“Listen to you.” Flynn pushed his hand into Spencer’s knee. “You don’t even give a fuck that I got hurt. You’re just worried about the purity of my ascent.”
“I care that you got hurt. And also about the purity of your ascent.”
“Well, relax. I did the damn thing again. Acted like the fall hadn’t hurt, took a fifteen minute rest, and bullied my way back up there. Got the damn sequence right and topped that fucker. So don’t say I don’t work hard.”
“Not sure whether I’m impressed or annoyed, honestly. You probably made the injury worse by climbing on it.”
“Probably,” he admitted. “But I was doing what my sponsors were paying me to do. You’re afraid to fall because it disappoints your coach. I’m afraid not to fall because it disappoints my fans. Either way, we’re fucked. But I don’t get mad at you for doing what you have to do, and I wish you wouldn’t get mad at me.”
He could see the gears grinding in Spencer’s head. Even in this, Spencer would be cautious, steady. Finally Spencer reached for his hand. “I was more jealous than mad. Jealous and thirsty. I wanted to fuck you and be you.”
“You’d be lousy at being me, just like I’d be lousy at being you. But we could rub off on each other.”
Spencer opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I can’t tell whether you’re being practical or suggestive.”
“Totally both. I appreciate the horrible clipping drills and all the other tips today. Also, I want to rub off on you.” He dropped his eyes to his dick, which was still pretty perky since it hadn’t gotten its chance yet. “I want to be anything to you that you’ll let me be.”
11. Spencer
He made Flynn do laps—climb up and down the same easy route without touching the ground, over and over until easy got to feeling pretty damned hard. Lead climbing was mainly about endurance, about having a lot of gas in the tank and using it wisely. Flynn didn’t use his gas wisely, but telling him so only led to a bunch of juvenile jokes that had Spencer alternately laughing and shaking his head. Adolescent male humor was both one of the benefits of being gay and one of the drawbacks of being gay.
Jokes aside, if Flynn was going to improve his lead climbing, he should be working on his endurance. You didn’t get to lie around on a padded mat between burns in lead climbing. You had to climb the whole thing in one go, which meant you had to be prepared to bring your all. Which was why Spencer did some laps too. By the time they’d thoroughly worked themselves into exhaustion, the air had cooled and the sun had dipped low enough to give the crag some shade.
More climbers showed up as the afternoon went on—people racing from work to get in a few routes before nightfall. He and Flynn weren’t going to have any more privacy. Not here. Which meant Spencer would have to wait to get his mouth on Flynn’s dick. He was still a little befuddled about what had happened today, about all of it—the reveal of Flynn’s sexuality, that hot scene that was way more public nudity than he’d ever indulged in before. Not to mention learning how Flynn had sprained his ankle.
Word about Flynn’s injury had trickled out slowly in the form of rumors, but the ascent itself had been trumpeted loud and wide. Instagram photos, a YouTube video, and a Rock & Ice profile on “North America’s Best Boulderer.” At the time, he’d resented Flynn for the attention—and especially for the title, which had once been in his own sights—but he was sorry now that he’d let jealousy override sympathy. Apparently Flynn took his commitments seriously. He just had different commitments.
“You ever think about what you’ll do when you can’t climb professionally anymore?” he asked as he stuffed his gear into the borrowed pack. It was a question that haunted him. He could feel it coming.
“Dude, all the time.” Flynn was coiling the rope over his shoulders, loops of it dripping down like extra-long curls. “I told you I want to study kinesiology, right? I applied to USC.”
“What, already?”
Flynn nodded. “I was accepted. I’m supposed to start in the fall, assuming I take them up on it. Still kind of dithering.”
“Balancing college and climbing isn’t going to be easy. How are you going to handle the travel?”
“I’m not. You asked me what I’m going to do when I stop climbing professionally. That’s what I’m going to do. Go to USC. Study kinesiology.”
“But now?” Spencer might be nearing the end of his career, but Flynn definitely wasn’t.
“Are you going to hate me if I say yes?”
“I’m not sure. It feels like you’d be throwing away a gift, but I guess I’m happy for you if there’s something else you’d rather be doing. I have no idea what I’ll do when I can’t compete anymore.”
“There’s life beyond the comps. You could be all over the world repeating hard routes. That would get you in the mags without having to race sixteen-year-olds on the speed wall. Or you could totally become a valley rat. Yosemite—that’s where old climbers go to stay relevant. Find some new way up El Cap and you can even make non-climber news.”
True. Climbers didn’t have to be the fastest or the strongest to get sponsored. They could also be visionaries. Or irresponsible. Spencer could see Flynn with a two-week beard wearing dirty flannel and brushing his teeth out of the back of a van. It wasn’t the kind of climbing he’d ever done himself, but it had a fairy tale appeal, a sort of Peter Pan escape.
“How about it?” Flynn said. “We’ll get a haul bag and a portaledge and spend a few weeks camped out on a wall together, nothing but you and me and rock. We could document new techniques for safe and sexy big-wall shenanigans.”
“Flynn, look at your hands.” Spencer held up his own and Flynn raised his in response, showing off the black metallic coating covering his palms and the grime under his fingernails. “Imagine a few days of that.”
“That’s what wet wipes are for. And you let me earlier.”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking about it at the time.”
“I can make you not think about it again.”
He probably could. Spencer wondered if Roddy would be in their room when they got back.
“Oh, shit. I forgot.” He smacked his forehead. “Roddy’s preliminaries were today. I should’ve gone.” He and Roddy were mostly ships that passed in a very short night, but Roddy didn’t have any family coming. Supporting him would’ve been the nice roommate thing to do. “Are your folks coming?” he asked Flynn as he shouldered the pack for the walk out.
“For the finals. What about yours?”
Spencer shook his head. “No, no family. Pierre gets in late tonight.”
If he had even a remote chance at a medal, he would want his family there to see it, but for them to fly all that way and spend all that money only to learn he’d already been eliminated in the preliminaries? They’d been willing, but he couldn’t let them to do it.
Back in his room, he found Roddy stuffing his clothes into a duffle bag, so it was a good thing he hadn’t invited Flynn up.