26. Isaiah
Isaiah
January, Cardiff
When he’d seen the headline, he hadn’t spared a second.
He’d left Oxford with nothing but the clothes on his back, sprinting for the train and making his way to Cardiff without thinking a single thing through.
He’d just wanted to look Chris in the eye and tell him he hadn’t done it.
That had felt like the only way to make him believe it.
His phone had died an hour in. A taxi from the station had taken him to the rugby club in Chris’s neighbourhood and from there he’d wandered, asking anyone and everyone he could how to get to the Greens’ house, eventually directed by a man who arched a brow in recognition that Isaiah pointedly ignored as he gave him the address.
Now, he sat at the kitchen table, staring at the wood grain and trying to get some feeling back in his limbs. He could hear the low hum of conversation in the other room, where Chris’s friends and parents had moved to give them some privacy to talk.
“You’re freezing.” Chris pulled his chair closer to Isaiah and took his hand in his, blowing gently on his fingertips. The warm breath tingled on Isaiah’s numb fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Isaiah mumbled into his tea. “I shouldn’t have made you film that. I should have known there was a risk.”
“You didn’t make me do anything, cariad. I wanted to, okay?”
“But it was my idea.”
“And it was an idea I was very, very into.” Chris sighed. “I’m sorry it got out too, but I’d never blame you, Isaiah. Not for a second.”
Isaiah took a sip of tea, savouring the earthy flavour as it warmed him from the inside out.
“We should ring Carl. He needs to know you’re safe.” Chris continued before Isaiah could interrupt. “And he might have some ideas on how we approach this. I don’t—we shouldn’t make any rash decisions. He’s already royally pissed at me.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Chris smiled at him. “Yes, well, your family’s a little protective of you.”
Chris’s grip on his hand tightened and Isaiah squeezed back, nodding.
He pulled his useless phone with its dead battery out of his pocket. “Erm, could we use yours?”
Chris nodded and took the phone from Isaiah’s hand, moving from his place beside him just for a moment to plug it in across the room.
He pulled his own phone from his pocket and leaned it against the water jug sitting in the middle of the table before pulling up Carl’s contact details and hitting the video call button.
It connected on the first ring.
“Green.” Carl looked flustered, no hint of his usual shark-like demeanour present as he took in Isaiah sitting next to Chris and breathed out heavily. “Oh, thank god.” He turned away from the phone. “Elliot,” he called. “He’s there. Isaiah’s with Chris.”
Elliot came into frame looking at least as frazzled as his father, followed by Jackson. Isaiah was struck by how strange it was that so many people had cared where he was, cared what happened to him. The guilt over making them feel this way threatened to drown him.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean to worry you, I just…reacted.”
“We were so scared.” Elliot sucked in a breath. “But you’re alright. You’re there with Chris.” He said it as though trying to convince himself it was true.
“I’m here.” Isaiah nodded. “Alright might be a bit of a stretch.” He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it was a bit too close to the truth.
“How did this happen?” Jackson asked the question all of them were thinking but couldn’t quite voice.
“I—” Isaiah paused as Chris squeezed his hand. “We made a video…”
Elliot snorted. “No shit. At our wedding, as well. Don’t think I didn’t recognise the Hewitts’ green room.” He paused. “Bit on the nose that he put you in there, Chris.”
“It’s because beneath the aristocratic facade, Darius has the sense of humour of a twelve-year-old,” Jackson interjected.
“Did you watch it?” Isaiah asked, scandalised.
Carl grunted. “There are screen grabs on every news site from Runner’s Life to the bloody Daily Mail. You don’t have to have watched it.”
Isaiah felt himself wither. It was everywhere. He’d done this, and Chris’s career would never recover. “What does this mean. For Chris? For sponsors?”
“Isaiah, it doesn’t matter,” Chris insisted.
“It does.” Isaiah turned to him. “I want to know what we can do, what kind of damage control we need. This is your future on the line. Your chance at a comeback.”
Chris swallowed and Isaiah knew that some part of him agreed.
“Sponsors are disappearing,” Carl said, his agent persona firmly back in place. “It’s hard after a doping ban, but not impossible. You can spin a nice redemption arc, but add in a sex tape, especially… Well, that’s harder to come back from.”
“That’s bollocks,” Isaiah said. “Do your spin thing. Make that athlete-welfare initiative happen, the one where everyone gets to think they were the ones with the brilliant idea.”
Carl sighed. “It isn’t that simple, Isaiah.”
Isaiah nodded. He knew what his uncle couldn’t bring himself to voice out loud. He, Isaiah Owens, was the problem. A leaked video with a nice Welsh girl would have been an easy fix, but a gay sex worker, well, Chris’s career was cooked, and it was because of him.
Chris swallowed. “I’ll still have my lottery funding though, and I can be frugal, build up my profile. If I get some high-profile medals in then…”
Jackson let out a strange, strangled sound that had everyone turning to him.
His eyes widened. “It’s just…” He swallowed.
“There’s been a lot of noise lately about athletes losing their funding over morality clauses.
I…I just don’t think you should rely on it.
I know it wasn’t deliberate, but they may not see it that way. ”
“Because of what I do, and who I am,” Isaiah said.73
Carl hummed. “There’ve been a few cases lately of funding bodies backing out due to ‘indecent’ photos. Unfortunately, deliberate or not, there’s a risk. But we can try to put a spin on it, see if it buys you some time.”
“Spin?” Chris asked. “I shouldn’t have to spin a maliciously distributed attack on my personal life. It’s absurd that this would be the deal breaker when doping was a slap on the bloody wrist.”
“Is it even a spin if you tell the truth?” Carl asked. “Just announce that you’re a couple and explain it was private video that was leaked. It may garner enough sympathy from the public that the funding bodies won’t risk pulling out.”
“Especially if you can show them how loved up you are.” Jackson nodded.
Chris was tense beside him now, and his grip on Isaiah’s hand had tightened.
“I can’t make you do that, Chris,” Isaiah said.
“I don’t want you to have to claim me like that.
I can take the blame, say I did it for views.
” Sure, it might end his academic career—that felt like it was teetering on the edge anyway—but this was still his fault.
If he hadn’t been so public about his channel then this wouldn’t be a scandal on anywhere near this level. 74
“No. You don’t get to throw your career away for my sorry excuse of one.” Chris glared at him.
“You don’t get to lie and make out to the whole world like you’re in love with me just because I made a mistake. We know this was my fault, so just let me fix it.”
“It wouldn’t be a lie.”
Silence seemed to stretch between them. Isaiah could hear his heartbeat pounding in his hears. Had Chris just said…
A voice echoed from the other end of the line. “Um, I think we should give you two some time to talk.” Jackson ended the call. Isaiah stared at the black screen of the phone, still propped up on a water jug.
The quiet continued. Chris’s foot started to tap on the ground anxiously.
Isaiah looked into his eyes and drank in the colour of them, the depth, the shape, as he searched deep within them for any sign of untruth. His brows were furrowed. “Do you really? Love me?”
Chris swallowed. “Yes,” he whispered. “I do. I’ve told you that before.”
“But that was a mistake,” Isaiah insisted. “Just a thing people say.”75
Chris sighed. “I don’t expect you to say it back. I know I’ve been… This has been a long time coming for me. These feelings started so long before I even knew you were…well, that you were you. I know it hasn’t been the same on your side—”
Isaiah baulked at the idea. “That’s not true.”
“It isn’t?”
Isaiah shook his head. It felt impossible that Chris didn’t realise, didn’t see what it meant for him to let someone in. “I’ve been falling for you since the day you appeared on my screen in that stupid Flash mask. I tried so damn hard not to, but I couldn’t stop it.”
“For real?”
The earnest question made a laugh escape Isaiah, echoing in the empty kitchen. “For real, Green. And in case it wasn’t clear, I’m in love with you too.”76
Chris rose from his chair, moving swiftly to straddle Isaiah’s lap and kiss him senseless.
Isaiah felt every ounce of love Chris had professed through that kiss.
When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against Isaiah’s.
Warmth had finally returned to his face, and he stilled for a moment, just breathing him in.
Chris’s mum poked her head into the room. “Your friends have headed out. Mila asked me to remind you that they expect to meet your boyfriend properly once you two have had time to sort things out.”
Chris nodded. He extricated himself from Isaiah’s lap and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go find you something to change into. You’re so cold.”
Isaiah followed. He followed the man he loved, who loved him, for a moment feeling like he might just follow him anywhere. He let the thought wash over him, wondering if this was what it meant to finally feel the shape of your freedom.77
An alert pinged on Chris’s phone as they entered his room. He pulled it out to dismiss it, then froze.
“What is it?” Isaiah asked. “Please don’t say more headlines.”
Chris shook his head and turned it so Isaiah could read the screen.
“You have a thirty-minute reminder for my live show?” he asked, a smirk curling his lips.
The expression fell away quickly when he realised what that meant.
“Oh fuck, I’m meant to be doing a show.” His breathing went shallow and his eyes darted around the room.
He couldn’t do it; there was no way. “I have to cancel it. I can’t…
I can’t be that person right now.” He pulled his phone out, frantically trying to log in to his profile.
“Oh fuck, what if I lose this too? It’s all I have left. ”
Chris reached out and stilled his hand. “You won’t lose your show. People will wait for you. But it isn’t all you have. You have an incredible mind, you have a DPhil to finish, a job waiting for you at Carl’s agency if you want it, family and friends who love you. And you have me, cariad.”
Isaiah closed his eyes, focusing on steadying his breathing, and leaned into him. “I love when you call me that.”
“It means—”
“Something like Darling, right?”
Chris smiled. “Oh, so he speaks Welsh now too?” He tilted his head. ”It’s more like…beloved, though.”
“I love that.” Isaiah smiled softly. He could still feel the tremors wracking his body—from cold or anxiety, he couldn’t be certain. “You really think it’s okay to cancel?”
“It is.”
Isaiah took a breath. He steadied himself, something that felt infinitely easier to do with Chris’s arms wrapped around him. He opened his profile and sent out the cancellation notification. Sure, people might be disappointed, but there were more important things than making everyone else happy.78