Chapter 22
Elliot
Elliot had no one to blame but himself.
Jackson had kissed him. Jackson fucking Jennings had kissed him and said he had feelings for him, feelings that were more than casual.
The whole thing had felt like an out-of-body experience.
Surely Elliot hadn’t thrown away the greatest second chance of his life, thrown away the exact thing he wanted, because…
what? Because he was scared of people knowing?
He’d said he only wanted to be known for his times on the road, but it wasn’t like those were anything to write home about this year.
It wasn’t that. It never had been. Elliot was trapped because he was forever trying to make up for the career he’d destroyed nearly twelve years ago.
The world had changed though, hadn’t it?
He was so fucking tired of being his own worst enemy.
Elliot scanned his reflection in the mirror.
There were dark rings under his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved in three days.
He’d been doing better before the club. The impromptu interview he’d given with Runner’s Life had been a great opportunity, and when they’d asked about Jackson, well, it had felt like the absolute least he could do to give him the retraction he’d asked for, and he’d hoped it could be a bridge between them.
But then he’d embarrassed himself in that disgusting club bathroom and made the stupid fucking mistake of pushing Jackson away, locking the door behind him, and throwing away the key.
In the weeks since then, everything had been a blur.
Seeing Jackson at training was physically painful, but it was the only thing in his life that brought forth any kind of emotion.
Everything else was just grey, shapeless, pointless nothing.
Today, he’d be back at the track, supporting Anders as his assistant for the final time before the team left for altitude camp. Before Jackson went back to St. Moritz, without him.
He'd taken longer than he should have to get there, dragging his feet. He'd told his father he'd keep an eye on Chris, mentor him or whatever—as if anyone should be taking advice from Elliot these days. Everyone was already there when Elliot arrived, the three runners well into their warm-ups.
“Nice of you to join us, Owens,” Anders said in greeting.
He winced. It wasn’t the best impression to make, but did that even matter anymore?
He shifted his weight, drawing Anders’s attention to his taped-up ankle.
His coach furrowed his brow but said nothing further to Elliot as he barked out orders at the others.
Elliot propped himself against the railing and adjusted the tape, pretending to watch Chris warm up, but he was focused on the lane where Jackson was running.
Jackson didn’t look at him—not directly.
Not any more than he had to. Elliot caught the tiniest flicker sometimes, a hesitation in the tilt of his head, the edge of his jaw tightening as if he were trying to stop himself from saying something, from noticing.
Jackson was hurting too, that much was obvious. That much, Elliot understood.
“Owens,” Chris said, jogging over, his grin sharp. “You're staring. Let me guess, your daddy told you to report back on me? To make sure I don’t mess anything up.” There was something biting in his words, despite the joking tone.
Elliot bit back a sardonic laugh. “Yeah, fuck-ups are reserved for me,” he muttered, turning back toward the track.
He didn’t have time to deal with the fragility of Chris’s ego.
Not when he was barely holding himself together in the face of everything he’d screwed up this year.
Longing tugged at him, and he was sure that to everyone else his gloomy countenance looked like pain over his position on the team, or lack thereof.
But he felt the stabbing loss most acutely every time Jackson’s eyes slid towards him, then darted away.
He was watching Jackson so closely that he couldn’t help but notice that he was, in turn, watching Chris.
An inscrutable look on his face gave Elliot pause.
Jackson slowed his run near Chris, enough for Elliot to see the set of his shoulders.
He wanted to call out to him, to ask what he was thinking.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Jackson Jennings deserved the fucking world, and if Elliot couldn't give him that then he needed to let him go.
Jackson glanced at him, just a flicker, and Elliot froze.
Chris laughed at something, breaking the tension like a flare in the night.
Elliot adjusted his weight against the railing.
He forced himself to focus on Chris, to watch his form and be supportive.
He tried his best to play the good little legacy like he'd been trained to—watching out for his father's new protege.
After a long day on his feet, watching and critiquing the other runners with Anders, doing his damn best to ignore the stabbing in his heart every time he looked at Jackson and his growing unease at the inconsistency in Chris’s numbers, it took Elliot longer than it should have to get home.
He was no longer in pain, more restricted by the bracing tape job than anything, but it was still a ball-ache navigating the stairs in the tube and the mezzanine ladder up to his bedroom.
His room was a minimalist space, with a plush king-size bed decorated in blues and greys in the middle of the floor, a single nightstand, and a door leading to a spacious en-suite.
Simple, orderly—just how he liked it. After a few minutes of rest, he checked his phone and saw he had a missed call from Seb that he quickly returned.
Seb’s smiling face filled the screen. “Owens! How’s the ankle?”
“It’s good,” Elliot replied. “Same as I said this morning.”
Nodding, Seb waved something in front of the screen.
“Your scans are back—they’re looking good. We’ll take another look tomorrow, but I think it’s safe to say you can start training again.”
“Are you serious?” Elliot asked. This was huge.
It was too late for the Olympics, but he could run again, and if nothing else, it would give him back the structure he craved and help him get his finances in better shape if he could get into a race with decent appearance fees. So why did it ring so hollow?
Seb grinned. “As a heart attack.” He fixed Elliot with a stern look. “But you take it slow. Keep it taped. I still want you in regularly, and the slightest niggle, you take a breather and ring the clinic.”
“I’ve got it. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
Seb hung up, mumbling about idiot athletes thinking they were invincible. Elliot puttered around his flat for a few minutes, waiting for the inevitable check-in from his father. This time at least Elliot had good news to share.
He stretched his back, staring into his fridge, looking for something that seemed celebratory.
A can of cherry-flavoured sparkling water and a protein mousse were as indulgent as it got for him, so he settled on his sofa with them.
He’d just cracked the water open when his phone buzzed. He took a sip and steeled himself.
“Dad,” he answered on the fourth ring.
“How did Green look today?”
Of course. He had nearly forgotten his role now as far as his dad was concerned was that of glorified babysitter. “He was fine.” Elliot paused as the words exited his mouth. “He was a bit prickly and his heart rate was all over the place.”
He heard his father swallow. “And did Anders notice?”
Elliot scoffed. “Of course he did. The man notices everything. What’s going on? Because it looks like Chris is… Well, it looks like his London performance had some artificial help, if I’m honest.”
“You can’t say things like that, Elliot.”
“I know. I've heard the lecture before.”
"It's different this time. I'm serious, Elliot," his dad said. "We can't afford rumours about Chris."
"What makes it so different?" Elliot asked.
“Jennings was clean,” he whispered. “No one believed it, not really.”
The anger building in Elliot’s gut boiled over. “They did. He lost sponsors, it set him back years.”
"So you understand what this could do to Chris."
"Because he isn't clean?" Elliot asked. His dad’s silence felt like confirmation. Confirmation that burned hot and painful, like the worst betrayal imaginable. "Because you let him run, take the spot I've worked for my whole life, on a lie?"
“That is not what happened.”
“Well then, explain it to me like I’m a fucking child, because you’ve been treating me like one.
I made one mistake, years ago, and you’ve used it to control my whole life.
But it hasn’t helped. My spot, which should have been guaranteed, has been handed off to your little pet prodigy, and whether he’s doping or not is almost irrelevant at this point, because you backed him over your own son. ”
His father’s voice was quieter now, clipped, defensive but unsteady. “I…I wanted to make sure you stayed on track. You don’t understand. There are things in this sport, things I’ve… dealt with, that you’re not ready for.”
“I’m not a kid,” Elliot said firmly, leaning back against the sofa. “I’ve watched Chris. I’ve seen the inconsistencies, the spikes, the gaps. I can piece things together, and so can everyone else. You don’t get to hide from me anymore.”
Another pause, longer this time. Elliot’s heart was hammering with anticipation.
“Everything I’ve done has been to protect you, Elliot.”
“From what?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if he wanted a confession, denial, or silence.
“From me,” his father said, almost whispering. “I didn’t want you to… When my career ended. It wasn’t injury.”
“I know that,” Elliot snapped. “I know it was because of what happened with me and Andrew.”
“What?” His father sounded surprised. “No, Elliot. That wasn’t…” He broke off, swallowed. “I wasn’t…clean.”
Elliot blinked. “You… What?”
“I…I doped,” his father said, the words almost strangled.
“They caught me. Quietly. No scandal. No headlines. We all knew my career was on its last legs anyway, and they, well, they let me keep the legacy I’d built.
” He paused, his breathing laboured. “I thought if you never knew, you’d be safe. Focused. Not…distracted.”
Elliot felt a strange mix of clarity and disorientation. Every inconsistency, every guarded word, every obsessive check-in was being reframed in his mind. “So…all those years, all the guilt I carried,” he said slowly, “thinking I’d ruined your life or your career… None of it was about me at all.”
The line went silent. His father’s breathing was shallow. “I thought it was, but not like that,” he admitted. “I thought I was protecting you the only way I knew how. I didn’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”
"You let me believe I let you down, that I owed you a legacy."
"Elliot, no. That was never…"
Elliot didn't wait for the excuse. He let the phone fall to his lap, his dad’s voice still audible through the speaker, but the words didn’t register as the truth settled in his mind.
It wasn’t cathartic, but for the first time, he felt a shift.
The rules, the secrets, the invisible leash his father had maintained were not absolute.
It should have felt freeing, but it just made his heart clench harder.
He shook himself and put the phone on speaker.
"So what's going on with Green?" he asked. "And I want the truth this time."
“I saw the pattern in Green before London,” his father said, "but I didn't know for sure. I don’t want him to throw his career down the drain like I did. He’s so young.
Then, when you were injured and he had a shot at the Olympics, I spoke to him.
I honestly thought he’d listened. That he’d heard me. ”
Elliot froze. His next words were measured. “I think he may have, but it’s too little too late sometimes.” Elliot paused. “It’s too little too late for a lot of things.”