Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
BLAKE
After I chirp Char (she doesn’t let me call her that, but I keep trying) for getting some last night (honestly, so proud), we sit in the bar watching what might end up being the worst interview of the entire Olympics.
I stare at the screen open-mouthed as Imani stomps off the screen, and the interviewer continues to make digs at her as she leaves.
I turn to Charlie, who is nursing her beer next to me.
She grimaces and takes another drink of her beer. “You’d think in 2026, the blatant infantilizing of feminine athletes would stop,” she murmurs.
“I don’t think I’ve seen it that bad in quite some time. The interviewer was like a dog with a bone. A racist, sexist dog with a bone,” I muse back, finishing off my drink.
“I remember the early days when it was similar for us. ‘What will the boys think when you’re in such a masculine sport?’” She mimics.
“Oh, how joyous it was to correct them when we could tell them we had no interest in boys.” I reference both of our coming-out stories.
She cracks a rare smile. “Too bad Imani can’t have the same delicious experience.”
“It would be harder for her, I think. In such a girlypop fem sport? I mean, yeah, it would be sick to be gay as fuck in an environment that wants demure little princesses from its athletes, but I’ve seen how hard it is to be gay as a male in that sport,” I sigh.
“I can’t even imagine going against the grain like that, especially when she’s already turning the sport on its head by being elite in what is falsely considered a white sport,” Charlie points out and takes another small sip of her first drink.
“Female sports are hard enough. Add any kind of minority experience to that, and it becomes jarring. You know how hard it was for me to come up in locker rooms full of homophobia. Some of us wear our queerness like a mantle, and it’s impossible to take off.
I’ve never passed, although I’m past the point where I feel ashamed about that,” I reminisce.
“Mhm. Thank goodness for years of therapy,” Charlie praises me, and raises her half-full drink for a cheers.
I raise mine to meet it, but then shrug at its emptiness.
“Another?” She queries, raising an eyebrow.
“Nah. Imma check on Cupcake,” I inform her, sliding off my stool and playing with the zipper on my jacket.
“Cupcake,” Charlie states the name, lowering her voice to a scolding tone.
I flash her a grin. “You already know who that is.”
“Is this a ‘taking her under your wing’ thing, or a ‘laying the groundwork for sleeping with her’ thing?” She asks, voice level.
“Why can’t it be both?” I wiggle my eyebrows and lean in to kiss her cheek goodbye.
“It shouldn’t be either. You have your own shit to worry about, Blake. Like, your own medal,” she reminds me.
“Ah, it’ll be fine. Imani’s straight, right? I can flirt a little. For science!” I call behind me as I swagger away.
“You always say that, you fucking menace!” Charlie calls back as the glass bar door snicks closed behind me.
When I walk into the small shared room, I find Imani facedown on her bed, making keening noises.
Oof. Well, it looks like the ice queen has cracked. And not in a fun way.
I cough loudly to let her know I’m in the room, but when she doesn’t even acknowledge my appearance, I sit down on the edge of her bed right by her shoulder. “How we doin’?” I ask, but it’s only a formality. She’s dogshit right now. We both know that.
“Can you just fuck off?” She asks harshly into the pillow. It’s not as vehement as when she was talking to that piece of shit interviewer, so I’ll take it.
“Nah, don’t wanna. How about I stay here with you so you won’t be alone?” I try. She’s not my first ice queen. Everyone wants to feel like they’re important. I can do that for her right now.
“Just leave!” Unfortunately, her muffled voice has lost its authority.
“I’m staying, Cupcake. Let me in or don’t. I’m not going anywhere when you need me,” I assert.
She sobs harder into the pillow. Yep. That’s what I thought.
“Can I touch you?” I ask, making sure to get her consent before I move any further.
She shrugs in reply, so I stroke her back gently until she turns her tear-stained face to eye me suspiciously.
And good goddamn, the way my stomach clenches thinking of the ways I could get her below me with mascara running down her cheeks. But, no. I may be a daydreamer, but I’m not an asshole. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” I coo, refocusing on her well-being.
“Why are you being nice to me?” She warbles out.
“I have a secret for you,” I whisper. “You ready?”
Even while upset, she manages to roll her eyes at me.
“I’m just nice. There. Now you know. Don’t go telling my team, or they’ll give me more Captaining duties,” I snicker.
“They let someone as self-absorbed as you be the Captain?” She tries to say meanly, but the fact that her body is quivering in all the places I’m touching her kind of cuts into her intended tone.
“Well, the other choices are less appealing. I basically always win it by default. You see, I may be self-obsessed, but I also have a real penchant for being the one people call when they are in trouble,” I explain with a smile in my voice.
“Okay, can you go work on someone else’s problem? I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t want you here,” she tries to push me away verbally, but her body is melting under my palms as I rub out the knots in her back.
“Sure, sure. Why don’t you tell me how you would get your revenge on that dumpster fire of a person if you had your way?” I coax her.
“First, I would—wait. You’re not going to tell me it’s my fault?” She squints a brown eye at me.
“Your fault? Christ, no. That guy was out of line. When you’re a fem presenting person in front of a camera, people think they can ask you whatever the fuck they want to and rely on your media training to sit there and take it.
I mean, there are definitely ways to butter up your interviewers so they get distracted and don’t revert to bullshit lines of questioning, but that doesn’t mean that anybody should blame you for what happened today.
He was a certifiable dick,” I reassure her.
My hands fall away from her as she sits up and stares at me dead in the eyes, then cracks a smile. “A whole bag of dicks.”
“A semi-truck full of dicks,” I grin back at her.
Her smile breaks. “Coach blamed me and said I needed to fix my media image.”
I groan. “Of course. Well. Do you need help?” I cock my head.
“I do, but… are you offering?” She hesitantly asks.
I give her an enthusiastic nod. “You should see my interviews. Every time someone brings up my gender, I just charm the pants off them and completely redirect them to my mad, mad skills.”
“But then they just get away with being transphobic cans of garbage,” Imani points out, her features crumbling into a scowl.
“Oh, Cupcake. You misunderstand. I embarrass them and then take over the conversation.” I can’t help myself. I reach out and run my knuckles across her cheekbone.
She startles, but stays focused on my words. “You do what now?”
“It’s called spin, Imani. And I’m a pro,” I say teasingly, imagining my hand moving down from her cheek to encase her neck. Instead, I pull my hand back.
I’m surprised when she grabs my hand with both of hers and pulls it into her lap. “Okay, how would you have spun today?” She asks excitedly.
“So, I would have laughed at him for asking what my ahem inspiration was, and then said there were far more interesting things about me than who I was or wasn’t sleeping with.
I would have asked him if he got to the top of his field by collating petty gossip instead of delivering coverage of some of the most elite sports in the world.
And then while he was blushing a furious red, I would have taken the opportunity to wax about what an incredible honor it is to stand next to this generation’s top competitors and how I would not only be winning a medal for myself but for every little queer kid.
” I pause. “I mean, maybe you wouldn’t say the queer part.
But you get what I mean.” I peer at her more closely.
Would she say the queer part? Never mind. That’s not the point of this talk.
“Okay, but how do you stay calm enough to do that?” She inquires, gripping my hand tighter in her hold.
“I’m a pretty great compartmentalizer. I smile at the world and then knock people onto their asses when I play. Also, I rant to Charlie and my therapist. That helps.” I squeeze her hand back.
“Oh, is Charlie your girlfriend?” She asks, all wide-eyed innocence while I peer into her eyes to figure out if that’s a leading question.
“Charlie may be the love of my life, but she’s my best friend. Absolutely no romantic feelings there,” I explain, wondering if the extra info is what she’s going for, or if I’m reading more into her line of questioning because I want to press her into this bed for all I’m worth.
She hums in—maybe it’s approval? I hope—and then Imani focuses attention on her hands, which are wringing my poor hand in their grasp. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she apologizes and drops it from her hold.
“No need, no need. Stay here for a minute, okay?” I get up and pat her on the shoulder, walking into the bathroom and running a coarse white washcloth under warm water.
When I walk back to her, she’s staring off into the distance, presumably dissociating.
If she were mine, I would feed her, water her, and cuddle her.
However, she’s not. So I’ll do what I can and try my best not to overstep, something that is always hard for me with people who tug at my heartstrings.
I gently take her chin and tilt it up so she’s looking at me standing over her. “Close your eyes, Cupcake,” I direct her with my softest voice.
She eyes the washcloth in my hand and opens her mouth to object, but then her demeanor visibly shifts. Instead of complaining, she shuts her eyes for me to clean the mascara off her cheeks.
I hum “Alchemical” by Rachel Bochner while I work, ensuring that Imani is calming down and being soothed instead of being further upset.
I make sure not to interfere with all the other makeup she’s stacked on her face, just targeting the mascara tracks.
When I finish wiping her clean, I can’t help but run my thumbs over her cheeks.
I step back from her before I get myself into trouble. “Hey, when’s the last time you ate?”
Her eyes snap open. “I don’t need you to keep track of my eating habits just because you comforted me.”
Oh, my. Imani’s a tough nut to crack, this one. I need to be very careful about how I work on opening her shell. “Of course not. I just know that I personally need to eat. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Um. In the dining hall?” She looks visibly panicked, so I take a stab in the dark.
“Let’s be bad and try a local restaurant.
Get some local flavor, ya know?” I say as I unzip my USA jacket, throwing it onto the bed with my track pants following.
I reach into the closet and grab some jeans, but when I turn around to put them on, I find Imani cataloging my every movement in great detail.
Well, well, well. I might purposely draw out this moment where I’m standing only in boxers and a sports bra if she’s so interested in watching me.
If I commented on it, I bet she’d try to say that she’s admiring the tattoos that cover my entire body, but I know the difference between a tattoo admirer and a sapphic eye-fucking.
I stifle my laughter as her eyes trace the entirety of my body. Remember what I said about some of us wearing our queerness like a mantle? The veil on Imani has officially come off. No girl looks at another pair of tits unless she’s a little gay. She’s bi or pan at a minimum.
After I’ve been dragged to the edge of my constraints, I interrupt her show by putting my jeans on. “Imani? You coming with me? Come on, we’ll talk about how you’re going to outsmart these idiots with microphones,” I coax her as I pull on a dinosaur print button-down.
“Fine. But just to talk. I’m having water,” she agrees.
I’ve dated enough fems to know those famous last words well enough. I guess I’ll just get enough food to share.