Chapter 37
Danny spends most of breakfast on Monday double-checking to make sure he and Sasha are still okay.
Sasha smiled at him when he came downstairs, which seems like a good sign—until Danny starts wondering if maybe it was a smaller smile than usual, and if Sasha’s really reading the newspaper or just ignoring him.
That’s why, as soon as his parents aren’t paying attention, he nudges Sasha’s foot under the table, holding his breath until Sasha nudges him back.
He also asks Sasha what he’s eating (“Buckwheat,” Sasha says, looking confused, probably because it’s the same thing he’s had for breakfast basically every day since he got here); what he wants to work on at gymnastics this week (“Busnari,” no further details, making Danny worry again that Sasha’s secretly mad at him); and what kind of shark he’s going to draw for Nicole today (at which point Sasha raises his eyebrows, and Danny realizes he needs to stop…
although he feels a lot better when Sasha says “Hammer shark”).
It’s just that he’d gotten spooked yesterday, watching Sasha work himself up to suggesting they shouldn’t be together anymore.
Hearing the first half of that sentence—and realizing where Sasha was going with it—had been like waking up in the middle of the night to a fire alarm.
Panicking and scrambling for safety, he’d promised again to never tell anyone about them…
…And pretty much extinguished his chances of convincing Sasha to make an exception for his parents.
“Oh, boys, before I forget,” Diane says, setting her second cup of coffee down on the table, “you’re on your own for dinner on Friday.”
Score! Danny instinctively thinks. Home alone with Sasha. They’ll be good for real by then, right? “You guys going somewhere?”
“Well, your father surprised me with a night at the Montage”—Diane beams at Andy—“so we’re going to have a nice evening, and then we’ll be back… oh, I’d say Saturday afternoon?”
“Wow.” The Montage in Laguna Beach is one of the fanciest hotels in the area; as far as romantic gestures go, that’s some serious shit. “Nice one, Dad.”
“There may have been a few hints,” Andy says dryly, but from the way he winks at Diane, it’s obvious that he’s looking forward to their time together.
“Yes, so, you boys will have the house to yourselves—just don’t throw any parties,” Diane laughs.
Danny’s stomach does a weird belly flop as he glances at Sasha, who’s gone completely still in his seat. When they make eye contact, Danny can feel the heat in Sasha’s stare—it’s like taking one step too close to a bonfire—and he swallows, because he knows exactly what Sasha wants.
At least he doesn’t have to worry if they’re okay now.
Sasha waits until they’re in the garage, tossing their gym bags in the back of Danny’s car. “So… Friday?”
“Yeah. Friday.” Danny forces a smile, wondering what’s wrong with him.
Other guys talk about anal as if it’s the Super Bowl of sex, so why isn’t he more excited to do it with Sasha?
He doesn’t even have to be on the receiving end.
He’s, like, Tom Brady in this scenario. If anyone should be freaking out, it’s Sasha.
“Can we cancel hotel room?” Sasha asks. “Easier if we stay here.”
Danny blanks for a second, and then—oh. Right. The hotel room he was supposed to get, and didn’t, because he kept putting it off. “Uh, yeah, no, it’s fine,” he says, ducking into the driver’s side so he doesn’t have to look at Sasha when he lies. “We can cancel.”
Alone in the car, he has the fleeting thought that maybe he should just tell Sasha he’s having doubts, that he might not be ready after all.
But then Sasha slides into the passenger seat, smiling and even blushing a little, and Danny doesn’t have the heart to disappoint him.
Besides, if he backs out now, then they’ll have to wait until the World Championships in October, where it’ll be a lot harder to find enough privacy.
You just need to go for it. Rip off the band-aid. Commit.
It’s the same thing he’d told himself as a teenager when he was balking on his Yurchenko vault, scared shitless of diving backwards onto the table.
He’d known he was capable of performing the skill, at least physically—it was the mental block that was the biggest hurdle.
And sure enough, as soon as he pushed through the nerves and did it for the first time, it was totally fine; he couldn’t even remember what he’d gotten so worked up about.
“Danny?”
He realizes he’s been staring off into space, the car key loose in his hand. “Shit. Sorry. You ready?”
“Yes?” Sasha tilts his head, and Danny can’t blame him; it was a stupid question. “Are you?”
“Uh…” Flustered, Danny fumbles with the key, finally managing to get it into the ignition. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s go.”
God, he really hopes anal sex is like that Yurchenko vault.
*
Over the past few years, Sasha’s disciplined himself to never, ever think about Danny during practice—well, fine, almost never—because otherwise, he wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing. Now when he walks into the gym at Round Lake, it’s like flicking a switch: gymnastics on, Danny off.
The problem is, this doesn’t work half as well when he’s training with Danny, and it doesn’t work at all when he knows Danny’s going to be fucking him on Friday.
Suddenly, everything’s a distraction: the ripple of Danny’s back and shoulder muscles as he swings around the high bar, the sweat glistening on his chest as he pulls himself into a cross on the rings.
All those planches and straddle presses on floor, his ass on full display in Sasha’s peripheral vision—it’s slow, steady, drip-drip torture, and Sasha has no idea how he’s going to make it through an entire week of this.
Needless to say, it’s not his best workout, and he’s relieved when they finally get to the cooldown. Which, as usual, means he’s the one doing the cooldown while Danny watches gymnastics videos with Coach Garrett.
“Wes Morin just posted this today, look…”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Coach Garrett says. “He’s at Michigan, right?”
“Yeah. He crushed it at Nattys this year, he got All-American on floor and I think on high bar, too…”
Danny leans over, showing the video to Sasha.
It’s a long-distance, shitty-quality Instagram story of someone training a double-twisting double back flip, which, whatever, Kirill could do that in his sleep.
Sasha’s more interested in the gym; it looks familiar to him, though he can’t put his finger on why.
“Where is this?”
“The OTC—sorry, the Olympic Training Center. In Colorado,” Danny explains.
Now Sasha remembers. Danny goes there sometimes for his national team camps, and it’s where the top American men always seem to practice together before Worlds or the Olympics.
But Sasha doesn’t recognize the athlete in the video, and besides, they’re not coming up on any major international competitions.
“Why is he there?”
“Wes? Oh, he wants to train there after he graduates. You have to apply for it, it’s like a whole thing. But anyway, he got an invite from one of the coaches to try it out over the summer.”
“He can train there? This is allowed?”
Danny looks confused by Sasha’s confusion.
“Yeah, there’s a residency program? It’s a pretty sweet deal, actually, like, you live there and they cover all your training and medical expenses.
And they have doctors and nutritionists, too, so it’s like this whole team that’s just, like, supporting you. ”
Sasha takes a moment to process this, because what Danny’s describing sounds almost exactly like Round Lake. He could have sworn, though, that the Americans didn’t have a centralized system, that they were all spread out at their own gyms—Danny’s definitely never mentioned any of this before.
“Why aren’t you there?”
“Uh. Cause this is my gym?” Danny laughs a little, his eyes darting to Coach Garrett. “And I don’t want to move to Colorado.”
“So?” Sasha doesn’t see what want has to do with it. “Olympians train there, yes?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“You need to train with best gymnasts. And they are not here.”
Coach Garrett wanders off in the direction of his office, muttering something about making a phone call. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Danny says, “Dude. My coach was, like, right there.”
Sasha shrugs; he hasn’t said anything Coach Garrett shouldn’t already know.
“Sasha, you just told me to ditch him, like, right in front of him!”
Sasha’s pretty sure he can guess what “ditch him” means, but he’s at a loss as to why Danny looks so upset. “He is coach, he wants his gymnasts to be best, yes? Arkady sent me to Round Lake when I was ten.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he shouldn’t have,” Danny shoots back, which doesn’t make any sense at all, so Sasha just stares at him. “After what they did to you? Come on.”
Sasha stiffens. Getting smacked around a few times early in his career has nothing to do with anything; Danny didn’t need to fucking bring it up.
“Look, it’s just… different here, okay?” Danny says after a moment.
He’s speaking slowly and quietly, as if he’s trying to stay calm—or he thinks Sasha needs to be addressed like a child.
“Like, yeah, we have the OTC, but not everyone trains there. I thought about it, but I don’t want to leave my family and my friends, and then I’d never get to see Buddy and Luna, so… ”
Jesus Christ. In other words, Danny’s nice and comfortable in California, living in his parents’ mansion, hanging out with his high school friends, watching reality TV with his dogs.
Everything on easy mode for him, the biggest fish in a tiny pond, no one at his gym remotely capable of challenging him.
And maybe this shouldn’t bother Sasha as much as it does, because it’s Danny’s life at the end of the day, not his—except it’s infuriating that Danny can be so talented and yet so uninterested in reaching his potential.
Sasha would kill to be able to do some of the skills he’s seen Danny “just playing around” with, has had to grind and slog and fucking work for everything he’s gotten, but Danny can’t even be bothered to move to another state.
“…plus I’ve trained here, like, my whole life.” Danny’s still talking, still making excuses. “Coach Garrett’s, like, my dad. Or, like, my second dad, you know? And I—”
“No, I don’t know,” Sasha snaps, and Danny’s eyes widen, his cheeks suddenly pale.
“Fuck—Sasha—I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Sasha shrugs, not because it didn’t bother him, but because he doesn’t want to hear Danny’s apologies.
“Sash—”
Sasha shrugs again, forcefully enough to make it mean stop talking, and brings them back to where they were before.
“You should be in Colorado. You need better training. This…” He gestures, a vague hand motion encompassing all of it: the cramped gym, the outdated equipment, the coach who sits around and watches videos with Danny instead of telling him to put his phone away. “Not good. Not for you.”
Danny’s face is going from white to red, and his voice shakes a little when he says, “Sasha, just… drop it, okay?”
“What?” Sasha’s not holding anything. He even checks.
“Drop it. Like… let’s just talk about something else.”
Sasha doesn’t want to do that; he wants to keep pushing his point until Danny understands. But before he can, Coach Garrett emerges from the office, and Danny calls out to him, relief washing over his expression.
“Hey, Coach, did you see Noah Park’s floor video the other day? He’s getting, like, insane height on his double Arabian…”