The Thomas Flair - E.J. Russell Page 0,5

“I’m just the bellhop.”

Sol head spun. Right. Levels. Eat. But as he hurried to his own room, he shot a quick text to Tony.

Sol->Tony WTF, T? You’re bailing on the Sooners?

But although Sol kept his cell phone practically glued to his hand all morning, shooting additional texts to Tony every half hour—okay, every ten minutes—Tony never responded. Not that day, and not the next. Finally Sol broke down and called him. Voicemail, dammit.

And the next time he called, the number had been disconnected.

Arvada, Colorado, 2020

Breathe. Balance. Keep rhythm steady. One skill at a time.

Sol kept his focus on the pommel horse, trusting his body’s muscle memory and the hundreds of times he’d run this routine in the past season.

Scissors. Flairs. Russian circles. Fly up to a handstand. Aaaand stick the dismount.

Yes! No errors. He allowed himself a surreptitious fist pump as he crossed to the chalk bucket to recoat his hands. Now, if he could just do one more perfect pass before the end of training—

“Sol.”

Sol winced at the sound of his coach’s voice. Xiao never raised his voice in anger, but his gymnasts could always tell when he was annoyed by the bite in his tone. “Yes?”

“How many times have you repeated that exercise?”

Sol turned back to the chalk, making sure his hands were covered. He didn’t want to get another rip. Not now. Not so close to heading off to Colorado Springs to train with the rest of the national team.

Not so close to the Olympics.

“A few. The last with no errors. If I can do one more—”

“No more.”

Sol’s head jerked up. “What? But, Xiao—”

“If you haven’t counted, I have. That makes seven. You and I both know that big numbers are not your friend. And have you looked at the time?”

Sol glanced at the clock, high on the gym wall. Shit. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. The transition from flairs to circles was giving me trouble, and—”

“Enough for now. Center yourself. Eat if you need to. We’ll talk afterward.”

Eat. Talk. Yeah, no point in arguing, because Xiao was right, as he usually was. Sol couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost track of his schedule. He’d been nine when diabetes had reprogrammed his system into something that couldn’t maintain itself without outside intervention. Starting gymnastics—the discipline, the routine, the proof that he still had power over something about his body—had helped him manage his condition. He never let his control slip like this.

The looming Olympic team selection must be freaking him out even more than he thought.

But as he headed to the locker room, he admitted to himself that was only part of his problem.

It’s those damn flairs. Sol had resisted putting flairs in his exercises for four years. Not because he couldn’t do them—at twenty-three, although he was strong and fit, he hadn’t started building up the heavy muscle mass that older gymnasts developed, so he was still able to move easily on the horse where balance, agility, and finesse were as important as strength.

Xiao had been urging Sol to put flairs into his routine almost the instant they’d returned from Rio. “It is never too early to start preparing for the next Olympics,” Xiao had told him. “You must prove your value to the team. You have the potential to be an all-around champion. Floor and pommel horse will, I think, be your specialties, but not—” Xiao had fixed him with his patented coach’s stare. “—if you resist adding such an important component.”

Sol’s stubborn streak—the same stubborn streak that sparked his quick rise in gymnastics, the same stubborn streak that had made him buckle down and learn to manage his diabetes—had kicked in, however, and until this season, he’d refused to add the skill. For one reason and one reason only.

Tony Thomas.

It was stupid. Tony hadn’t invented the move—it was the legendary Kurt Thomas, back in the seventies, who’d invented it, first on horse and then on floor. The gymnastics Code of Points didn’t even call them Thomas flairs anymore—they were just flairs.

But every time Sol executed the skill, that name echoed in his head because Tony had always joked that flairs were his signature move. “How can I resist when they’re named after me?”

After Tony jetted out of the Olympic Village to turn pro and transform his individual success into adrenaline-fueled celebrity, he’d quit the team, quit school, quit gymnastics.

Quit me.

And Sol, hurt, bewildered, adrift, hadn’t been able to face flairs since.

He sighed and trudged into the locker room to