “But how…?”
It’s the unfinished question, hovering between them, that gives Danny his answer. Not right now, and not without a plan—but Sasha definitely wants to have sex with him. It’s there in his voice, wary yet hopeful as he waits for Danny’s response.
Except Danny still doesn’t know how he feels about anal.
He just can’t get into those porn videos, no matter how hard he tries; and honestly, if Sasha were a girl, it wouldn’t be on his radar.
But Sasha isn’t a girl, and the type of sex he’s used to isn’t even possible anymore, so he kind of needs to get over it.
Be open-minded. Try something new. And if anal’s half as good as what they did today, he’ll enjoy it. Right?
“Maybe… we could get a hotel room?” he hedges, not wanting to keep Sasha in suspense. “Like, next year, at Worlds? If… if we’re both there?”
He can see Sasha considering the logistics, his eyes clouded over in thought. “If it is safe,” he finally says, looking back at Danny. “Then—okay. Yes.”
And Danny doesn’t even care that he’s not sure yet, because Sasha’s smiling at him, and that’s all he needs.
“Sounds like a plan,” he says, grinning as he leans forward.
It’s a kiss that quickly turns into something more, tongues and wandering hands, an arch in Sasha’s eyebrow when Danny reaches down. “Again?” he whispers, shifting to give Danny room; and then, five seconds later: “Okay, but—fast?”
As they lose themselves in what little time they have left, Danny lets his doubts fade into the rearview mirror, twinkling like traffic lights before they slip away. After all, they have over a year until Worlds.
He’ll be ready by then.
Definitely.
*
Danny insists on hugging Sasha before he leaves, which, Sasha points out, is unnecessary, because they already hugged last week.
But Danny laughs at him, and then he says, “Come here,” and—whatever.
Sasha’s accepted that Danny’s going to do this every time they see each other, and it’s not like it really bothers him.
He just doesn’t understand why it has to happen so often.
“Oh, hey,” Danny says when they separate. “So, uh, my parents are visiting tomorrow.”
The Hartmans arrived in Rio a few days ago; Sasha had nearly spat out his breakfast when Danny texted him a picture of their “Team Danny” shirts, Buddy and Luna’s faces printed on the front.
They’ve been staying at a hotel right outside the Olympic Village, and they’ll be attending all of Danny’s competitions, including the high bar final next week.
Sasha’s mother isn’t coming to Brazil, because there’s no reason for her to be here. They hadn’t even discussed it.
“That is nice,” he says, since Danny seems to be expecting something from him.
“Yeah. But, um…” Danny clears his throat, looking hopefully at Sasha. “Do you want to hang out with us?”
Sasha stares back at him. He’s pretty sure Danny isn’t joking, and he doesn’t know where to start with that.
“I mean, obviously not the whole day,” Danny clarifies, seeing Sasha’s expression.
“But, like, we’re getting lunch, and then we’re gonna walk around the Village, so I was thinking, like, maybe I could text you, and then you could just, like, happen to be there, like, I don’t know, at the rings or something, and then it’d be like, ‘Oh, look, it’s Sasha,’ and then we could hang out for, like, a few minutes, or, like, if you have more time… ”
“No,” Sasha says. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Danny’s parents.
They’d been very kind to him in Glasgow, Danny’s mother especially, considering they had no idea who he was to their son.
But even if the timing and the texting worked, even if the Hartmans didn’t question why Sasha was loitering around by himself at the Olympic rings, there’s still the fact that the Village is crawling with camera crews—not to mention all the athletes themselves, recording everything on their phones.
And he shouldn’t have to explain this to Danny.
“Oh. Okay.” Danny looks disappointed, but what else had he expected?
He knows how risky it is for them to meet each other in secret, never mind in public—although sometimes, Sasha wonders if he really understands, when he gets to live in a country where coming out is actually an option for him.
“Um, yeah, no, it’s cool. So, um, I guess I’ll see you Tuesday? ”
Tuesday. The team final.
“Yes.” Sasha glances at the door, then back at Danny. “Good luck,” he adds, not wanting to leave on an awkward note.
He can see Danny opening his mouth, the words You, too forming on his lips before he catches himself. “Thanks,” he says quickly. “Um, good luck to you guys, too. Maybe we can get a US-Russia podium this year.”
“Russia-US,” Sasha corrects him, and Danny laughs, flashes that movie-star smile of his.
“We’ll see,” he says.