20. Isaiah #2
“Well, excellent forward thinking there, Mr. Itinerary. Very smart. Can see why they want you at Oxford.”
Isaiah stretched. “I’m too tired to tell if you’re taking the piss or not.”
“A little bit, maybe.” Chris grinned at him. “But I do think you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, so only just.”
“Has everyone really gone up already?”
Chris nodded. “Stefan and Alfie disappeared first, definitely not for a nap.”
Isaiah smirked.
“But the others looked proper shattered. Said they may be back down again in a bit.” Chris bit his lip. “I was going to check out the pool and saunas…if you wanted to stick around and enjoy the excellent booking you went to all this effort for.”
“Sure, yeah.” Isaiah rose, pulled his swim shorts on underneath his towel, and followed Green out into the pool area, doing his absolute best not to check out his perfect arse and muscular thighs as he walked.
Green dove straight in as Isaiah arranged his towel on a lounge chair. He sat himself on the edge and slid in slowly, the warm water feeling like a gentle embrace on his loose, relaxed muscles.
Green paddled over and leaned in, just an inch too close. “Are you enjoying it? The weekend?”
Isaiah hesitated, then said, “I am, actually.”
“Wow, ringing endorsement.” Chris laughed, but it wasn’t the open one Isaiah loved so much; it was strangled. “Is it me? I was worried that coming would be uncomfortable for you, but I couldn’t say no to Jackson and Ell without seeming like a total dick.”
“No, it’s…” Isaiah pushed away from the edge, treading water. “It’s fine that you’re here. I mean…things have just been a lot lately, and I don’t think I realised how stressed I was until I stopped.”
“I get that.”
“Yeah, I’d imagine you do.”
“You know Carl’s already riding me about press appearances?” he said suddenly. “I’ve still got over eight months before I can even get back into a race, and he’s lining up interviews and trying to land sponsors.”
Isaiah cringed. “I didn’t know. I’m…I’m not doing much work for him at the moment.”
“I figured.” Chris shrugged. “PhD and all.”
“Yeah.”
“I get it, though.” He sighed. “It’s going to be harder this time around. I’m not the sweet up-and-comer anymore, I’m, like, tainted.”
“You’re not tainted, Green.”
Chris arched a disbelieving eyebrow.
“I’m serious. As far as the Athletics Association is concerned, you’ll have served your time and everything will go back to the way it was.”
“Sponsors don’t care what the athletic association thinks, they care what the general public thinks.”
“Ah, yes, the general public who absolutely know the names of the nation’s top marathon runners,” Isaiah retorted, sarcasm dripping from the words.
They drifted closer together.
“At least I’ll get my lottery funding back.”
Isaiah scoffed. “Lottery funding is peanuts.”
“It might be all I get, though. Better than nothing.”
“You could always start a cam show,” Isaiah joked.
Chris cocked his head. “Are we allowed to talk about that? Like, properly? About your show?”
Isaiah wasn’t sure what to say. His feelings around Chris and Flash and the show and all of it were so tangled that no amount of reason could find his way through them. Sometimes, he figured, you had to let go of reason and let instinct lead the way.61
“Might as well,” Isaiah replied. “It’s hardly a secret now, especially not from you.”
Chris took a breath. Isaiah watched water droplets bead on his jaw. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I swear to you I didn’t. When I saw you that day in the office and it all clicked, it felt like the world was caving in around me. Once I knew, it seemed so obvious, but…”
“It’s alright.” It wasn’t, nothing was alright about this, but Isaiah believed him. Despite everything, he believed him.
“Going well, then? Since you dropped the mask?”
Isaiah hauled himself out of the water and sat on the pool edge, kicking his feet. “It is, actually. And the article in Runner’s Life helped as well. More visibility, more subscribers.”
Chris hummed. “The article was trash. But, well, you’re very good at what you do.”
“Yeah?” Isaiah met Chris’s eyes. The heat in them was unmistakable and made all his blood rush south. “I’m gonna hit the sauna,” he muttered, tearing his gaze away.
The sauna was barely warm enough to earn the moniker.
It overlooked the ocean but the view of the expanse of Chris’s smooth skin as he stretched out on one of the wooden benches drew all of Isaiah’s attention.
He let his eyes rake over him. Chris’s swimming costume tented obscenely, and he seemed to be staring at the wall, tracing the wood grain with his eyes; anything to avoid looking at Isaiah.
Isaiah rose. “This is nice,” he said casually as he moved to the rocks at the front of the sauna. He filled the small pot with water and poured it over them slowly, letting the steam hiss and sizzle as he bent to put the container away, moving a fraction more slowly than he might have otherwise.
“Yeah,” Chris rasped in response.
It was reckless and impossibly stupid, but in that moment, all Isaiah wanted was to elicit some kind of reaction, to prove to himself that this fixation, this completely stupid, impossible-to-move-on-from obsession, wasn’t one-sided.62
He spun around and in two short strides was moving to straddle Green’s lap.
“What…what are you doing?” Green’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Giving us both what we want,” Isaiah replied, breathing the words against Green’s neck. “Tell me you want this as much as I do.”
Chris groaned. “Of course I do.”
“Well, baby, let me see that gorgeous cock in person,” he said as he tugged at Chris’s swimwear, slipping into his camboy persona so quickly he barely even registered it.
Chris stilled, hand gripping Isaiah’s wrist, gentle but firm. “Don’t.”
Isaiah shuffled back immediately. He felt a flush creep over his face as he tried to cover himself that had nothing to do with the heat of the sauna. He’d read things wrong and made an absolute tit of himself.
“No, Isaiah.” Chris stood, towel falling away to reveal his lean body in all its glory. Isaiah burned with a mix of embarrassment and desire. “I just meant don’t work me like I’m one of your viewers.” The tips of Green’s ears were red, and he bit his lip. “I want you, not Quick.”
“You don’t know me, Green.” Isaiah picked his towel up and wrapped it around his waist again.
“I do.” Green climbed down from the bench and followed Isaiah to the front of the sauna, where a large glass wall held an uninterrupted view of the wild sea in front of them. “I know you love cranberry sauce and despise hot chocolate like some kind of psychopath.”
“I don’t despise it,” Isaiah said faintly as Green pressed against him, cock hard and heavy against his thigh.
“I know you hate Kant and spend far too much time questioning the idea of collective versus individual responsibility,” he continued. “That you use far too many letters after your name in your signature.”
Isaiah grunted in protest. He’d earned those letters, damn it.
“I know you organise your bookshelf alphabetically by author and publication date, and that you change your hair colour when you’re overwhelmed.”
“Those aren’t real things, they’re just fun facts.” Isaiah leaned in, breathing in Green’s scent as his cock ached.
“They are real. Everything about this is real, Isaiah,” Green whispered as he kissed him gently on the temple. “I know you’ve been hurt deeply, but that you’ve found yourself a real family that loves you unconditionally, and that you care for them so fiercely you’d do anything for them.”
Isaiah swallowed. Green kissed his cheek, lingering.