4. Chris
Chris
October, Cardiff
In the three months since the Olympics, Chris had come to terms with exactly three things.
Carl and Elliot were probably not to blame for his last-minute sanction, his dad might never look at him the same way again, and he might have a tiny bit of a porn addiction.
Well, not just any porn. One gorgeous camboy in particular.
The only thing he didn’t feel like utter shit about was the last one.
When his phone buzzed, Chris unlocked it quickly, desperately hoping it was a new post from Quick. It wasn’t. It was fucking Nick.
Nick
Would you stop being such a fucking pussy. Dad’s losing face at the club because of you.
His brother sounded so American now. It would be early morning there, and he’d probably be on his way to practice, so Chris ignored him, leaving the message on read as he went about the rest of his very busy day of alternating between social media stalking his former teammates, spiralling over any mention of his own name online, and scrolling through photos on Quick’s page.
It gnawed at him though, the seed Nick had planted with his stupid message. Chris didn’t want to worry his parents. They were good parents, great, even, and he knew they weren’t sure how to navigate the situation he’d landed himself in.
He couldn’t bring himself to admit he’d done it, not to them. Even with the whole world convinced of his guilt, he needed his parents to just keep that little sliver of faith in him, however misplaced.
There was another email from Carl’s office in his inbox.
Chis glanced at the email, then swiped away.
He couldn’t quite get past the feeling that burned through him when he thought of the man.
Even if Carl hadn’t intended it, the way things had gone down had basically ensured he couldn’t just step away quietly.
Between the last-minute replacement, and Jackson and Elliot drawing so much fucking attention to themselves with a finish-line kiss that had become the goddamn definitive image of the Games, well, there was no quiet obscurity for him.
He trudged up the stairs for lunch. His dad had made a roast. It wasn’t even Sunday, but it had long been Chris’s favourite meal.
“Your brother’s coming home for his Christmas break,” his mum said.
Well, fuck. Chris cut into his roast beef with resigned acceptance. He owed his parents for the hell he’d put them through this year, so whatever they were asking of him, he’d probably do it.
His dad poured a gallon of gravy onto his mashed potatoes, speaking without looking up. “Will be good for you boys to spend some time together. Maybe he can get you out of the house a bit, stop you moping around downstairs.”
Nick being home would definitely get him out of the house more, because there was no way he could continue on the way he had if he was sharing the downstairs room they’d spent their entire childhoods in, with the twin who now felt like a different person to the one he’d grown up with—distant and judgemental in a way he’d never have thought to associate with his family.
His dad’s phone dinged loudly, breaking the uncomfortable silence. His mum tutted as he pulled it from his pocket to check it, then frowned at the screen.
“What is it?” Chris asked, mouth full of roast potatoes.
“Nothing,” his dad replied, tapping at his phone with painstaking attention, one key at a time. “Just some idiots at the club.”
Chris nodded, swallowing hard. Nick’s words flashed across his mind. Was Dad really having trouble at the club because of him?
“A woman from Carl’s office rang me,” his dad said, not making eye contact. “Said they’ve been having trouble getting in touch with you.”
Chris thought of the unread emails in his inbox, how he couldn’t bear to open them and see the death of his running career spelled out in black and white.
His dad’s eyes were still fixed on him. He knew then that his tactic of avoiding the giant flashing neon sign screaming “failure” at him was about to be disrupted in a major way.
“You need to go in and sign some papers.”
Chris tried not to react, but this was far worse than any email. How was he expected to face the man in person when he was still so tangled up in guilt and anger that he didn’t know where one ended and the other began?
They ate in silence for a minute, the clinking of cutlery against the plates the only sound as Chris mulled over his future, something he’d been actively avoiding doing.
“You know we’ll stand with you through anything, Chris. If you want to give it all up and do something different, you can,” his dad said. “You don’t need to be a professional athlete.”
The words rang hollow coming from two people he knew wished their own sporting careers hadn’t been cut short by the reality of family and work and bills. The difference was Chris didn’t have a fallback.
“Maybe not, but it’s the only thing I know how to do,” Chris replied. As if there was any life outside of running. As if there was a single other thing he was capable of. The potatoes suddenly tasted like ash in his mouth. “I…I need to be excused.”
They didn’t stop him.
Fucking Carl Owens. The interfering bastard.
Chris was fuming as he read back through his inbox, email after email of questions and findings, and more questions from some assistant with a very nepotism-forward surname that made him roll his eyes.
The autumn sun cast soft light through the front room, and the unseasonably cheery weather contrasted with his increasingly dark mental state.
The man had no right. And who the fuck was Isaiah Owens to demand answers from him like this, anyway?
“Chris.” His mum knocked on his door hesitantly.
“Come in.”
She entered and sat next to him on the edge of his bed, where he was crouched over his tablet, glaring at the most recent email.
“What is it?” she asked, nodding towards the screen.
“Email about the ban. I think Carl submitted some sort of appeal on my behalf.”
The change in his mum’s posture was so immediate that Chris could hardly bring himself to air his grievances.
“That’s amazing news, sweetheart,” she said. “Can I see?”
He handed her the device. He hadn’t been able to focus on it anyway. Chris watched as she read, smiling at the screen, and he felt something constrict in his heart.
“This is brilliant,” she muttered, more to herself than Chris.
Chris glowered. “Is it?”
“They’re trying to get your ban down to two years, arguing that the way things happened suggests unintentional dosing.
” She paused. “My god, Chris. Is that what happened? You didn’t say you suspected, but it makes sense with the anonymous tip-off.
I should have realised. I’m so sorry, baby. ” She hugged him.
Chris let himself collapse into it, the ever-present guilt creeping up on him once more.
Even if that was how it looked from the outside, he knew he hadn’t been sabotaged.
Thrown under the bus, absolutely, but nobody had drugged him.
He knew that, and he was pretty damn sure Carl knew it too.
This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to fight it.
“Chris, this is a miracle.”
It was. Chris grunted affirmatively. But he wasn’t sure he could accept it, not like this.
And Carl certainly had no right to dig into his life, his whereabouts, and construct this false narrative without consulting him.
He had no right to create this hope in his family, this belief that he knew he would one day have to shatter. He’d fired the man, for Christ’s sake.
“You should go to London, sign the forms. Oh, you should take a fruit basket.”
“Mum—” Chris tried to stop her, but she was on a roll now. He let himself fall back on the bed with a grunt as she left to order something for him to gift Carl, a bounce in her step that Chris hadn’t seen in months.
Chris glared at the ceiling. He’d go to Carl’s office, alright, but there was no way in hell he’d be thanking the presumptuous, self-important dickhead, or his nepo baby assistant, Isaiah.
The three-hour train ride the next day from Cardiff to London did nothing to calm Chris’s ire. If anything, it ramped it up to a thousand. As the train rocked along the tracks, queasiness building in his stomach, he thought about what it all meant.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want his ban reduced.
Of course he did. That was what he was supposed to want.
Chris was a runner; he’d always be a runner, even if he hadn’t so much as pulled on a pair of trainers in months now.
But he didn’t want more scrutiny, which was what he’d get if he had to stand in front of a tribunal and defend himself, and he didn’t want to have to be the one to crush his mum’s hope when none of this worked out in his favour.
The walk from the station to Carl’s office sharpened the feeling into something more focused.
London had that effect on him, it always had.
Too loud, too busy, too full of people who looked like they were going somewhere important.
By the time he was in the lift on his way up to Carl’s eleventh-floor office, his anger had been pulled tight, ready to explode on his intended target.
A receptionist led him straight into Carl’s private office, and Carl Owens was exactly where he always was, behind the desk like it had grown out of him.
“Chris,” Carl said, bright and pleased. “You made good time.”
“I’m not here to chat,” Chris replied.
Carl blinked once, then gestured vaguely at the chair anyway. “Well. Sit down regardless.”
Chris didn’t.
“There is absolutely no fucking universe,” Chris said, voice controlled, “in which you get to build a case about me, after I’ve fired you, without even telling me.”
Carl leaned back, steepling his fingers. “Chris—”
“You don’t get to create some made-up narrative about sabotage like I’m a prop in your legal fantasy league.”
“Chris, please understand—”
“You worked on my case. After I fired you.”
A beat of silence stretched between them, taut as a pulled muscle.