Flynn couldn’t figure out how to answer that without making Spencer more pissed at him. Everything he said seemed to rub Spencer the wrong way, so instead of taking the bait, he said what he was feeling. “I miss when we were friends.”
“What?” The glare dimmed.
“I know I wasn’t in your league back when we met, but you were nice to me. Maybe I never said how much it meant—all that time you took. I still think about the things you taught me that weekend.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, sometimes when I’m working a boulder problem and not getting anywhere, I’ll be like ‘what would Spencer do’ and that’s usually the right thing.”
“What would I do?” Spencer inched a little closer, turning his head up to hear his answer.
“Usually something smarter than whatever I’m doing, like better footwork or body positioning. Or just leaving it for another day. I remember you telling me that working something when I was tired would only teach me how to do it wrong.”
“True.”
“So I don’t know what I did to make you mad at me—” He broke off at the sight of Spencer’s expression closing down again. Apparently that was the wrong tactic. “I’m just saying, can we be friends again? You’re the closest thing I’ve got to home here.” He offered up a silent apology to Chelsea, who was super nice but lived in New York. Geographically, he and Spencer were closer.
Spencer considered that for a moment. “It would be a relief to speak English. My French is awful.”
“It’s better than my Japanese.”
“If we’re going to spend time together, that means training, not just fucking around. You have a real chance of winning. You can’t blow that.”
“I won’t blow it.” Not on purpose. He just didn’t care as much as everyone seemed to think he ought to. If he won a medal, it would confirm he was on the right track—the pro climber track—and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be on that track anymore. Lately, the last thing he wanted to do was climb.
Or rather, he loved climbing. The last thing he wanted to do was train to climb. But if training to climb meant spending time with Spencer, then he would.
“It’s a deal.” He switched hands on the strap so he could offer Spencer the right one. Spencer took it, the skin of his palm as warm as the rest of him. Spencer’s calluses teased across the heel of his hand, brushing over his wrist. Flynn pushed away the thought of how they’d feel on his dick.
Spencer had agreed to be friends. The rest could wait.
“Just a little,” Flynn prompted. He’d gotten his horse to water, but he couldn’t make him drink. “One tiny taste of mine.” He held out one of his mochi ice cream balls in an effort to tempt Spencer into trying it. Everyone else had bought a treat, even Mika who weighed about ninety-four pounds. Flynn didn’t know how much Spencer weighed, but whatever it was, it was perfect. Shame that professional comps had a shirts-on rule.
“You make bad influence,” Mika said with a wag of her finger. “He eat what coach say eat.”
“But he promised.” Flynn tried making puppy dog eyes at Spencer, and it actually worked. Spencer reached across the table and took the entire mochi ball from him. Good thing he’d bought two. He took a bite of the one he had left. “Ahhh. Cold.” And hard. He’d practically snapped a tooth off.
Mika giggled. “Ice cream.”
“Yeah, ice cream. I get it. We like ours a little softer back home.”
“The coating keeps it colder, probably.” Spencer had nibbled into his ball without breaking anything or screaming loudly enough to attract the attention of everyone in the store. “It’s good. The covering’s sort of… weird. Too chewy.”
“You’ve got some—” Flynn brushed at his own mouth to indicate where some of the starch from the coating had come off on Spencer, and Spencer licked around his lips in a circle that was about all Flynn could take without jumping him. He got out his phone and snapped a photo of Spencer with a mouth full of ice cream ball.
“Where are you posting that?”
“Instagram. Hashtag balls-are-amazing.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “Then you’re answering the text I get from my coach in the middle of the night when he sees it.”
“Let’s make it worth it then.” He turned his phone around to get himself in the shot too and posted that picture with the hashtag breakfast-of-champions. Everyone had finished their ice cream by then, so Flynn prompted Shino to lead them onward.
“Ah, best go back. Trains very busy after work.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to be late,” Spencer said, his ice cream glow already gone.
“No, come on. We escaped from the village. Let’s see something while we’re out here. We have hours still, and we’re in fucking Tokyo. Liv, you want to explore a little, don’t you?” He didn’t want this time with Spencer to end, didn’t want Spencer’s smile to fade back into his training face.
“If we will not be late for the ceremony,” Liv answered.
“Half an hour,” he bargained. “A quick stop somewhere. Didn’t you say there’s a gym in the area, Shino?”
“Shingawa. Close to village. Very good for train while here.”
“There you go.” Flynn slapped Spencer on the arm, a little more heartily than he’d intended to. “You want to see that, don’t you?”
Spencer rubbed his arm. “The information packet said there’d be shuttles to a gym where we could train.”
“Right, it’s probably this place. Hop over there, check the place out, and we’ll go straight back to the village.”
“I guess I’d like to see it. If we’re sure we can get back in time.”
Mika and Shino exchanged a spate of rapid Japanese Flynn didn’t have a prayer of following. He could say a few nouns and a lot of cuss words, but that was about it.
“This way,” Shino said finally. “Faster walk than take train.”
“Perfect. A little exercise to burn off the ice cream, take in some sights, plus we get to scope out the training facility.”
Even Spencer would have to admit it was a good idea.
3. Spencer
#AthletesWhoMissedTheOpeningCeremony
#FlynnHasToDie
Spencer jogged up the stairs to his room, taking them two at a time and cursing Flynn the whole way. It was all fun and games until you missed the opening ceremony.
He should’ve known better. Take a group of climbers to a climbing gym, and what was going to happen? They were going to climb, that was what. None of them were carrying rock shoes, but that hadn’t stopped them. The gym had a peg board for working lock-off strength, dangling foot-free from one hand while using the other to move a peg higher up the board, which Flynn just had to do a few laps on. Which led to everyone doing a few laps. Including him, he had to admit.
He’d figured that since he wasn’t going to get in a run that afternoon, he might as well do some strength training, plus he’d known he could put on a better show than Flynn. Flynn had a dynamic style of climbing that lent itself to big moves in rapid succession, but Spencer had endurance, lock-off strength, and abs that weren’t spoiled with frequent treats of ice cream.