2. Lucas
Lucas
I couldn’t get what Ty said to Cam out of my head. Just the thought of Cam getting laid with some hot bimbo from Sweden or wherever made my blood boil.
“Hey, Luke!”
I turned to see Shane, my personal coach, coming from the locker room.
Cam and I were the only ones on the team with personal coaches.
The twins had known the team’s head coach, Woodward, almost their whole lives, so he was essentially their personal coach without that official title.
Ty had never used one, preferring to work on his own at international meets.
To be fair, they were also expensive. My parents had hired Shane years ago, so I didn’t have to pay for him.
“Great work out there today, hotshot. Looks like Cam’s rubbing off on you.”
I wish. “Uh, yeah, he definitely has a fire.”
“I mean, it’s easy to see why. Coach Noah and I went to school together. And now, you and Cam go to school together. Kind of funny, but I think it’ll do wonders for the team. You’re gonna make your country and your parents proud.”
“Thanks, Shane. See you tomorrow.”
I sighed to myself and kept my feet heading back to my room. I had enough feasting on Cam for today. For a lifetime, really. I hated to be the cliche gay boy in love with a straight guy, but here I was.
My first year of college and prepping to make the Olympic team and Camden Kane waltzes into our gymnasium.
I should say the Camden Kane since he had just placed first at Worlds in the vault and was now the best vaulter in the country.
He looked like the newest guy on the Corbin Fisher website crossed with a Viking twink.
I had to turn away before I had a problem down there.
I never really had to worry about that before, but something about his confidence and his smile and his... ass.
Nope! Not going there! I had promised my parents I wouldn’t.
That was their shitty deal. They were fine with me being gay, and I was thankful for that.
But with threats of pulling their financial support, they told me under no circumstances was I to blow my college gymnastic career and possibly medalling at the Olympics on a relationship.
They said it would pull focus and right now I had to agree. Cam pulled my focus.
Cut to a year later where I’m at the Olympics I worked so hard to get to, and the biggest cost was not dating at all in order to avoid even the chance at a relationship - gracias mis padres.
Even being halfway around the world, I still couldn’t get him out of my head.
It’s hard to do that when his smooth muscular body was always around.
I shrugged it off as I stepped out of the elevator and headed to my room at the end of the hall.
I was sharing with Ty. The rest of the team was all over the building.
Something about mixing all the sports together helped build national unity or camaraderie.
The US team was big enough to get its own building, so no other countries were in it with us.
I knew the twins were bunking together. Same goes for the out-of-the-village alternates.
Even as the loner on the team, I requested Ty and thankfully the coaches came through for me.
I did not want to be tempted by sharing with Cam.
I stripped my shirt off and gave myself a once-over in the mirror.
I was pretty happy with how far I’d come in the last few months.
As the bar specialist on the team, I was pretty lean.
I had a big pegasus tattoo on my left side that my parents freaked out about, but I was able to calm them a little after I told them no one would see it under the comp suit.
I snapped a quick mirror selfie, opened Insta, added the usual gay-abs-fitness-gymnast-USA hashtag combos and posted.
I rolled my eyes at the seventeen missed calls - how did reporters get my number anyway? - and started listening to the voicemails. Reporter. Reporter. Reporter. Dad…
Hola mijo, we might be a few days later than expected. There was a problem at one of our warehouses and we’re trying to figure it out as quickly as possible. It should only be a day or two, but I’ll let you know as soon as I know.
I deleted all the voicemails without listening to the rest and crushed my phone into the pillow, then flopped onto the bed.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. They cared more for the business than they did their own son.
I knew they built it together from the ground up.
Through smart investments, a tiny farm and produce stand became a multi-state distribution company with aspirations for an even bigger market.
I’d heard it many times. But really? They were going to be late for their only child’s first Olympics?
I hated that they could still get me this upset.
One would think I should’ve learned by now, but I was an optimist at heart, and I couldn’t help but think that one day they would reset their priorities and put me higher on the list. At least they cared enough to threaten taking my inheritance away any time I disobeyed their wishes. Yay!
I pulled Insta back up and poured myself into thirty minutes of reacting to comments and responding to my followers. And deleting the six negative comments. That was an improvement. Maybe being an Olympian had hidden perks after all?
Speaking of perks. Let’s go see if I can find some eye candy today.
I left my shirt on the floor and headed to the elevators. I smiled at two girls that were getting on the elevator as I left and I could hear them giggling and saying something about my “V” before the doors shut. That was the reaction I wanted, but not the target audience.
The village was amazing. It felt like the first week of moving into college, except everyone had the body of a god.
And the gods were from all over the world.
It was like Times Square and Olympus merged and created a smorgasbord of sexy bodies to ogle.
There were girls and guys sunning themselves on the quad.
Shirtless guys and women jogging in almost nothing.
It was almost like Paradise Cove back home, the closest nude resort to Florida University, except the average age of people here was way below sixty.
I didn’t go there for the bodies; I went there for the sun and freedom.
And now, in Brisbane, I had two of the three.
It wasn’t hard to imagine them all naked.
Well, it was getting hard.
That’s what he said!
I had definitely watched too much Office on the plane ride over.
With the dining hall in sight, I planned on using ice cream to push my dad’s voicemail out of my head.
I kept an eye out for any heads of the same sex that gave me an appraising eye.
Some of these guys were so tall. Gymnastics was kind of in its own little world back at college since the apparatus are such a pain to take down and set up.
Ever since the University finally built us our own gym, I barely saw the other athletes anymore.
I made and kept eye contact with this shirtless Matt Bomer look-alike until I turned away and walked right into a pole. And now, I’m falling on my ass. Ay, dios mio. That was not smooth. I rubbed my butt as I stood up. Ow.
“You okay, bro?”
Oh shit, it was Ty.
“So...you saw that, huh?”
“Oh yeah. Wish I had my phone out,” Ty said. “It was gnarly.” I rolled my eyes as I took his hand and got back to my feet. “You got points for style, though. Not sure anyone could walk into a pole and still look so guapo.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“See? Two reasons you enjoy having me on the team. Entertainment. And your Spanish is improving,” I said.
“Come on, I’m starving,” Ty said. “Let’s go eat.”
“Are you taking me on a date, Ty?”
He scoffed. “Sure, my treat.”
“You wanna work out later? I know we’re supposed to take it easy the rest of the day, but I got some bad news and I want a distraction.”
“My hot bod pumping iron does it that much for you?”
“Of course,” I said. “Why else would I ask you? And you could probably guess why.”
“Either your Insta-crush Dolan twin unfollowed you, or something with your parents.”
“Ooh, thinking of the first thing is almost enough to distract me from reality, i.e. the second thing.” I grabbed a bowl and added some soft serve vanilla.
“So, what did they say or do?”
“My Dad left a voicemail. Something came up with the company and they’re going to miss the first few days.”
“Jesus, dude. That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll get over it. Maybe there’s a bright side?”
“Yeah. Mind finding us a table? I’m gonna go get a pizza.”
“Sure, no problem.”
I spooned some rainbow sprinkles on my ice cream and turned to look for a table. And saw Cam with Erika in the corner. I half-looked up at the ceiling. Can I just get a break here?
I quickly glanced away to avoid any chance of eye contact and found a table on the other side of the room, close to the pizza oven.
Ty came over in a few minutes and we sat in silence for a bit until he started talking about how sweet it was to get a whole pizza to himself because his four older brothers always left him with the scraps.
I liked hearing about his big family. The way he talked about them was enviable.
But I knew he was just excited about them all being there soon.
I looked up because he had finally stopped talking.
“What’s up, Ty? Your face looks funny.” He was looking behind me.
“Uh, the entire Aussie women’s volleyball team just sat behind you.”
I silently thanked him for the distraction and then gave his ego enough of a boost to give him the courage to go have a chat. This week was the time to do it. You could practically smell the hormones in the air. He came back to our table with one of their numbers.
“Thanks, bro. I owe ya.” He grinned, waving his phone at me.
“I’ll cash it in later. You can wax my butt for me.”
“Is that a thing?” he asked.