armstand dives—but some of it seemed petty and nitpicky. Then again, maybe those nits needed to be picked for the sake of Olympic competition. He’d just have to put his all into it, that was what Isaac had said.
“Seriously, though? You’re in fine form,” said Donnie. “I’m only being hard on you because I think you have a solid shot at the gold medal. But remember, you can’t control the other divers. You can’t control how perfect or terrible the other eleven men in the final will be. You can only control yourself. You’re capable of doing all six of these dives flawlessly, you’ve gotten a lot of practice in over the last week and a half, and you’re ready for competition. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Donnie clapped a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “That gold medal is yours. Let’s show the world your winning four years ago was not a fluke.”
“It wasn’t,” said Tim with conviction.
Tim thought he saw a glimmer of tears in Donnie’s eyes, but Donnie blinked a few times and it was gone. He glanced at his watch. “Go change, big guy. I have to go make Jason stop goofing around and concentrate, and then I have a meeting with the other coaches tonight.”
Tim nodded, found his discarded shammy, and walked into the locker room.
Isaac was leaning against Tim’s locker when Tim walked to it. “You win a few gold medals and they just let you go anywhere, huh?” Tim said.
“Fun story,” Isaac said. “A Hungarian swimmer tested positive for PEDs and the Anti-Doping Agency is cracking down on everyone, so I had to come in for another drug test, even though I finished swimming four days ago.”
“Ugh, really?”
“Double-fun story is they did a blood alcohol test too, and I think the doctor thought he got me. He was all, ‘You’ve been partying for three days, haven’t you?’ Well, joke’s on them.”
Tim shooed Isaac out of the way so he could put his stuff away in his locker. “They’re really cracking down?”
“Yeah, especially on swimmers and runners. Runners are getting the brunt of it, actually. I’ve heard the Olympic Stadium has more people in white doctor’s coats than a hospital. But since I’m still in Madrid….” Isaac sighed. “As much as I enjoy peeing in a cup while some dude watches, I had better plans for my afternoon.”
“Such as?”
Isaac gave Tim a long appraising look, sweeping his gaze from Tim’s head to his toes. Tim became acutely aware of how little he was wearing—just his dive suit. He felt heat rise to his face and chest.
“That blush is adorable,” Isaac said.
Tim rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
“I saw you practicing. You’re…. You amaze me. How you jump from that height and do all those somersaults without injuring yourself, I will never know.”
“I’ve injured myself plenty over the years.”
“You make it look easy. I don’t love heights like that, but you make me think I could just climb to the top of that tower and hurl myself off it.”
“Don’t. They upped security around the dive pool since that reporter got into practice. They’ll probably arrest you.” Tim nudged Isaac out of the way again, because he kept shifting back in front of Tim’s open locker.
Isaac put a hand on the back of Tim’s neck. “I did want to mention one other thing.”
Isaac’s tone had grown so serious, Tim turned to give his full attention. “What?”
“I called Marcus Holt to see if he still wants me to do the interview. Swimming is over, so I thought I might have missed my window, but I thought about it, and I decided that it might be worth talking about my alcoholism.”
“Are you sure?” Tim asked, aware suddenly that he was in a locker room and other men were around. A couple of water polo teams were trickling in to get ready for their match in an hour. How many of these guys spoke English was an open question, and Tim’s little aisle was still empty, but Tim was suddenly very conscious of the fact that they could be overheard.
“I am,” Isaac said, keeping his voice low. “Holt still wants to talk to me. I’m meeting with him this afternoon.”
“Are you sure?”
Isaac looked pensively into the distance. “Being frank about my alcoholism will cost some endorsement money. Big corporations want to sponsor athletes with stories of triumph over adversity, not those of us who struggle daily. But….”
“What?”
“I didn’t sleep much last night and kept thinking about my purpose. And I think the glossy sheen everyone always puts