Stick the Landing Read online

“My point is that gymnasts are a rare breed.”

  “So are figure skaters.”

  “Fair.”

  “I’m just saying, you keep explaining things like ‘living at the gym’ as if I didn’t spend most of my life living in an ice rink. Believe me, I get it.”

  Natalie gestured between their heads. “I think we get each other. Maybe we will be a good duo.”

  “Let’s make the most of this podium training gig, then, eh?”

  “I was feeling a little like I’d been relegated to the dark basement of the internet for this assignment, but you know what? I think you and I can have a good time together.”

  “We could be our own portmanteau. Natopher!”

  “Topherlie!”

  “Brilliant!”

  Natalie laughed. She lifted her juice glass. “Here’s to an excellent Olympic experience!”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Topher clicked his glass against Natalie’s.

  THE HIGH bar in the practice gym was wonky.

  Jake dismounted, stuck it, and made eye contact with Alexei. Then he turned around and walked back to the bar. “I think something’s loose.”

  Alexei jogged over. “It’s fine. I checked it myself.”

  “No. It felt uneven. A little wobbly.”

  “Do you plan to be this fussy all week?”

  “No, I just—it didn’t feel right.”

  “You need to catch your releases harder. These judges, they take deductions for everything. You grab the bar with your fingertips like you did on that last Tkatchev, you’ll lose tenths.”

  “I know, but I think… you know, whatever, it’s fine. I’ll catch the bar next time.” Jake didn’t want to argue with Alexei. He could see plainly that one of the pins was not in all the way, so the bar had shaken a bit when Jake did the release moves, but another coach was already fiddling with it, so it was too late now. “I have to go do some bullshit interview for TBC.”

  Alexei slapped his ass. “Go. Do better next time.”

  “Next time is podium training, so….”

  Alexei made a kind of strangled coughing sound. Jake knew Alexei hated that TBC aired parts of podium training, because it put more pressure on the athletes to do well, even though it didn’t count. Jake was pretty good at forgetting about the cameras, though; he only fucked up when the judges were watching.

  This was going to be a fun week.

  Jake grabbed his stuff and went back to the locker room, where he changed into street clothes and fiddled with his hair. He put on a white button-down shirt—crisp enough to look good on camera, and it offset his summer tan nicely. Not that he’d had a lot of time for tanning, but Valentin thought it was a good idea to soak up some sun periodically, since his children otherwise spent so much time in a gym, they didn’t get enough vitamin D exposure.

  Jake walked to a press room deep in the bowels of the arena. When he poked his head through the open door, he saw that someone had strewn purple velvet curtains along all four walls of the room. Of all the choices…. Purple was one of the network’s colors, so Jake figured this was some kind of branding, but still, it looked like a boudoir.

  “Hello?” Jake called out.

  The man who appeared looked vaguely familiar, but Jake couldn’t place him. He was taller than Jake, and thin, but his clothes were tight enough to reveal an athlete’s physique—sculpted muscles, a surgery scar near his wrist—and he carried himself with the sort of poise gymnasts and dancers had. Also, his shirt was blindingly pink and his blond hair was done up in some kind of crazy pompadour. He was… kind of a lot to look at, actually.

  “Hi, can I help you?” asked the guy. He had a soft voice.

  “Uh, I’m supposed to be doing an interview?”

  The guy gave Jake an assessing look. “You’re Jake, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s… uh, okay.” Jake shook his head. He hadn’t had to introduce himself to anyone working in gymnastics media in a while.

  He looked around. A woman with a headset crushing her frizzy hair stood off to one side of the room, having an intense conversation with Natalie Pasquarella. There were a few other PAs and network employees buzzing around. The pompadour in the hot pink shirt stared at Jake expectantly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m new at this,” the pompadour said. “I’m Christopher Caldwell.”

  Jake’s brain worked overtime to make the connection, but he drew a blank. “Okay.”

  “It’s all right, darling. You probably don’t recognize me because I’m not wearing feathers and completing a triple axel.”

  Figure skater. Flamboyant figure skater. Christopher Caldwell, yes. Jake had seen him skate on TV a couple of times. “Right, sorry. Of course. I just came from practice, so my head’s in the clouds. Hi, Mr. Caldwell. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise. So now you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.”

  “I… yeah, I guess.” Jake felt confused more than anything else. What exactly was happening here?

  Christopher Caldwell pointed to two purple director’s chairs in the corner. Two cameras and a huge light were trained on the chairs, so clearly this was the interview set.

  “They didn’t tell me who I’d meet with,” Jake said, trying not to seem like a complete idiot. “Just that I had to be here at the appointed time. Should I sit?”

  “Yeah. Let me go get the camera guy. Get comfy.”

  Christopher walked like a dancer, graceful but in a way that made him seem delicate. Of course he wasn’t, if he was a professional figure skater. A few skaters had been through Valentin’s gym over the years, to do acrobatic training that was supposed to help them jump better, so Jake had a rough idea of what their training regimen looked like. It was brutal, nearly as intense as gymnastics.

  When Christopher returned, he sat in the other chair, but there was no camera man. “Sorry,” he said, “Jim is wrapping up another interview, and we have to wait for Joanna to give the go-ahead. She’s helping produce the segment. It should just be a few minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  Jake looked Christopher over. He had fine features and rosy skin, but also a square jaw and shoulders that seemed broad for his frame. He was… well, beautiful was the first word that popped into Jake’s head. But sexy too. The eyeliner and the pink shirt clashed with his masculine body in a way that resulted in an alluring androgyny that Jake found he couldn’t look away from. And Christopher’s whole look indicated that he did not give a fuck what anyone thought of him. Jake found that hot too.

  “Maybe we can get to know each other a little? I mean, I’m kind of new to this interviewing thing. I have a list of network-approved questions to ask.” Christopher pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket. “So this won’t get too scandalous, but it feels strange for me to be asking personal things of a man I met thirty seconds ago.”

  Well, this was going to be weird. “Sure.”

  “I mean, Natalie told me a little about you. You know Natalie, right?” Christopher hooked his thumb back toward where Natalie stood.

  “I do a little, yes.”

  “So, basically, the network is spinning this story of you, darling, as this legendary gymnast who still doesn’t have a gold medal. But this is your year, right?”

  “God willing.”

  “Great.” Then Christopher Caldwell laughed. “God, I’m so sorry. I’ve been in your seat a billion times, and I know how dumb these interviews are. Still, I’m still trying to toe the network line because I want this job. So let’s start over. I’m Christopher Caldwell, but my friends call me Topher. You can call me Topher if you like.”

  Topher. That seemed right. A name like Chris felt too plain for this man. “All right,” said Jake.

  “I’m here in Madrid doing puff pieces for TBC as a kind of audition for a commentator job. So I want to do really well at this, but I also totally get how awkward it is to be the athlete who just wants to get back to practice. I’m sure the last thing you want to do is this interview.”


  Something about the lilt of Christopher’s—Topher’s—voice was really soothing, so Jake nodded. “I mean, no offense. The publicity is nice. But it would have been better to get a few more sets in just now.”

  “I get it. Believe me.” Topher studied his piece of paper for a moment. “Sorry, just trying to memorize these. Give me a sec.”

  As Topher studied the paper, Jake studied Topher. He was handsome, in a soft way. The hair was a little silly, and that shirt was an eyesore, but the pink also set off the flush of Topher’s complexion, his high cheekbones, and his reddish, glossy lips. Jake didn’t always find makeup on guys appealing, but Topher’s shiny lips really did draw the eye right to them, didn’t they? He had freckles across his nose too. And he was built. Thin, yes, with a willowy quality to him, but Jake could plainly see the power in Topher’s arms, in his thick thighs, in his broad chest. Topher must have retired a few years ago, but it was clear he still went to the gym regularly and took care of his body.

  Once an elite athlete, always an elite athlete.

  Jake spared a moment to think on his own retirement. What the hell would he even do with himself?

  “God, I can’t believe they want me to ask some of this stuff. You don’t want to talk about your lack of success.”

  “That’s a question?” Jake asked.

  Topher sat up straight and puffed out his chest a little. He leveled his gaze at Jake and then said, in a perfect news anchor imitation, “Why do you think you have yet to really prove yourself on a world stage?”

  Fuck. As tickled as Jake was by the imitation, he hated the question. “It’s not that I haven’t.”

  “No, I know. It’s not like I’ve never heard, ‘Gee, Toph, why did you never win an Olympic medal?’ ‘I don’t know, sweetie, I just didn’t.’”

  “You never won an Olympic medal? That can’t be true.”

  “I think I’d remember if I did.”

  Something shifted in Jake’s perception of Topher, but Jake didn’t have time to process it before the frizzy-haired lady and a guy in a TBC T-shirt walked over. “You ready to get started?” she asked.

  “As ever,” Topher said perkily as he folded and put the list of questions back in his pocket. “Can I modify these questions a little?”

  Frizzy Hair frowned. “Well, sure, you can. I mean, it’s your interview.”

  So… no.

  But Topher seemed to take it as a yes. He crossed his legs and sat up again, looking square at Jake. “Then let’s get started.”

  JAKE MIRAKOVITCH was probably the hottest guy Topher had ever set eyes on.

  He had sun-bronzed skin and auburn hair and pretty green eyes. He wore a white shirt that didn’t do much to hide his muscles; this was a guy with a tremendous amount of strength. His body’s power was evident all over, from his biceps to his thighs. Topher couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to have those bulky limbs around him.

  But he had to push that thought aside. He had to be a professional. He cleared his throat. Joanna counted down and then gave the signal for the camera to roll.

  Topher got right into it, because he was filming the interview’s introduction later. “How are you feeling?” Topher asked. “You ready for the competition?”

  “Yes,” said Jake. “I feel really great. We changed the training routine a little at camp this year, so we worked through a lot of possible scenarios to help prepare mentally as well as physically. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ready for a competition.”

  “And you’re healthy? After the injury at last year’s World Championships?” Topher didn’t know anything about the injury except that it was on his list of questions to ask.

  But maybe it was the wrong thing to ask, because Jake frowned briefly. “Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. I, uh, hit my head when I failed to land a vault correctly and wound up with a concussion, but I recovered well and I’ve been healthy since. And, you know, everyone tried to blame some setting on the vault table. That does happen sometimes. There was one Worlds where the vault was set too low and nobody landed correctly. But this was just… user error. It was on me. I didn’t get off the vault hard enough, didn’t rotate fast enough, so I couldn’t stick the landing and I hit my head. It happens.” Jake sighed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to rant.”

  “No, I get it. Nobody ran out and tripped me when I missed the quad axel at the Olympics.”

  Jake looked up and Topher met his gaze. God, those eyes. Mossy green, the most striking Topher had ever met head-on like this. Some unspoken communication passed between them, and Jake said, “Yeah. Exactly.” He took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’ve been working on my self-confidence in training. Working through a lot of strange situations. How do I recover if I mess up? How do I keep myself from panicking if one of my teammates gets injured or misses an important skill? How do I keep a mistake or an injury from derailing my whole meet? That kind of thing.”

  “But you feel good?”

  Jake raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. I feel great, actually.”

  “So, what do you think of the Americans’ chances of winning a medal in men’s gymnastics?”

  “Good. We’re in great shape. I know the men generally fly under the radar because the women get more attention. And that’s fair, because they have a fantastic team. The depth of that team—there are women who didn’t make the cut who could win medals in their sleep—it’s really something. But I think the men’s team deserves some recognition too, for all the hard work we’ve put in.”

  Topher nodded. He took a moment to recall the next question. “Speaking of the women’s team, what’s it like being on an Olympic team with your sister?”

  “Oh, well. USA Gymnastics is a Mirakovitch family affair these days, I suppose. My whole family is in Madrid. Chelsea and my parents. I mean, my dad coaches the women’s team, of course. But they’ve all been enormously supportive.”

  Of course. Topher recognize the line for what it was but thought he detected some uneasiness in Jake, an old resentment, maybe, or chafing under the watchful eyes of his family. Topher suspected that would have affected him, too, if his mother had been allowed into the athletes’ spaces during competition. Topher liked knowing she was watching, that she sat in the audience, but to have her in the space reserved for coaches would have been unnerving.

  Topher was a little dumbfounded by Jake’s easy beauty, his strength and athleticism, and he struggled to come up with the next question. In his peripheral vision, he caught Joanna giving him the signal to wrap it up. “Are you unveiling anything new at the Games, or are you sticking to the routines you’ve done all season?”

  “I have a high bar release move I’ve been working on. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do it in competition or not yet. I might save it for the event finals. There are so many amazing athletes here that you really have to go big or go home at the event finals.”

  “Well, Jake, good luck in the competition!”

  “Cut,” said Joanna. “That was great, Jake. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Can I have some water?”

  “Table behind you. Help yourself.”

  Topher followed Jake over to the craft services table and watched Jake pour water from a metal pitcher covered in condensation. Ice clinked around in the pitcher as Jake filled a big paper cup. He took a healthy gulp of water, then eyed Topher as he refilled his cup.

  “I’m such an idiot,” Jake said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Getting upset about the vault at Worlds.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. You could barely notice you were upset about it. They’ll probably edit your face out of that bit anyway. My segments are supposed to be feel-good pieces, so they’ll keep the stuff about how you’re prepared and how your family is supportive, because that’s what the audience wants to hear.”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah. Did you have to do things like this when you were competing?”

  “Yup. They did this extensive package on me bef
ore my first Olympics because I was supposed to win a gold medal. Instead, I fell on my face and lost to the Russians. You’d think I’d started the Cold War again, based on the press I got.”

  “Don’t get me started. Every time I lose a competition, someone writes an article about how I’m such a disappointment to my parents and their great American dream of escaping the USSR and making happy gymnastics triumph over the old grueling system.” Jake sighed.

  “Oh, the sports news. They really run with their own narratives sometimes, don’t they?”

  Jake nodded slowly, looking into his cup. Topher tried to get a read on this guy. There was something practiced and elusive about him, probably borne of doing dozens of interviews just like this, wherein he had to pretend everything was hunky-dory when in fact his anxiety was telling him things were anything but.

  Or Topher was projecting.

  “Does your father coach you as well?” Topher asked.

  Jake shook his head. “He coaches my sister. He did coach me when I was a kid, but when I was, I don’t know, nineteen or so? I told him I wanted my own coach. Dad wanted to specialize in women’s gymnastics anyway. So I work with Alexei, who, incidentally, is an old teammate of dear old Dad’s.”

  “Also a Soviet gymnast?”

  “Aren’t they all? A good number of the coaches on the elite level came out of either the Soviet or Romanian machines.” Jake shrugged. “Look, I gotta get going. It was nice to talk to you, though.”

  Topher wasn’t sure why he did the next thing, but he pulled a card out of his pocket. Probably the network hadn’t made these cards for occasions when their commentators developed crushes on interview subjects, but just the same, Topher handed Jake the card and said, “Well, if you ever want to talk to someone who is not affiliated with your family, my cell phone number is on there. Text me. Maybe we can get a drink or something at the America House.”

  There. That didn’t sound too much like Topher had asked Jake out on a date. It was the Olympics; circumstances were different than they would have been if Topher had just, say, run into Jake at a coffeehouse. Topher didn’t know Jake’s status at all; was he gay, straight, bi, single, coupled, married, what? No wedding ring, but that didn’t really mean anything. Topher had once had a teammate who took his wedding ring off during competition because he found its presence distracting during his program. Topher kind of thought that was bullshit and the guy was more likely cheating on his wife, but whatever. If Topher had been married during his career, he would have worn the damn ring.