Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dean
I should have known better.
I’d chosen a quiet corner of the cafeteria to grab a coffee and scroll. It still amazed me how few athletes were around.
Maybe they’re all in the city, having a good time.
I should have been celebrating.
I was sitting in a corner of the cafeteria researching things that would have made thirteen-year-old Dean spontaneously combust.
Which is what had me staring at my phone with the kind of concentration I usually reserved for quad jump layouts.
“Please tell me you’re not reading comments about your medal-winning performance.”
I almost leapt out of my skin. I glared at Tomasz. “Warn a guy, okay? Or do I have to put a little bell around your neck?”
He snorted as he dropped into the chair next to mine. “You already did that. You and Ethan. Worlds last year.” He tried to peer at my phone screen. “So is that what you’re doing? Reading all the fan comments on social media?”
“No.” I twisted my phone away from him, cursing myself for not investing in one of those privacy screens.
He grinned. “Ah. So you’re looking at selfies with the gold medal.” His gaze flicked lower. “I’m surprised not to see you wearing it. If I’d just won a gold medal for my country, I’d be sleeping with it around my neck.”
“No, I am not looking at selfies.”
Now please go away.
Tomasz frowned. “Then what are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Dean.” He rolled his eyes. “You are literally sweating at your phone.”
“I am not sweating.”
He pulled his own phone from his pocket. “Want me to take a photo and show you?”
I glared again, which only encouraged him.
With terrifying speed, Tomasz grabbed my phone.
“Hey!” I tried to take it back, but he held me at arm’s length.
My heart thumped.
He peered at the screen, and his eyes widened. Then widened some more.
“Oh my God.”
I sat bolt upright. “Tomasz…”
He raised his head and stared at me. “WebMD?” he said in a stage whisper. “How to have anal sex for the first time?”
“Tomasz!”
He grinned. “I knew this Olympics would eventually become educational.”
I snatched the phone back. “You saw nothing.”
Tomasz started laughing. “Oh, but I did.”
“This is private.”
“Apparently not, if you’re researching it in the middle of the cafeteria.” He glanced at our surroundings, and smiled. “Ah, now I understand why you’re tucked away in a corner.” He smirked.
I groaned. “Swear to God, if you breathe a word about this…”
He was laughing too hard to stop now. “Depends how much you’re going to pay me to keep my mouth shut. I accept payment in coffee and beer, by the way.” Then he stopped laughing long enough to give me a pointed stare. “Wait. You’ve never…?”
“No, I’ve never. Happy now?”
His expression shifted from mockery to genuine shock. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
He shook his head. “Okay, this is adorable.”
I covered my face with one hand. “This conversation is ending now.”
“Absolutely not.” Tomasz leaned forward, his eyes bright. “So let me see if I’ve got this right. Some girl is expecting adventurous Olympic sex and suddenly you’re doing academic research?”
I stayed very still.
Tomasz blinked once. Twice. His eyes widened again. “Oh.”
I said nothing.
“Oh,” he repeated more softly. “It’s not a girl.”
The silence stretched for way too long.
Then Tomasz connected the dots.
Somehow that was worse.
“You know what? This explains the aggressively bisexual energy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Exactly what I’d expect from someone immersed in international athletic culture and American slang. And by the way? I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. And don’t mock the way I talk. This is… how do you put it? How I roll when I’m away from home and nowhere near my coach. If you heard me in Poland, you wouldn’t recognize me.” He pointed at the phone again. “Can I just say… WebMD? Really?”
“It seemed reliable.”
“Sure—if you’re preparing for minor surgery.”
I laughed despite myself, embarrassed enough that my face still felt overheated.
Some of the mischief faded from Tomasz’s expression. “So, you really like him.”
What hit me hardest was the fact he almost certainly knew who him was, not because I’d said Luka’s name, but because half the internet seemed determined to build conspiracy theories out of every glance we exchanged in Milan.
He watched my face for another second before his eyebrows shifted skyward.
“Oh my God. It is Davorin.” I buried my face in my hands, and Tomasz made a strangled noise somewhere between delight and disbelief. “Dean Foster,” he whispered dramatically. “Olympic champion. Secret disaster bisexual. This Games truly has everything.”
I looked down at the phone in my hands, at the ridiculous list of advice I’d been panic-reading for the last twenty minutes: lubrication; communication; relaxation; and positions…
Jesus Christ.
“I just…” I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “I want it to be good. Not for me—for him.”
Tomasz’s breathing caught, and I glanced up at him. The amusement in his expression softened into something warmer.
“That might genuinely be the sweetest reason anyone has ever researched anal sex.”
“Please… never say that sentence again.”
“No promises.”
I groaned into my hands.
Tomasz laughed before leaning in toward me.
“Okay. Basics.” He held up one finger. “First of all? Relax. Nobody’s expecting you to arrive with a doctoral thesis.
Second: yes, use condoms. Yes, use lots of lube.
Like, an unreasonable amount. If you think you have enough, you probably don’t.
” He pointed at himself proudly. “This message has been brought to you by your local Gay Fairy Godmother.”
I choked on air. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, absolutely yes.”
“You are how old? You cannot call yourself a fairy godmother.”
“I think I can, even if my… magic wand does not belong in a fairy tale.”
I gaped at him. “I did not need that picture in my head.” Then I snorted. “Magic wand? Can you say ‘delusions of grandeur’? And that sounds like a really bad Dad joke.” Not that my dad would ever come up with a line like that.
Mom would tease the hell out of him.
His eyes gleamed. “I’d shut up now if I were you. Because unlike you, I did not have to Google this like a man trying to achieve a passing grade.”
“I hate this conversation.”
“No, you hate that I’m right.” He cocked his head. “The point here is not to achieve technical perfection.” Tomasz shrugged. “It’s that nobody gets hurt.”
I looked down at my coffee.
Somehow that felt a lot more important than anything I’d found on WebMD.
Tomasz’s breathing hitched once more. “Oh wow,” he muttered. “You’re gone.”
“Not listening.”
“You’re researching emotional gay sex on WebMD. You are extremely gone.” Then he paused. “If it makes you feel better, first times are usually awkward anyway.”
“Why would that make me feel better?”
“It takes the pressure off.”
“I’m an Olympic athlete. I don’t know how to take pressure off.”
Tomasz looked me in the eye. “That is the most heterosexual thing you’ve ever said.”
That was enough to finally crack through my tension. I laughed, letting it roll out of me.
Tomasz smiled, but when he looked at me again, there was real affection in his eyes.
“For what it’s worth,” he said in a low voice, “the fact you care this much probably means he’s safe with you.”
There was a lump in my throat. Tomasz could tease me until my cheeks were scarlet, but what he’d just said was the thing I needed to hear most.
Then he laid his hand on my arm. “And before you ask, I will not breathe a word of this to anyone. Because Davorin needs to be safe. I understand this better than most.”
“Thank you.” My voice shook a little. My phone buzzed, and I glanced at the screen.
“And that’s my cue to leave.” Tomasz stood. His eyes sparkled. “Have fun.” And then he was out of there.
I returned my attention to the phone.
Luka: thirty minutes? Your room?
I sent him a thumbs up. A moment later, he was typing again.
Are you nervous?
Despite my apprehension, I chuckled.
God yes. I think I’m overpreparing.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Explain?
WebMD thinks I need seventeen gallons of lubricant. Then I added Please don’t tell anyone I typed that sentence.
Three laughing emojis came back at me. Then… WebMD?
Don’t ask. And I mean that. Do. Not. Ask. See you soon.
Three dots again, cycling, cycling, until I had to wonder what he was typing.
Then finally:
I am nervous too.
Something unclenched in my chest, and I typed a reply without thinking.
Aw, baby.
The message sent before I could reconsider it. Then I stared at the screen.
Baby?
Jesus Christ. It looked so soft, so… intimate.
But the strange thing was, instead of panicking, instead of feeling awkward or exposed or wrong, intimate felt really, really good.
Luka
Warmth radiated through me.
Dean Foster—Olympic champion, destroyer of quad jumps, terrifyingly composed under pressure—had seemingly responded to impending sex by conducting research as though he was preparing for an exam.
And with just a few simple lines, he’d taken the nerves I’d been experiencing ever since we left the medal ceremony and wiped them away.
I held the phone to my chest, still laughing under my breath.
Then my gaze fell back to the screen.
Aw, baby.
Two ridiculous words, and yet something inside me reacted instantly, heat unfurling low in my chest.
Then reality crashed back in.
The knock at the door shocked me into stillness, and my first illogical thought was that federation delegates had decided to invade what felt like—and had always been—neutral territory.
“Luka?”
It was Mila.
I launched myself off the bed and opened the door. She stood there with two paper cups, and I caught the aroma of tea.
“I brought a bribe,” she said as she went over to the desk. “In the hope that you would tell me what you are doing in your room when the rest of the team are enjoying the celebrations.” She deposited one cup, then sat cross-legged with the other on the edge of my bed as if she owned the place.
I leaned against the desk, arms folded across my chest. “I have… somewhere else to be.”
“With Dean?”