Chapter 15 #2
“No,” Sasha answers quickly—he must not have explained it well. “We are in Los Angeles for a few days, I am not sure yet. I can see you each day.”
There’s another pause, Danny’s brow furrowing in a way that makes Sasha feel like this wasn’t the right response. “So… you don’t want me to meet your mom,” he finally says.
Hearing it like that, Sasha winces—it does sound kind of shitty, especially since he’s already met Danny’s parents. And Danny had been so excited about it, too, calling him over at the last World Championships to introduce “the guy from Russia I was telling you about.”
But that was different, Sasha reminds himself.
Danny has an entire United Nations’ worth of friends; a random Russian probably hadn’t even registered with the Hartmans.
Whereas Sasha has Kirill, and Ilya and Oleg, and maybe a few other teammates whose company he enjoys while they’re training, though he wouldn’t necessarily want to spend his days off with them.
He can’t remember the last time he introduced a friend to his mother, and when he tries to imagine telling her about Danny, it’s like getting a mental block at the gym, his mind refusing to cooperate. What the fuck would he even say?
“But like, she knows we’re friends, right?” Danny asks. “So we could just…” He trails off, looking uncertain, then crestfallen when Sasha doesn’t answer. “Wait, you’ve never told her about me? Like, ever?”
“Danny…” Sasha wishes he could apologize and actually mean it, because it’s obvious that Danny’s hurt; but even now, he doesn’t see what other option he had.
“It’s fine.” Danny isn’t looking at Sasha anymore. His eyes are fixed on something off-screen, and Sasha has a feeling it’s Buddy, from the way his arm keeps moving. “I get it.”
“You do?”
Sasha doesn’t intend for the question to come out the way it does, abrupt and graceless like a bar of soap slipping from his hands in the shower, but he can’t help thinking they wouldn’t be having this conversation if Danny actually understood.
“Yeah, Sasha, I do.” Danny exhales, then looks back at the screen, small lines notched in his forehead. “But… are you ever gonna tell her, though? Like, not even about us, just… about you.”
“No.”
Danny seems to be waiting for Sasha to continue, but as far as Sasha’s concerned, there’s nothing else to say. Finally, Danny asks, “Has she ever, like, made any comments about gay people?”
Gay people. Sasha’s stomach turns a little, even though that’s what he is—because apart from Danny, no one in his life has ever said those words and meant them in a good way. “No,” he replies, trying to keep his voice steady. “But my uncles, yes. And she does not say anything.”
Not that Alina argues with them often, unless they’re swearing too much at the dinner table; but he’s seen her scolding Uncle Senya for some of his remarks about women, and if Uncle Dima so much as mentions Armenians, she says his full name, “Dmitry,” low and cold in a way that sends everyone around them scrambling for cover.
It’s only when Uncle Borya makes a joke about effeminate men, or Uncle Dima tells them all exactly what he thinks those pidori deserve—and where—that Alina presses her lips together and sits, stone silent, as if the subject is too distasteful for her to even acknowledge.
“I’m sorry,” Danny replies, and Sasha shrugs, not wanting to admit how much it bothers him, how little he breathes until the conversation is safe again. “Do you think… I mean, maybe she doesn’t agree with them?”
“Maybe.” But Sasha has no intention of finding out if she does, and something in his expression must have said precisely that, because Danny drops it. Sort of.
“What about Kirill?”
“I don’t know.” And he actually doesn’t, which is the unsettling part—especially since he’s heard Kirill’s opinions on pretty much everything else, from girls to hair products to chalk brands. “He said things, when we were younger. But I did, too.”
Before he’d realized he was all those words, and the jokes had stopped being funny.
Kirill, on the other hand, used to be at the center of the juniors’ locker room—talking shit, getting laughs—until he’d abruptly quieted down their second or third year at Round Lake, telling Sasha he’d realized he needed to be more focused on gymnastics.
But even though he’s not making jokes anymore, either, he doesn’t blink when their teammates do it, and he doesn’t tell them to shut up like he would if they were saying something about Armenians.
“Well, they might surprise you—”
“Danny,” Sasha cuts him off sharply. He knows where Danny’s heading with this, and the answer’s no.
He’s not going to risk his friendship with Kirill, his entire fucking relationship with his mother, when at best Kirill might be indifferent and his mother might keep quiet about her disapproval. And at worst…
“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. We’ll figure out something else, then,” Danny says, and it takes Sasha another beat to remember they were talking about the trip. “I just want to see you for more than a few hours.”
Danny’s looking intently at the camera, like he’s expecting a reply, and Sasha doesn’t know what to tell him. Of course he wants to see Danny for more than a few hours, too—but how are they supposed to manage that with Alina there? All he had was his plan, and then Danny threw it out.
“Hey, what if you and your mom split up for the day?” Danny asks suddenly, straightening. “Like, she could go do something by herself, and then we could hang out?”
“She can’t do something by herself. She does not speak English. Or read. I have to help her.”
“Oh.” Danny’s shoulders drop. “Right. Shit. Um…”
There’s a long pause, neither of them coming up with a better idea.
“Well, you said June or July, right?” Danny finally asks, and Sasha nods. “Okay. So we’ll figure it out. Just… don’t buy any tickets yet, okay?”
Sasha promises he won’t. “I should…”
Danny makes one of his disgruntled humming noises, which Sasha only ever hears when they have to end their calls. “Top-secret vault tomorrow?”
“Maybe,” Sasha replies, though he’s pretty sure his cheeks are giving him away.
He and his coach Arkady have been working on a new vault for a couple of months now, but it’s not consistent yet, and he doesn’t want to jinx it by telling Danny (yes, he knows that’s stupid, and no, it doesn’t matter).
Even Kirill doesn’t have the Blanik, a front handspring followed by a double front flip in a piked position—it’s insanely difficult, not to mention the minefield of possible execution deductions.
“Okay, okay. As long as I can see it at Euros.” When this earns no more than a noncommittal sound from Sasha, Danny grins and asks, “Talk to you Wednesday?”
Because it’s Wednesdays now, in addition to Sundays; the twice-a-week phone calls while Danny was on the road had continued, as Sasha suspected they might, long after the tour was over.
He still worries, sometimes, that there won’t be enough to discuss since the last call—how was gym, good, what’d you work on, vault—but then Danny tells a ten-minute story about running into his physical therapist at the dog park, and Sasha relaxes again.
He’s told everyone he’s taking English lessons, which isn’t far from the truth—his listening comprehension’s never been better.
“I miss you,” Danny says at the end of their phone call, and Sasha catches himself touching the screen, even though—or maybe because—Danny can’t see him do it.
“I miss you, too.”
He’d been embarrassed, once, to admit that. Now it’s like the words are always in his mouth, just waiting for Danny to say them first.