Chapter 43 #2
It’s a nice thought; Sasha has a brief vision of Danny in a fluffy bathrobe, waiting for him in a king-sized bed.
They’ve never been able to travel together before, because inevitably whenever one of them has time off, the other’s doing a competition or a national team camp.
And Sasha doubts next year’s going to be any different.
But he doesn’t want to say no to Danny, not now. So he nods again, relieved when Danny brightens.
“Sweet, where do you want to go? Do you have a bucket list, or—ooh, what if we go to Paris? Cause the Olympics are gonna be there.”
“Uh…” We should probably focus on Tokyo first, Sasha almost answers, stopping himself just in time. Paris isn’t really the point here. “Okay, yes. Paris is good.”
“Done.” Danny grins and pulls out his phone. “Let’s see where the arena’s gonna be…”
Distracted by Danny and the glowing screen, Sasha doesn’t notice the police officer until he’s standing right in front of them.
“Gentlemen.”
Sasha yanks his arm away from Danny, but it’s too late. He looks up, heart in his throat, white-hot terror spiking through his chest as he registers the uniform and the badge, the gun holstered at the officer’s hip.
For a frozen, desperate second, he thinks—No. This isn’t happening. He must have fallen asleep, and now he’s back in his nightmare, that’s all. He just needs to wake himself up, and then he’ll be safe again.
But this isn’t a dream, because he can still smell the ocean. Can still feel the towel and the lumps of sand underneath his legs. Can still hear an American accent as the policeman says something like “Good evening,” a meaningless prelude to whatever he’s going to do to them.
“Hey, officer, what’s up?” Danny asks, and that’s the last part of the conversation Sasha understands before he forgets how to speak English, forgets how to breathe, forgets everything except fear.
He’s vaguely aware of Danny talking to the police officer, their voices muffled, like he’s underwater and they’re above the surface; he wants to elbow Danny, warn him somehow to keep his mouth shut, but his body won’t let him move.
He has no idea if they’re about to get arrested, if that’s a thing that can happen in America, even with their pride parades and rainbow sidewalks.
It doesn’t seem possible for “gay rights” to exist when he’s sitting on the ground, staring at a police officer’s gun.
Or maybe they do but the man in front of them doesn’t care, and they’ll wind up in the backseat of his cruiser and then—
Sasha blinks, and the police officer’s gone.
“Anyway, what were we—oh, yeah, Paris,” Danny’s saying. “Okay, so, I can’t find anything about the arena, but whatever, we’ll figure it out. I definitely wanna climb the Eiffel Tower, and we should do the cathedral…”
For a moment, Sasha thinks he actually hallucinated the entire exchange. But when he looks around, he sees the police officer further down the beach, disappearing into the shadows.
“Oh, and I really want to try one of those—what are they called again? Those, like, tiny little cake things with all the different colors?”
“What?” Sasha chokes out. He feels like he’s going to be sick; he doesn’t understand what happened, why the police officer decided to leave them alone, or how Danny can be so blasé about the danger they were just in. “Why—where did police go? Will he come back?”
“Huh? Oh, no, he was asking about those teenagers. I guess someone called and said they were drinking. I told him we didn’t see anything, but… they definitely were.” Danny laughs. “Me and my friends used to do that all the time.”
Sasha doesn’t know what the hell Danny’s talking about, his brain refusing to process it. He keeps watching the spot where the police officer vanished, wondering if they should leave in case he comes back.
“Anyway, I was thinking—so, we do Europe in the spring, right? And then maybe in the summer… I could come visit you in Moscow?”
Sasha slowly turns his head and stares at Danny, wondering if it’s even possible for someone to be that thoughtless.
“I mean, obviously not as your boyfriend,” Danny adds, seeing the look on Sasha’s face. “We could tell your mom I was just, like, repaying the visit or something. I could train with you, too, if your coach is cool with that.”
Sasha thinks about Danny in his apartment with Alina, at his gym with his teammates, and wants to throw up.
“And don’t worry, my hugs’ll be, like, totally bro hugs—”
“No.” Sasha’s throat wrenches open, almost to a shout. “No, you can’t come to Moscow. Never.”
Hurt washes over Danny’s face, like one of the waves lapping quietly at the shore. “Why not?”
He doesn’t get it, and suddenly Sasha’s furious with him.
For not caring about the police officer at all; for living his nice little golden-boy life in the sunshine state, never having to worry about a consequence he couldn’t smile or charm his way around; for thinking he could just waltz into Moscow—into Sasha’s home—without putting both of them in danger, as if his “bro hugs” would be enough to fool Alina and Kirill.
For not having a single fucking clue.
“Danny.” His hands are trembling, he’s trying so hard not to lose it. He can’t believe he actually has to explain why Danny won’t be visiting him in Moscow. “This is my life.”
Danny blinks, then pulls back, looking at Sasha with an expression he can’t read. “Your—wow. Okay.”
“Wow? Okay?” It’s so inadequate a response, Sasha’s almost too enraged to speak. “Are you joking?”
Danny opens his mouth, but Sasha already knows the answer.
“No, everything is very funny for you. Ha ha. You tell all your friends about us, no problem. You see police officer, no problem. You think you come to Russia with your ‘bro hug’—everything funny, yes? Like a game. For you. Not me.”
“Sash—”
But Sasha doesn’t want to hear it. What he wants is for Danny to take something seriously for once in his fucking life, and Danny isn’t even trying. Wow, okay? What kind of bullshit was that?
The more he thinks about it, the more worked up he gets, anger and adrenaline twisting together like vines in his veins.
All the resentment, all the frustration he’s buried over the past two weeks is coming back to the surface, pushing like thorns through his skin, until he realizes it’s not enough to make Danny take this seriously—he wants to hurt Danny, wants him to feel just as awful as Sasha does now, because maybe then he’ll finally fucking understand.
“You know what is game for you, too? Your gymnastics. Every day, you come to gym and you talk with Coach Garrett, and you watch videos on your phone, and then you talk more. You are lazy. You would not survive one week at Round Lake. You would have to go home because you are not working enough.”
“Wow,” Danny says again, his face still, his jaw tight. “Tell me how you really feel.”
Sasha fucking will. “You have Olympian training center, and you don’t go there.
Why? Because you want to play with your dogs and watch television with your mother.
Everything is easy for you here, so you never want to work.
This is why you never win medals at Worlds. And this is why you failed at Rio.”
The instant Rio rings out in the air between them, Sasha knows he’s gone too far.
Danny looks like a windshield that’s been hit by a rock, his expression a spiderweb of shards barely holding together.
He opens his mouth, closes it, and blinks at Sasha like he’s finally run out of words to say.
Then he stands up, brushes the sand from his shorts, and walks off, heading back in the direction of the car.
Sasha can’t decide if he wants to call after him, if he would say I’m sorry or Fuck you if he did.
He knows he should apologize, knows Rio was the Rubicon he never should have crossed—but shouldn’t Danny apologize, too, for being so careless about their safety?
What the hell was he thinking, suggesting he could come to Moscow? How could he ask that of Sasha?
And then it’s too late to say anything, because Danny’s gone.
Sasha stays where he is, stewing in rage and regret.
Yes, this was all Danny’s fault, he’s been practically trying to get them caught—but still, Sasha shouldn’t have thrown Rio in his face—but Danny had outed him to Matt, Allie, and Emily, so he’s fucked up, too—but Sasha was the one who hadn’t said I love you this morning, and then he’d gone for the jugular while Danny was already hurt—
He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts, it takes him a while to notice how quiet the beach is.
To realize that Danny isn’t coming back, that he might even have driven off and left Sasha at the beach.
Sasha doesn’t think Danny would do that, at least not normally, but after everything Sasha just said… fuck. He would deserve it, too.
But when he reaches the parking lot fifteen minutes later—huffing and puffing like an idiot, because he hadn’t wanted to risk running into the police officer again, so he’d found another trail in the opposite direction that had taken twice as long—the car’s still there, and Danny’s waiting for him in the driver’s seat.
Sasha’s relief, however, is short-lived, since Danny doesn’t even glance up when he slides into the car. He has the same dead-eyed look from Rio, when he’d finally gotten to his feet after falling from the high bar. When he’d smiled at the crowd and his lips had barely moved.
Seeing him like this scares Sasha. Enough to make him blurt out, “Danny, I—”
“Let’s just go home.” Danny starts the engine, drowning out the rest of Sasha’s apology.
“I’m—”
“Sasha, I really don’t want to talk right now.”
Sasha doesn’t believe him. Not at first. Even when Danny makes it all the way out of the parking lot without a single word, his hands gripping the steering wheel tight.
Even when they’re on the highway and the silence is louder than the road roaring under them.
Any minute, Danny’s going to start speaking—maybe not about their fight, but about their surroundings, or the drive to the airport tomorrow, or the weather at the very least.
Except Danny doesn’t. Not when they exit the highway and have to sit through what feels like every red light in Newport Beach.
Not when a wild cat darts across the street and Danny has to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting it.
By the time they pull into the Hartmans’ driveway, Danny already unbuckling his seat belt before the car comes to a stop, Sasha’s getting the sinking feeling that he’s broken something that can’t be fixed.
Not by tomorrow, and maybe not ever.