“Then why did you even suggest this?”
“Because I wanted to spend time with you. I thought that was obvious. You know—come have ice cream with me today and I’ll go running with you tomorrow?”
“Because you wanted to spend time me?” Spencer repeated, like he’d never heard anything less believable.
“I like you.” He finally had the breath to raise his voice, but he dropped it instead. “And I don’t understand why you don’t like me. We used to be friends.”
“Oh.” Spencer started running again, but really slowly, the sort of jog Flynn had expected, practically like walking. This time he was able to keep up without feeling like his chest was about to explode, though he wasn’t sure Spencer even wanted him there. Well, Spencer wouldn’t have any trouble getting away from him if he didn’t.
They wound their way through Olympic Village, heading generally in the direction of the ocean, following the curving paths that led from one building to another, past the big coliseum where they’d had the opening ceremony and the flat building where all the pools were, out beyond the ancillary competition venues and the vending area.
Other runners went by in both directions, and the lawns were dotted with people doing yoga or more vigorous workouts. The temperature was nice enough that if he weren’t running, he’d really be appreciating it. Not hot yet, just pleasantly warm.
The waterfront came into view—a blue smear on the horizon, almost indistinguishable from the blue of the sky. As they got closer, the parallel streaks of blue expanded and separated until he could make out waves below and seagulls above. A stretch of beach rolled out to the right of the pier they stopped on, and to the left was the climbing arena.
He could see the speed climbing wall from here—a tall, narrow stretch of white plywood protruding higher than anything else—but he turned away from it to look out over the ocean and the waves instead, bracing his hands on the railing to catch his breath.
“Why can’t we be friends?” he asked, as if the intervening mile hadn’t happened.
“We are friends.”
“Angry friends,” he joked, but Spencer didn’t smile. “I would guess it was because of us getting back late yesterday, except you were mad before that, and it’s not like we’ve even talked all that much.” Not lately.
After Spencer had texted to congratulate him on climbing his first V10, Flynn had found the courage to text back. Sometimes they would go back and forth for hours, being silly or encouraging. Not anything really deep, but he’d thought something was growing.
Then at some point, he’d stopped getting answers, at least not very fast or very often. He hadn’t realized it at first, had just gone on being his normal self, shooting off a text whenever he saw something funny or heard Spencer had accomplished something cool. But when he got a new phone, he couldn’t help noticing that their conversation history only filled up his side of the screen. Spencer had ghosted him.
“But why?” he asked now, much the same as he’d asked his phone at the time. His phone hadn’t answered, but maybe Spencer would.
“This is why.” Spencer shook his watch in Flynn’s face.
“Because I can’t run as fast as you?”
“Because you don’t try as hard as me. At anything. It’s all a big joke to you—warm-ups, cross training, stretching, nutrition. You got barred from competing for six months for failing a drug test.”
“For marijuana, Spencer. It’s not like I was doping. We all smoke a little weed now and then.”
“I don’t. And you know why I don’t?”
“Because you might fail a test?”
“That’s right. Because I take my career seriously. You could’ve lost your sponsors over that.”
“Oh, come on. Climbers smoke weed. If my sponsors dropped me for smoking a joint, they’d get boycotted.”
“You couldn’t compete for six months.”
“Competition climbing isn’t what they sponsor for me for. At least, it wasn’t until this Olympics shit started. I used to be able to climb whatever I wanted as long as I brought along a photographer and wore the right names on my clothes. Jesus, Spencer.” He stroked his hands through his hair, ripping out the elastic he’d used to hold it up. “Is that what you’re mad at me for? Because I don’t want to be here?”
“Oh, my God.” Spencer backed away from him, a hand over his mouth as if he might vomit. “You really don’t want to be here, do you?” He turned and dashed away.
“Spencer, wait!” Flynn went after him, but it was hopeless. Spencer got farther away with every second, and Flynn’s breath was already catching again, making it hard to yell. “Wait! Spencer! Shit!” He stumbled over a break in the pavement. Years of practice falling had him automatically revolving to keep his torso upright and his head off the pavement, but he still landed hard on his hip.
“Shit.” He slapped the pavement, then realized the folly of doing that. His hand was one of the few parts of him that didn’t already hurt. His entire right side felt like he’d scuffed it over sandstone, and his left ankle—the one that always gave him problems—throbbed. It rolled easily because it didn’t have the structural integrity it ought to, and now it was going to be a bitch for the next few days.
“How’re your hands?” Spencer had come back for him, which either meant there was still hope or that Spencer was just too decent to abandon him.
“I didn’t land on my hands.” He held them up for Spencer’s inspection. Aside from a light sting as a result of that pavement pounding he’d just done, they were fine. And so were his arms and shoulders. He’d managed to take the brunt of the impact on his lower body.
“Do you think you can walk?”
“Yeah.” He pushed himself up onto his feet. Sure enough, his left ankle protested, but it did that a lot and he never listened. “Only scrapes. Maybe I’ll bruise up a little. No big.”
“Nothing’s big to you.”
“You want me to cry about it?”
“I guess you don’t care whether you can compete or not, since you don’t even want to be here.”
“I can compete. And I do want to be here. I just— Never mind.” He took a tentative step, and when that went all right, he took another. He was really fucking up Spencer’s run. No wonder Spencer hated him. “Go ahead. Finish your run. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not leaving you alone out here.”
“It’s not Mount Everest, Spencer. I swear I’ll make it back alive.” He started walking toward Athletes Village, careful to weight his left foot fully with every step so it wouldn’t look like he was limping.
“Maybe you should wait here. I’ll bring back a team doctor.”
Flynn ignored that. He wasn’t going to sit around looking pathetic so someone could come wrap him in an ace bandage. He had bandages back in the room, and he knew how to use them.
“Fine,” Spencer said. “Be a hero.” He ran off, exactly like Flynn had told him to.
5. Spencer