name? With the floppy hair. Uh, Jake… something Polish or Russian or something, right?”
Tim shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“One of the Team USA gymnasts is, like, the poster boy for the network coverage of the Olympics. His name, I want to say, is Jake something. And now I’m mangling this. My point is just that he’s really hot. I’m showing my appreciation for gymnasts.”
Tim giggled, then put his hand over his mouth because he couldn’t believe he’d giggled, and finally just let himself laugh. “What I hear you saying is that there’s a gymnast you have a crush on.”
Isaac groaned and ran a hand over his face. “No, I… I made a joke about gymnasts, but they are all super strong. I think the makeup-and-glitter thing the women gymnasts do is fucking ridiculous, and it kind of minimizes how strong they are, but male gymnasts are… oh, forget it.”
“No, finish the thought.” Tim grinned, giddy now.
Isaac rolled his eyes.
“Why, Isaac Flood, do I detect an attraction to male gymnasts?”
“Fine,” Isaac said, holding a hand up. “I’m bisexual. Cat’s out of the bag.”
For whatever reason, that made Tim giddier. “I was just giving you a hard time. I know exactly who you’re talking about, and he is smoking hot. Good jawline. And arms. He’s got great arms.”
“Yeah. I like that too. Swimmers are so weird to look at, you know? Wide necks, the lot of us.” Isaac held up his hands as if he was going to choke himself, but then he dropped his arms. “Lot of my teammates would be super hot if their chins didn’t fade into their necks.”
Tim snorted. “Well, whatever. I think swimmers are hot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup.”
And then they seemed to arrive at an impasse, because Tim wasn’t quite ready to admit he thought Isaac was hot.
On the other hand, Tim wanted something to happen here, especially now that he knew Isaac wasn’t straight. But how did one make a move? Before Pat, he’d only had a couple of random hookups to his name, and those were all guys who had approached him. And with Pat, well, Tim couldn’t even remember how that had gone anymore. They’d met at a bar or something, hadn’t they?
Then again, Pat had probably manipulated all of it, so if there’d been some sweet meet-cute at the beginning, who knew how genuine the moment had really been?
Fuck Pat sideways. Tim still got mad thinking about it.
Pat had left Tim a twenty-four-year-old man with very little romantic experience who couldn’t figure out how to hit on a man he found ridiculously attractive.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Isaac asked, handing over a breakfast sandwich.
Tim hesitated, at first intending to lie and say he was thinking about twists and somersaults. Then he decided to go for it, figuring he’d never get anywhere if he didn’t say how he felt. “Honestly? I was working out how to hit on you.”
Isaac paused in unwrapping his sandwich. Then he half smiled and nodded. “Not what I was expecting you to say, but all right. I’ll tell you, though, I could use a friend right now, more than a good lay.”
How should Tim have taken that? Was Isaac turning him down gently? Although what Isaac probably needed was something deeper than a quick fuck. “I can do that too. Just, you know.”
Isaac looked up and raised an eyebrow. “What do I know?”
Mortified now, heat flushing Tim’s face, he said, “You know how hot you are.”
Isaac laughed. “That is not a thing I know.”
Tim wanted a hole to open up under his chair. “Whatever. We can be friends. Forget I said anything.”
Isaac still laughed as he grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and straddled it backward, facing Tim. “I don’t want to forget it. But I do want to be clear about something. Because I think we get each other. Like, you’re dealing with a media spotlight that makes you uncomfortable. Something bad happened to you, but you don’t want that to define your Olympic experience. I can’t escape it either. Poor Isaac Flood, right? He was a legend until he became an alcoholic. Then he showed up at Trials, and suddenly he’s qualified for another Olympics! It’s a goddamn miracle.” Isaac shook his head. “I just want to swim, you know? Of course you know, because you just want to dive. You don’t want to be the athlete who dated a movie star. You don’t want to be the gay diver. You want to be an