Chapter 26
As much as Sasha’s enjoying coaching with Danny, what he’s really looking forward to is training with him.
He knows he shouldn’t have any expectations for their first practice—after two weeks of vacation, he’ll be lucky just to get back up to baseline—but he can’t help it.
He’s spent months imagining what it’ll be like to work out together, to have someone even better than Kirill to push himself against. And Danny has so many skills that Sasha doesn’t; he’s made a list of them on his phone, organized by event and priority, so he can remember to ask for pointers.
The campers leave at noon, and after debriefing with the other coaches, Danny and Sasha head back to the Hartmans’ for a quick lunch and a long walk with Buddy and Luna.
At half past one, they’re in the gym again, Danny leading Sasha over to the mat that has the dubious distinction of being shared by the rings, pommel horse, and parallel bars.
There’s barely enough space for both of them to stretch, and it gets downright crowded when Coach Garrett joins them a moment later, sitting on one of the mushroom-shaped stools used by the little kids for learning pommel horse. “How’s the ankle?” he asks Danny.
“It’s better, yeah—”
“What happened with your ankle?” Sasha interrupts, frowning. Danny’s had ankle injuries his whole career, a lather-rinse-repeat of twists-sprains-breaks, but this is the first he’s heard of something recent.
“Nothing,” Danny says quickly. “I just tweaked it last week. But it’s fine—iced it, did some PT, so. Good as new.”
“Well, we’ll take it easy. I don’t want you pushing it before Nationals.” Coach Garrett turns to Sasha. “What about you? Any injuries I need to know about?”
Sasha’s still looking up “tweaked” in his mental English dictionary, and it takes him a moment to answer. “No. No injuries.”
Knock on wood, of course, and if there were any actual wood nearby, he’d be knocking away. He’s had injuries before, he doesn’t know anyone at this level who hasn’t, but so far nothing serious, nothing that’s still giving him trouble years later.
“Great, we’ll see where you’re at today,” Coach Garrett says. “Is there anything you want to work on?”
Sasha has never, in the history of his entire gymnastics career, been asked that question by a coach.
He doesn’t even know how to respond, because he has no idea what Danny usually does first, or what Danny was planning to focus on today, and obviously—if Coach Garrett is in fact just letting them decide—Danny should get priority, since it’s his gym.
Isn’t this your job? he wants to ask Coach Garrett. Why the fuck does it matter what I want to do?
But Coach Garrett’s still watching him, so Sasha mumbles something about high bar, which at least is Danny’s favorite event (and also the one with the most skills on his wish list).
“Coach, you gotta see his Cassina,” Danny says immediately. “It’s like art.”
“I saw it, you showed me a video,” Coach Garrett reminds him. “It was excellent.”
Sasha raises his eyebrows at Danny, because how many videos of him is Danny going around and showing people? Even Danny’s mom had mentioned his Cassina the other day (well, she’d called it a Cassandra, but still).
“Hey, speaking of Cassinas,” Danny says, “Noah Park’s getting really close on his, look.” He takes out his phone, pausing in the middle of a foam roller stretch to search for the video, then hands it over to Coach Garrett.
“Oh, that’s a lot better. Is he still at Denver Dreams?”
“Nah, he started at LA U last year.” Danny passes the phone to Sasha, who gives it a cursory glance before returning to his straddle stretch. “I wish we overlapped, that would have been sick. He’s killing it.”
“What about that kid from Texas? The one Cal said they got last-minute, and he had a Cassina and a Kolman connected?”
“Cody? Aw, yeah, he actually transferred, he’s at Stanford now…”
Sasha finishes his entire stretching routine while Danny and Coach Garrett talk—and talk and talk and talk—about college gymnastics, Los Angeles traffic, some American sports team called the Dodgers, and Danny’s dentist who’s also Coach Garrett’s younger sister’s husband.
With Danny still on his foam roller and no sign that the actual workout is going to begin anytime soon, Sasha moves on to conditioning.
Fifteen minutes later, he’s gone through all the jumps, lunges, push-ups, handstand presses, and sit-up variations in his usual warm-up, while Danny’s only just getting started on his stretching, seemingly much more interested in chatting with Coach Garrett about someone’s family reunion; Sasha has no idea whose.
He can’t believe this is how Danny’s training six weeks out from a major competition—when Coach Garrett had said “take it easy,” Sasha had thought he meant fewer repetitions, not doing nothing.
Normally, he wouldn’t go on the equipment without a coach’s instructions, but when Danny starts showing Coach Garrett a video of Buddy playing with a stuffed squid, Sasha decides he’s had enough.
Getting up from the floor, he scouts out the nearest apparatus—the pommel horse—and edges over to it, half expecting Coach Garrett to yell at him.
But no one says anything, so he puts on his wrist supports and warms up with some basic scissors.
“Can you do the Hartman?” Danny immediately asks, shooting puppy-dog eyes from a split.
Sasha obliges, and the glow on Danny’s face is almost enough to make him forget his earlier irritation—that is, until he starts working the horse in earnest and Danny decides to comment on every. single. skill.
Sometimes it’s a “nice” or a “yeah,” mundane enough that Sasha can ignore it; but sometimes it’s a random word like “juicy” or “money,” which is a lot more distracting, because what the hell does money have to do with a Magyar?
Then there’s an “Oh, yeah, now we’re flowing” when Sasha’s just doing circles, a “Wow, sent that shit to Mars” after Sasha launches into a handstand for his Tippelt, and about twenty hoots of “yes, sir” for reasons unknown.
Sasha’s gritting his teeth tighter than he’s gripping the handles, muscles straining from both the workout and the effort it’s taking for him not to lose his cool.
He knows Danny talks all the time, he’s heard the things Danny’s said at meets, and yet—somehow, for an actual training session, without an audience to engage, he’d assumed Danny would buckle down and focus.
Instead, it’s almost the opposite, like he’s not taking the workout seriously at all.
“Damn,” Danny says, wolf-whistling when Sasha’s in the middle of a flair sequence, legs straddled as he whips around the horse. “That is sexy.”
Sasha’s hand slips off the leather surface, his ribcage crunching against one of the handles before he falls onto the mat.
Slowly, he picks himself up, pressing his hand against his side as he looks at Danny—who’s still talking, apparently oblivious to the fact that he just called Sasha “sexy” in front of Coach Garrett.
“Oh, too soon, I jinxed it. You okay?”
“Danny,” Sasha says, very quietly and very carefully, not daring to look at Coach Garrett. “Talking is distracting.”
“Right, sorry.” Danny gives him a my bad grin that Sasha thinks is supposed to be charming, but just pisses him off even more. Especially after he remounts the horse and hears Danny whispering to Coach Garrett, “I love how intense he is. It’s, like, scary, but like in a good way.”
Five minutes later: “Are you working a Busnari?”
Sasha pauses the handstand drill he’s doing, taking a few seconds to catch his breath as he considers the interruption.
Danny’s been relatively quiet since Sasha confronted him—although he’s started drumming on his foam roller in between stretches, like he’s physically incapable of existing without making at least some kind of noise—and besides, the Busnari is at the top of Sasha’s list.
As far as skills in men’s gymnastics go, the Busnari’s one of the hardest: pressing yourself up to a handstand, spinning around while traveling across the pommel horse, and then coming back down to continue your routine, all without losing your momentum or dying from exhaustion.
In the Code of Points, where elements are ranked from A (basic) to H (death wish), the Busnari is an F. Danny has it; Sasha doesn’t.
“Yes.” Sasha glances hopefully at Danny, who seems like he might almost be done with his warm-up routine. “Not for Worlds. For next year. I am still having difficulty with finish.”
“I knew it,” Danny crows. “The last time we were on the phone, you were being so sneaky about your routine.” Pulling out of a back stretch, he stands up, hands on his hips, eyes on Sasha.
“Can you do that handstand timer again?” When Sasha does, he makes a thoughtful “hm” sound, then says, “There’s something about how you’re coming out of it… Let me show you what I do.”
Sasha steps aside, and Danny gets on the horse, loosening up with some circles before he pushes into a handstand. Even when he’s upside-down, he’s talking—but this time, he’s explaining his technique, so Sasha pays close attention.
“…plus it’s, like, way easier to keep going.” Danny comes back down, not in the least bit winded. “So when you put it all together…”
And then, just a few more circles later, he performs the full Busnari.
It’s not completely flawless, but still—it’s a Busnari.
And Danny’s doing it like it’s nothing, his second turn on the equipment with barely a warm-up, the way another elite gymnast might casually do a backflip on the floor.
Jesus Christ. Kirill would shit himself if he could see this right now.
Sasha doesn’t even bother pretending he’s not impressed; the awed murmur that had slipped out of him while Danny was still in the air would have been a dead giveaway. “That was really good.”
“Thanks.” Danny flashes him a grin. “Can’t wait to see yours.”
“If I get it.”