my muscles are tied in knots.” Isaac rolled his head and shook out his shoulders.
“Sit.” Tim pointed to the bench in front of the row of lockers.
Unsure, but willing to go along with it, Isaac straddled the bench and sat down.
Tim moved behind him. “May I?”
“Do what you will.”
Tim put his hands on Isaac’s bare shoulders and just rested them there at first. Then he rotated his thumb and dug into Isaac’s tight muscles. He gradually increased the pressure.
“I know the swim team has been playing around with some Chinese medicine techniques,” Tim said. “Cupping can get the blood flowing back into your muscles if they feel tight, but I like this better. There are acupressure points in your back, and stimulating them locally can help relieve pain. But if you work out how all the points in the body are connected, I can actually put pressure elsewhere and have it give you relief where you need it. For now, though, how is this?” Tim dug into a spot near where Isaac’s neck met his shoulder.
Isaac groaned involuntarily, but the pressure from Tim’s hands seemed to make the muscle pop, and tension flowed out of it. “That’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t know jack about Chinese medicine, but keep doing that. I think it’s working.”
“I mean, the main goal is to get your blood flowing. That’s the purpose of this pressure.” Tim pressed the heel of his hand into the space between Isaac’s shoulder blades, and it hit Isaac right where he needed it. “You want to get your blood circulating. That will help ease the muscle tension. Although, also, you could relax.”
Isaac laughed. “How do you know all this?”
“I studied sports medicine in college. I thought about going to med school for a while, but I decided to keep diving instead.”
Tim’s hands spread out across Isaac’s back. Those hands felt huge, despite Tim’s relatively small frame. Well, Tim wasn’t small so much as smaller than Isaac.
“God, that’s good,” Isaac said with a sigh.
Tim chuckled. “It’s like you’ve never gotten a massage before.”
“I usually wait until after the meet is over.”
“So how do you relieve tension before a meet?”
“Sex.”
Tim’s hands froze on Isaac’s shoulders. Isaac realized what he’d said, so he backpedaled. “Not so much anymore, but when I was younger, I’d go out the night before a meet if I was tense and find a distraction.”
“God, really?” Tim resumed the massage, digging his fingers into the base of Isaac’s skull. The pressure there seemed to loosen something up in Isaac’s lower back. Tim’s hands were magic, relieving tension wherever they touched. A shiver went up Isaac’s spine; it had very little to do with the massage itself and everything to do with the potential of how that touch could go further. Perhaps while they were both horizontal.
Isaac cleared his throat. “Really. I know. I used to get hammered the night before meets too. I won a lot despite myself. I thought I was untouchable. Top of the world, right? Isaac goddamned Flood. Legend. Best swimmer since Michael Phelps. Did you know two of the world records I set are still mine?”
“So basically what you’re telling me is that, because you’re Isaac Flood, you goofed your way through meets. Did you do that your last Olympics too?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. I can’t do that anymore, though, and not just because I’m trying to hang on to my sobriety. I’m not as fast as I used to be. My body is different.”
“You really were the best, then, if you could get drunk and have anonymous sex and still win gold medals.”
Isaac groaned. “I’m not the best anymore.”
“Is that why you’re so tense?”
He thought back on the last Olympics and all the squandered potential. He’d had dozens of opportunities during those Games to train and learn, but he’d partied instead. Would he have won more medals if he’d been sober? Probably. “I want to do this right. I don’t want to just go through the motions. I want to put my all into it this time around. Go out on a high note, not as a has-been.”
“You are doing it right.”
Isaac closed his eyes and leaned back a little, into Tim’s hands. Tim’s fingers dug and poked into Isaac’s muscles, but in the most delightful way. Isaac’s skin seemed to come alive under his touch; it ached and tingled. Tim’s hands were warm and smooth, arousing Isaac’s muscles, soothing his old aches. If it wouldn’t have been wholly inappropriate, he would have thrown his head