Chapter 18
Danny’s on his way to Patty’s for an epic video game tournament when he gets a call from Sasha, which is weird, because it’s the middle of the afternoon and Sasha’s usually long asleep by now.
It’s hands-down the worst part of Danny’s day, his notifications pretty much a dead zone from noon to dinner, the hours dragging until Sasha’s awake again.
So when his phone rings and Sasha’s name flashes across the screen, he does a double take and almost runs a red light.
“Oh, shit, sorry!” he apologizes to the light, his car, and the person behind him as he slams on the brakes before answering the call.
“Hey, Sash! You’re up late. Are you still packing or something? ”
“Hello, Danny.” Sasha’s voice slides into his ear, slow and thick like honey squeezing out of a bottle. “I am not… I don’t know what you said. I am… I was… at, uh, bar? With Kirill. And Ilya and Oleg.”
“Yeah?” Danny asks, grinning as the light goes green and he turns onto the highway. “How much did you have to drink?”
“Not much,” Sasha promises. “Just little drunk.”
Danny laughs. “Dude, you’re gonna be miserable on the plane tomorrow. You better bring some Advil.”
“I am very happy to see you,” Sasha says, which is when Danny decides he’s taking the long way to Patty’s. “Tomorrow. No, two weeks.”
“I’m really happy to see you, too.” Danny shifts into the slow lane, easing up on the gas. “I can’t wait. Honestly, even just being in the same time zone’s gonna be awesome. Like, I can actually send you good morning texts and it’s gonna be, like, morning for you.”
Sasha hums in agreement, the sound traveling right down Danny’s spine. “You will call? At night?”
“Yeah, of course. Just text me when you guys are done for the day.”
“I like when you call,” Sasha explains. “I like your voice.”
Danny laughs again, even though he’s feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, hearing Sasha admit that. “You’re so drunk right now.”
“No!” Sasha says indignantly. “It is true!”
He bursts into giggles.
“It’s okay,” Danny says when Sasha calms down. “I won’t take advantage of you.”
“Take advantage?”
“Yeah, like I won’t try and have phone sex with you or anything,” Danny jokes. He’d definitely learned his lesson on that one, dirty talk going right up there with eye contact on his mental list of things that make Sasha uncomfortable in the bedroom.
“No?”
Sasha almost sounds disappointed, a very interesting development.
Danny wonders if it’s just the alcohol, or if Sasha’s actually been coming around to the idea; he makes a note to figure out which later, when Sasha isn’t hammered.
And also isn’t sharing a hotel room with his mom…
which they’ll be doing for the next two weeks. Damn it.
“I would totally phone hug you, though,” he says, keeping it PG for now. “Or phone kiss you—”
“I want to have sex with you,” Sasha announces.
Danny doesn’t completely swerve off the highway, but it’s a good thing no one’s in the bike lane. “Uh… yeah, same,” he says, wincing as someone honks at him. “But, uh… maybe we should talk about this when you’re sober?”
It’s a total copout. He knows Sasha’s ready for anal—because sex is anal, in Sasha’s dictionary—and that it’s only a matter of finding the time and privacy so they won’t be interrupted.
That’s why, in Rio, Danny had suggested getting a hotel room at the next World Championships, hoping he’d be ready by then, too.
But now, with Sasha staying in his house for two weeks, there’s no reason to wait until the fall.
Except… he’s still not sure how he feels about anal.
Which is so stupid, because he’s had literally a whole year to figure that out; and besides, when you’re with another guy, it’s just…
expected, right? But no matter how many porn videos he tries to reassure himself with, scene after scene of people (actors) clearly (supposedly) enjoying it, he can’t shake the thought that it looks kind of painful. And messy.
(Though at least his research wasn’t wasted—he’d stumbled upon the frotting category and realized that was what you called the whole “grinding against your boyfriend’s dick” thing, which was both useful information and very hot to watch, even if it didn’t solve his problem.)
“No! No, we can talk now, I am sober,” Sasha says eagerly, the word “sober” slurred almost beyond recognition. “I know I never did this before—sorry—but I am ready.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Danny frowns, realizing that Sasha must be assuming he’s done this before. But he doesn’t get the chance to correct him, because Sasha’s started talking again.
“Do you have, uh… how do you say… pres… preser… preservations? And… oil?”
Danny exhales. Talking about sex supplies feels a lot easier than deciding whether or not he actually wants to use said supplies, and besides, he’s probably overthinking all of this anyway.
Like, instead of watching porn, which isn’t even real, he should just give it a try with Sasha, and it’ll be fine. Right?
“Uh… I don’t know what preservations are, but I can get, like, condoms and lube, if that’s what you mean?”
“Condoms! Yes. Very important.” Sasha giggles again, then lowers his voice conspiratorially. “I can’t bring with me, I don’t want my mother to see. Can you…?”
“Don’t worry, I got it,” Danny says automatically.
It’s just condoms, he tells himself, not a commitment. He can always change his mind later. And who knows, maybe Sasha won’t even remember this conversation.
Still, it’s a relief to see the sign for Patty’s exit. “Uh, I gotta go soon,” he says, nixing his plans for the scenic route. “You should probably get some sleep, you’re gonna be up early tomorrow.”
“I don’t want sleep,” Sasha insists. “I want to talk to you more. Or you talk to me.”
“Why, cause you like my voice?”
Danny’s only teasing, but Sasha doesn’t seem to notice. “Yes,” he says seriously. “I like it very much. I wish… I wish you can talk to me always. I miss you every day I am not seeing you.”
“I miss you, too,” Danny replies, his heart doing a full twist. Sasha never says stuff like this, not unless Danny says it first; and while he doesn’t like keeping score, it’s hard not to sometimes.
But hearing Sasha let his guard down and actually admit some of his feelings, even if he’s only doing it because he’s drunk…
yeah, Danny could get used to this. “And I wish I could talk to you more. But we’ll see each other soon, okay? ”
“Okay,” Sasha agrees, audibly cheering up. “Can you talk? Until you have to go?”
“Yeah, of course,” Danny promises. “I’m here.”
Sorry, Patty—looks like it’s going to be the scenic route after all.
*
As a little kid, Sasha had noticed how nervous his mother would get whenever they ventured beyond one of their usual places, clutching maps and bus schedules to her chest as tightly as she held his hand.
At every street corner, she would make him stop and wait while she consulted her guides, no matter how impatiently he tried to tug her along; and when they finally reached their destination, she always had to sit down and rest (“Sasha, please, just give me a minute”).
By the time he turned eight, he was pulling the directions out of her grasp, and once he started traveling around Europe for gymnastics competitions, she’d accepted that they were better off with him navigating.
Several years ago, they’d even managed a short vacation to Turkey, where he and Kirill had run amok around beaches and water parks while Alina read through a stack of romance novels.
But they’ve never gone as far as the United States before, and unlike Turkey, America doesn’t cater to Russian tourists.
Despite Alina’s eagerness to see San Francisco—something she’s talked about for as long as Sasha can remember—it’s obvious that she’s been fretting more as the trip’s gotten closer, judging by how many times she’s asked him if he’s sure he knows how they’ll get from the airport to the hotel.
So when he walks into the kitchen on the morning of their flight, he’s fully expecting to find her in a frenzy, stress-cleaning the counters as she worries about American Uber drivers—and that’s why he’s surprised to find her sitting still at the table, white-knuckling a cup of tea as she stares at something on her tablet.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Alina jumps, tea splattering over the tablet. She quickly turns it off, but not before Sasha glimpses the logo of a news site. “Oh my goodness, Sasha, you scared me,” she says, dabbing at the screen with her napkin. “What time did you get in last night? I didn’t even hear you.”
“Not that late, maybe two?” Sasha guesses, trying to remember when he’d finished his call with Danny (which is only a hazy smear in his mind, so he hopes he didn’t say anything too embarrassing).
It’s around eight now; he’d woken up with a start, instantly aware of how close he was to seeing Danny again, the knowledge jolting through his veins like an electric shock.
“Well, let me make you something.” Alina sets the tablet aside and gets up, beating him to the refrigerator. As she’s rummaging around inside, she asks, “Honey, are you sure we wouldn’t be better off taking a taxi from the airport?”
They rehash the logistics over breakfast, Sasha pulling out his laptop to show her every ticket and reservation in the itinerary, from Los Angeles to San Francisco to San Diego.
Then they practice some English phrases, Alina slowly and carefully sounding out the “basics” list in her pocket travel guide, glancing at Sasha to make sure she’s pronouncing each word correctly.
It’s not until much later, when they’re getting ready to leave for the airport, that Sasha recalls the news site Alina had been on earlier, and how grim she’d looked as she scrolled through whatever article she was reading.
While she’s in the bathroom, he quickly pulls up the site on his phone, wondering if there’s some sort of economic crisis or if she was scaring herself by searching for plane crash stories again.
Nothing seems out of the ordinary—just the usual doom and gloom, front and center like always—and after a few half-hearted scrolls, he gives up on trying to figure out what was bothering her.
But as he’s about to close the browser window, he gets distracted by a small headline at the bottom corner of the screen, half-buried in a list of other headlines: “President denies imprisonment, torture of gay men in Chechnya.”
Before Sasha can think twice about his internet history, he’s already opened the article, his pulse racing as he scans the print.
According to an LGBT organization in Moscow, the Chechnyan police have been arresting and torturing gay men—the writer blandly alluding to “beatings,” no further details, with the prisoners “allegedly” being held for days or weeks, no information about their ultimate fates.
The article is quick to declare that these are “unverified” claims, citing an official’s statement that the first reports in the spring were “an April Fool’s joke.
” There’s also a quote from the head of the republic, insisting that the stories aren’t true because “there are no gay men in Chechnya,” and another from the press and information minister, adding that anyone who suggests otherwise should be ashamed of themselves for such a “filthy provocation.”
But Sasha doesn’t believe that for a second, feels the truth churning like acid in his stomach as he finishes reading.
He’s never been to Chechnya before, not even for a gymnastics meet—apart from being a full day’s drive away, the Muslim-majority republic has almost nothing in common with Moscow, having been forced into the federation after losing a bloody, brutal war less than ten years ago.
But while he doesn’t really know all that much else about it, he does remember Uncle Dima pausing in the middle of a rant, grudgingly conceding that at least the Chechens had “the right idea” about gay people.
Of course, he’d used other words instead of “gay people.”
Sasha reads the article again, his heart thumping against his lungs, one frantic beat after another in a ribcage that feels like it’s getting smaller every second.
No matter how different or distant Chechnya and Moscow may be, there’s nothing stopping the police in Moscow from rounding up men like him—and hardly anyone would care if they did.
The loud creak of the bathroom door makes him jump, and he shoves his phone into his pocket just as Alina returns to the kitchen.
“All right, dear, are we ready?”
It’s not happening here, Sasha reminds himself, trying to take a deep breath without his mother noticing. And even if it were, no one knows about me.
But the excitement that he’d woken up with this morning is gone, his eagerness to see Danny overridden by a sudden, desperate desire to get the fuck out of the country.
“Let’s go,” he says, swallowing.