“Didn’t realize I was being obvious about it.”
“I doubt anyone else picked up on it.”
“Well, Spencer sure didn’t.” Flynn heaved out a dramatic sigh and rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow. It was nice to be able to give in to his emo side in front of someone. He’d been pining for Spencer for six fucking years. “Not that he’d be interested anyway. He thinks I’m a screw-up.”
“Well, you are Flyin’ Flynn. Equally known for pulling off incredible stunts and for not pulling them off. Spencer’s more the slow and steady sort.”
“I know, I know.” He rolled onto his side so he could see her and discovered she was now doing a headstand with her elbows planted on her mattress and her feet pressed against each other in a frogged position. Was that yoga? Spencer probably did yoga. “I asked him if I could train with him. Maybe if we spend some time together, he’ll see how adorable I am.”
“You’re cute enough.” She lowered her feet to the floor one at a time, bending right in half like a V, then somehow stood up from that position. Flexibility was an asset in a climber, but Chelsea was taking it to gymnast levels. Spencer would approve.
Could Spencer bend like that? Mm. Though he didn’t want to bend Spencer so much as he wanted to be bent by him. The way Spencer evaluated a route and then owned it, so smooth and certain, totally in control—Flynn wanted him to do that to him. He would fly, like he loved flying, knowing Spencer had him.
His dick started doing bad things in his shorts at the thought, and that wasn’t something Chelsea needed to see, so he dragged himself off his bed and gathered his shit together to walk down the hall to the showers. The ibuprofen had already kicked in a little. He was pretty sure he could remain upright long enough to jerk off.
“Hey, uh, I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself,” he told Chelsea.
“You’re not out, I take it.”
“I’m out to my family, people I can trust.” It wasn’t that he gave a damn what anyone thought about him. He just didn’t want the media circus to take his love life from him the way it’d taken climbing from him. Every single article about Spencer harped on his sexuality. It couldn’t be easy representing not only your country but your entire orientation. Flynn sure as hell didn’t want to do it.
Which was why his most successful relationship to date was his ongoing obsession with Spencer. He had an affinity for rocks and trees, for steep and wild places and the people who frequented them, and if he couldn’t share the biggest part of his life with the person he was dating, how close could they get?
“Does he know though?” Chelsea asked. “You don’t gotta tell the world, but you gotta tell him.”
And then Spencer would be mad at him for that too, because it would be another way he was failing to be the best climbing celebrity possible by using his platform to normalize the non-heteronormative, which Flynn guiltily felt like he ought to be willing to do. But it was bad enough that his climbing struggles got trumpeted to the world. Did he want his relationship struggles broadcast too? Some things were best kept private.
After a quick shower, he headed over to the cafeteria where he made healthy choices in the hopes of impressing Spencer, except Spencer wasn’t there to be impressed.
“He was here,” Liv said with a shrug when Flynn asked after him.
He texted, but Spencer didn’t answer, so he asked himself “What would Spencer do?” and went to the fitness center where he diligently worked through the exercises his physical therapist had given him when he’d injured his ankle the first time. Probably if he did them three times a week like he was supposed to, his ankle wouldn’t be so susceptible to reinjury.
Then he wrapped himself in an ace bandage, which he was ridiculously competent at doing by now, and kept his leg elevated while he hung out in the lounge watching athletes coming and going. When he got bored with that, he went back to the cafeteria for lunch, only to learn that he’d managed to miss Spencer again. This time he did better than text. He used the call button, which was the Generation Z equivalent of an SOS.
“I thought you were training me,” he said plaintively when Spencer picked up. “What’s on the agenda for the afternoon?”
“Do you really not know?” Spencer’s tone suggested Flynn had somehow failed again.
“Um.”
“They’re letting the men use the speed wall this afternoon. It was in our paperwork.”
“Oh, right.” He should look at that paperwork. “Of course.”
“So I’m assuming that’s where the men will be this afternoon.”
Yeah, that explained why he’d been having lunch with a table full of women.
“It’s definitely where I’m going to be,” Spencer went on. “I don’t know about your ankle, though.”
“No, no. I’m coming. I’ll see you there.”
By the time he’d changed clothes and hobbled out to the climbing arena, all nineteen of his competitors were there, clumped together around the base of the speed wall—an awkwardly tall slab of painted plywood only wide enough for two people to climb side by side, like a popsicle stick planted in concrete.
At the top of the wall, electronic timers ran as two climbers raced side by side, eerily alike in their movements because the speed wall was always the same. From gym to gym, country to country, comp to comp, it was the same height, same width, overhung by the same gentle five degrees, and was configured the same way. Red holds, white wall, a predictable pattern.
Bouldering and lead walls got changed up after every round, because figuring out the moves was part of the challenge. Bouldering was like an obstacle course combined with a puzzle room, lead climbing like a marathon combined with a maze, but speed climbing was just a fifty yard dash over a flat track. The track was vertical rather than horizontal, but same idea. Nothing counted except speed.
It was fun in its way—monkeying up on good holds—and there was absolutely zero danger to it, which made it popular with the parents of young climbers, but it was boring as hell. That coach Flynn had been assigned by the Olympic committee had made him climb it so often he’d dreamed of it. Jump for high left hand, right foot up, left foot up, pop for good right hand, et cetera, et cetera.
Flynn took his place in the queue of climbers waiting their turn. He shook hands with Kurt and Shino who were in front of him and together they watched Dai Ogawa, the other male Japanese climber who’d qualified, fly up one side against Ashley on the other. They all grinned when Dai won. No one would be surprised to see that match-up repeated in the finals.
Spencer was up next, climbing against Janco, the South African who’d gotten in with the pity pick, as everyone jokingly called it. The Olympic committee had been allowed to pick one country not otherwise represented, and they’d picked South Africa.
It was hard not to like Janco who, though not a particularly good climber by international standards, was a very good-natured one, but it was a shame South Africa hadn’t sent a Black climber. Climbing had a diversity problem, and the climbing in South Africa was gorgeous with beautiful bands of gray and orange sandstone. There was no reason they couldn’t be developing Black climbers. But then the same could be said for the United States.