Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3334943.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Figure_Skating_RPF
  Relationship:
      Jason_Brown/Joshua_Farris
  Character:
      Jason_Brown, Joshua_Farris
  Additional Tags:
      Winter_Olympics, Growing_Up_Together, POV_Alternating, Two_Bottoms_One
      Relationship
  Series:
      Part 1 of Other_Half
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-02-11 Words: 14201
****** Other Half ******
by Mosca
Summary
     Jason and Josh have literally been together since they were ten years
     old, and they'll be together long past thirty.
Notes
     Many thanks to lovessong for beta reading and plot unsticking! And to
     the Twizzlers for enabling.
     In the 2015 US Nationals free skate press conference, Jason Brown
     said that he and Joshua Farris "have been together since we were
     ten," and then they giggled uncontrollably while Josh interrupted to
     correct how many times they'd stood on a podium together. It was like
     being handed a large, sparkly box of canon.
     This fic contains: non-explicit discussion of fifteen-year-olds doing
     sexual things together, much more explicit depiction of seventeen-
     year-olds having sex, explicit depiction of an anaphylactic allergy
     attack, drunk sex, important decisions made while on painkillers,
     institutional homophobia, one gay slur, a torrent of F-bombs,
     mentions of minor off-screen infidelity, vegan baked goods, and near-
     intolerable levels of cuteness.
10.
Getting on an airplane to go to a competition was exciting. Jason had competed
at nearby rinks before, sometimes even mixed in with girls, so when Kori told
him he was old enough and good enough to travel as long as he behaved himself,
he resolved to be as grown up as possible and also to get his jumps perfect.
Juvenile seemed like a scarily advanced category to be in, even though he’d
passed his Intermediate test already.
So of course he messed up under the pressure and fell on his axel. He stayed in
the locker room, licking his wounds, until there was only one other kid left, a
skinny boy with black hair, hunched defeatedly over his iPod. Jason’s brain
picked this terrible moment to go I think I like boys, I know I like boys, oh
my God, what am I supposed to do now? So Jason silenced his brain the best way
he knew how, which was to open his mouth. The other boy, whose name was Josh,
shared his headphones. Jason tried to share a snack, but Josh scooted away,
saying, “I have these allergies. I could literally die. I can’t, like, even
touch it.”
“But what if someone touches you?” Jason said. “You know, by accident. Or what
if they kissed you?”
“I don’t know. Nobody’s ever kissed me. Except, like, my mom, and nobody else
in my house eats dairy products either because of me.”
“What about if they kissed you on the cheek?” Jason said, and before he got an
answer, he kissed Josh on the cheek.
Josh blushed and giggled instead of running away or yelling that Jason was a
fag or punching Jason in the face, like a normal ten-year-old boy would.
Instead, he said, “I guess I didn’t die.” He squeezed Jason’s hand, and five
minutes holding a boy’s hand in a locker room felt like a very big deal.
*
12.
They were in a hotel room in Cleveland. Josh had moved up to Intermediate and
kind of sucked; Jason had been held back in Juvenile Land and won. They were
playing Truth Or Dare, and Jason picked “dare” because if he picked “truth”
they were just going to ask him who he had a crush on. He felt uncomfortable
lying in a game with truth right there in the name, and he didn’t have a crush
on anyone there, except possibly Josh. And that didn’t feel so much like a
crush anymore, just the quiet background noise of like-liking his friend.
The girl giving out the dares had an evil look in her eye. “Kiss the person who
you think has never been kissed,” she said.
Kissing a girl would give the wrong impression. Kissing a boy was possible
suicide. Josh was the only person left – not that Josh wasn’t a boy, just that
Josh was a boy he trusted.
Jason had no idea how to actually kiss someone, but he did his best, and it
must have been fine because what Josh was doing felt a lot like kissing him
back. And it felt good, like, kind of perfect, like all the rumors about
kissing were true.
Josh pulled him into a corner of the room. “You totally kissed me two years
ago.”
“That wasn’t a real kiss. I was trying to see if you’d die.”
Josh scrunched up his face. Clearly, it had been real to him.
“You’re also the only one here I wanted to kiss,” Jason said.
They stood in the corner and worked on their kissing skills. The other kids
ignored them, busy truth-ing and daring each other, until somebody’s mom came
in and told them they all had to go to bed.
*
13.
Josh and Jason went 1-2 in Intermediate at Nationals. For half a moment, Josh
wondered if he should have missed a jump on purpose so Jason could win. He knew
Jason would never forgive him for that, though. They were always going to be
like this, neck and neck, or at least that’s how Josh hoped it would be. He
didn’t want to lose to anyone else. He didn’t want anyone else to come close.
Josh’s trophy was a giant blue cup, and he was the one to notice that it would
make a cool helmet. Jason, of course, was the one to take the joke further:
butt helmet. Some lady who was not either of their mothers ran up to them and
told them to quit being inappropriate. This was so much less inappropriate than
making out that Josh could not stop laughing for two minutes straight. And when
Josh couldn’t stop laughing, Jason couldn’t stop laughing either.
At the banquet that night, scratching at the sleeves of the blazer he’d
outgrown and staring enviously at the food he couldn’t eat, Josh overheard the
“inappropriate” woman talking to some other mom. “Those two boys who won, how
long do you think it will be before they realize they can’t be friends? Because
they’re going to make it, if they both stay in. And that means they’re going to
be standing next to each other on every podium until they’re twenty-five, and
sooner or later it’s not going to be so funny anymore.”
By the end, Josh was sure the woman intended for him to hear. She was either
warning him or trying to take him down a peg. Whatever, all he chose to take
from her negativity was every podium until we’re twenty-five.
*
15.
Josh was surprised to find out when he got to Spokane that he and Jason were
rooming together. His mom looked proud of herself when he met her in the lobby
to get his food, and he was almost completely sure that she and Jason’s mom had
made this happen. Josh didn’t talk about Jason much with his mom because he
wasn’t sure what to say. But every once in a while, she’d say something offhand
to reassure Josh that she didn’t mind him having a boyfriend, and that she was
glad it was Jason. “I think he brings you out of your shell,” she’d said on the
plane, for example.
Since it was an Olympic year, Nationals were earlier than usual and a bigger
production than Josh remembered from the previous year. Maybe it was also
because Junior was a much bigger deal than Novice, especially since he’d won
the past two years. With so much going on, all he wanted was to spend time
alone with Jason. Of course, nature was their enemy, so Jason’s flight from
Chicago got delayed. Josh would have sat in his room all night, watching
internet porn, if Tom hadn’t come to his door and frog-marched him to the gym.
“Whatever it is, get it out of your system,” Tom said.
The longer Josh spent on the elliptical, the more he seemed to have bottled up
in his system. It wasn’t sexual frustration or nervous energy, which he could
have exercised away. He only got to see Jason two weeks out of the year as it
was, and now he was losing a day to snow.
Tom was wise enough to come back around in half an hour to make sure Josh
hadn’t crawled off somewhere to jerk off sullenly. “Do we need to talk?”
Josh shook his head but remembered that the truth often worked better on Tom.
“My boyfriend’s plane is late, and I’m worried about him.”
“Don’t do that,” Tom said, like changing his emotions was as easy as changing
an edge. “Focus on yourself and your skating.”
“Okay.”
“You know, maybe dating isn’t such a great idea for you now, kiddo,” Tom said.
“He’s a skater, he lives a thousand miles away, we see each other twice a
year,” Josh said. “It’s not like he interferes with anything.”
“Well, let’s keep an eye on that.” Tom patted Josh hard on the arm, a display
of over-masculine false solidarity that made Josh less and less comfortable
lately. “And maybe you can spend some more time with the girls at the rink.
You’re only fifteen, you know. A lot can change.”
Josh was a homeschooled teenager with half a brain. The parental controls on
his home internet were laughable. A thorough survey of websites he wasn’t
supposed to be visiting had taught him that no amount of time with girls at the
rink was going to make him straight. And even if it could, how could he love
one of them more than he loved Jason?
Josh went through the motions of his afternoon, finishing his workout, reading
the book his mom had assigned him for English, and having dinner with some of
the other Broadmoor kids. He tried to go to bed early so he’d be refreshed for
practice, but he ended up lying awake listening to music until Jason bounded in
at one in the morning. Josh stretched wide and turned the light on.
“Oh my God, you waited up?” Jason said. “You weren’t supposed to do that.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Josh got up, squeezed Jason close, and kissed his forehead.
Josh had always been taller, but lately, the gap was widening.
Jason hugged back for an admirably long time before saying, “Sorry, but all I
want to do right this second is pee, plug in my phone, and take all my clothes
off.”
“Go for it,” Josh said. As Jason shut the bathroom door, Josh added, “Don’t put
any new ones on.”
He heard Jason’s giggle fit through the door. They could probably hear it in
the lobby. Josh half hoped Jason would come out of the bathroom naked and half
hoped he’d chicken out. Josh himself was dragging his feet, still in his pajama
bottoms. He pulled the covers up over his lap and kicked his pants off
underneath so he could yank them back on in a hurry if he’d played this wrong.
Jason’s insatiable desire for attention seemed to win out over his
frustratingly low opinion of himself, and he tiptoed out nervously naked. Until
tonight, there had been two kinds of male bodies: the ones in locker rooms that
Josh could never look at, and the ones online whose whole purpose was to be
stared at. Josh blinked to adjust to Jason, somewhere in between, normal and
real but safe to admire.
They started out kissing and found their way to rolling around on the bed,
grinding against each other until they each came. Turning out the light, Josh
felt that something important had happened, something that had changed him,
even though he’d never seen anything like it on the internet.
*
16.
Jason was in the hallway signing autographs and taking pictures with people,
because somehow people actually knew who he was and thought he was important
enough to take pictures with even though he’d only come in ninth, when Kori
came running up to him to tell him Josh was in the hospital. “I’m really
sorry,” he said to the girl who was lining up her camera. “It’s an emergency.
I’m sorry. Thank you!”
Kori led him into the athletes-only area beneath the arena before she told him
anything. When she squared off serious-faced with her hands on his shoulders,
he blurted before she could speak. “Is it his allergies again? Is he okay? Can
I see him? He shouldn’t have skated. When I saw him this morning he said he
wasn’t going to skate.”
“All I know is coach gossip,” Kori said, smiling wryly so Jason couldn’t help
but relax halfway. “He hurt himself during his free skate. Like anyone would if
they’d been in the hospital until three in the morning and pumped full of
drugs.” She looked over both of her shoulders before whispering, “Any coach who
would let a kid skate in that condition is an asshole. But you didn’t hear that
from me.”
“So can we go to the hospital and see if he’s all right?” Jason said.
“Probably not,” Kori said, gentle but uncompromising, as if he were faking a
headache and asking to leave the rink early. “Even if they’d let you in to
visit, which I doubt, you need to stick around in case they name you to the
team for Junior Worlds.”
Jason nodded resignedly. They went down to the press room, where he did get
named to the team, and the smile he forced was the most difficult of his life.
After the announcement, he made himself go bowling with a bunch of other
skaters to distract himself from worrying about Josh. It didn’t work - he
couldn’t keep himself from checking his phone. People kept looking at him like
they were afraid to ask what was wrong, or like they knew exactly what was
wrong but weren’t sure what to do about it.
His phone vibrated in his pocket after he’d sunk yet another gutter ball.
“Hey,” Josh slurred.
“Hi! Are you alive? I’ve been freaking out all afternoon.”
“Pretty sure I’m alive,” Josh said. “Lotta painkillers. I broke my leg and
sprained a … thing. Doctor said I can go home tonight though. Hotel home.”
“Good. We can hang out in the room. Do you have a cast? Can I draw on it?”
“No, go to the party, don’t worry about me,” Josh said.
“I’m at the party,” Jason said. “I mean, I’m out bowling, being a total
buzzkill, and I’ll be even worse if I know I could be hanging with you.”
Jason loved the moments when Josh didn’t know what to say, and he could feel
the rumble of Josh’s shy laughter through the phone.
Josh got back from the hospital at about the same time Jason got back from the
bowling alley. He had crutches and hazy, hollowed-out eyes. Jason helped him
into bed and arranged pillows so he was comfortable. Josh was so high that
Jason didn’t mind letting him play with his hair. With Josh’s warm hands
tickling the back of his neck, Jason could finally chill out.
“I didn’t want to go out to dinner,” Josh was drawling. “Not the night before
the free, that’s dumb, but Tom wanted all his skaters together, to celebrate, I
don’t know what. I wasn’t going to eat anything, but everyone was looking at me
weird, and I got this salad, thought I’d be okay and then boom.”
“I thought salad was safe,” Jason said. “How could salad kill you? It’s salad.”
“Food kills me. It’s what food does.”
Jason leaned back into Josh’s fragile arms and kissed his cheek.
“So I sleep for like four hours. And my phone rings, and I literally answered
like, ‘Whaaaa?’ And it’s my coach, so I’m like, ‘Okay, can you tell the
officials I’m withdrawing, thanks, I am going back to bed for like a week.’ But
he’s like, ‘No, if you can stand, you can skate, and I know you can stand
because you’ve had these allergic reactions before and you’re always fine in 24
hours.’ And he’s like – he has this way of brainwashing you into stuff, and
also he’s telling me flat out he’s not going to withdraw me, I’m going to have
to put on my costume and skate out to confer with the judges myself. So I’m
like, fine, I’ll warm up and see how I feel. Which is like, I just barely
survived a fight with salad, but I’m on a huge pile of Prednisone and I think
I’m okay and then when I fall I literally hear something snap. And he makes me
sit through my scores before he lets medical look at me. So I’m firing him in
the morning. When I’m not on so many drugs.”
“I think you should fire him now when you can blame the drugs,” Jason said. “I
mean, how often do you get to blame the drugs?”
“Hm,” Josh said, and either he was thinking it over or he had fallen asleep for
a minute.
“Do it or I’m putting my hair away.”
Josh petted Jason’s head like Josh was two years old and Jason was a very soft
bunny. “Can you get my phone? It’s in my bag.” While Jason was digging through
the shocking array of weird crap in Josh’s bag, Josh added, “My mom’s already
talked with this other coach I’ve worked with a few times, so I won’t be
coachless. Or even in trouble.”
Jason lunged with the phone in his outstretched hand, giggling pre-emptively.
Josh dialed, and after a suspenseful pause, mouthed, Voicemail. Then he said
out loud, into the phone, “Hi, Tom, this is Josh, and I just want to say, fuck
you. Fuck you for forcing me to go out and making me sick. Fuck you for forcing
me to skate today and telling me I was weak when I was crying in pain when I’d
fucking broken my fucking leg. Fuck you for making me put money in a swear jar
so I would stop saying fuck, which is a really good word when a salad almost
fucking killed me and now I can’t skate at all for two months, even though
you’d probably try to convince me I can. Oh, and because I’m in my boyfriend’s
hotel room now, fuck you for telling me I had to choose between skating and
having a boyfriend, because your game plan got me to twenty-first fucking place
in my senior debut, and his coach thinks I rock and he came in ninth. So, um, I
don’t know what else, fuck you and have a good night.”
For possibly the first time in six years, Jason was the speechless one. He
liked how it felt to let Josh have the last word.
*
17.
They were at Champs Camp, fucking. A long weekend together without the stress
of competition was a luxury they’d never experienced. Wise to them, the
organizers had placed them in separate rooms, and equally wise to them, their
assigned roommates had immediately switched. With their room reassignment
squared away, they’d pounced on each other in a cartoon dust cloud of hormones
and enthusiasm. After years of study, Josh finally felt ready to try giving a
blow job. Seriously, if he could have accepted homeschooling credit for
Theoretical Gay Sex, he would have graduated a semester early.
They didn’t have a conversation about being ready for grown-up sex, and Josh
wasn’t sure why now was the time. He’d come prepared to Nationals and Junior
Worlds, devising creative ways to hide condoms and lube in his luggage. But
when they’d gotten to those competitions, they’d retreated to the comfort of
grinding and humping like they’d been doing for the past two years. Josh hadn’t
felt disappointed, only curious and a little bit stalled.
They were making out furiously, to the point where Josh started to fear they
were going to backslide into their old habits. Jason detached his lips from
Josh’s neck - probably a good thing, since sometimes Jason left marks on Josh
practically just by looking at him, and then Josh had to go borrow concealer
from the ice dancers - and asked, “Did you want to be on top or on the bottom?”
“Whatever you want. Go ahead,” Josh said.
“Really? Because this has been a major sticking point for, like, a year. I kept
thinking you were going to say something, and every time I tried I got all
embarrassed about it.” Jason giggled, his nervous laugh rather than his happy
one. Josh didn’t like being the cause of it.
“So did you, like, have a preference?” Josh said. “Because I guess you’re
supposed to, but, like…” They were still pressed up against each other, still
half-hard, and Josh wished he were capable of making a decision before the
moment passed.
“I don’t know. Maybe bottom? But it’s not like I’ve tried either one.” Another
tinkling Jason giggle. “Oh crap, we’re both bottoms, does this mean we have to
break up?”
Josh contemplated for a moment. “Rock-paper-scissors. Whoever wins gets
fucked.” They pried themselves apart so they wouldn’t punch each other, then
tied twice before Josh’s scissors cut Jason’s paper.
Josh lay down on his stomach. Jason kissed the back of his neck and said, “I
guess if this doesn’t work, we can do it the other way tomorrow. And if it
does, we can just do it again the same way. So we win either way.”
Jason didn’t try for more making out or even a heads-up, and the lube was ice-
cold at first. But Jason’s fingers warmed it up, warmed Josh up, eased his mind
and probably Jason’s as well. Fingers, and more fingers, and kisses along his
spine, A pinch of pain, but Josh knew what was going on. He knew the difference
between pain that tells you to stop and pain that pushes you to keep going.
Josh accepted the sting and relaxed, and that’s when it started to feel good,
good like an ice bath on sore muscles, his body fighting it and begging for it
at the same time. He had a boy inside him, a boy who loved him. Josh’s body
ached and stretched to let Jason in. He tried to tell Jason not to rush, but
the words jumbled into a moan.
Jason’s rhythm jerked and stalled, but he came in a hushed and un-Jason-like
way. Breathless, Jason said, “Do you want me to keep on, or, like - ? Or did
you already? It’s weird, I can usually tell.”
Consumed in sensation, Josh had forgotten about his dick. Every other time in
his life when he’d been this hard, his dick had been all he’d been able to
think about. “You can stop. I mean, I’m close, but I need to - or you need to -
like, I think if I was going to come that way, I already would have?”
“Sorry,” Jason said dejectedly as he pulled out.
“No, no, it wasn’t you, it was - we have to switch tomorrow. So you can feel
that.” He rolled over to face Jason’s tentative smile.
“Okay, here, I’ll -”
Josh cut Jason off. “Oh my God, you can’t, your hands are covered in butt.”
Before Jason had stopped laughing at that, Josh had found the lube and jerked
himself the rest of the way off.
Jason lay down on top of Josh, his head on Josh’s chest. Josh kissed the part
in his hair. The bed was ridiculously narrow. “It didn’t feel like I expected
it to feel,” Jason said. “But it was pretty amazing. Like, in case you were
wondering.”
“I was, but you know, tomorrow.”
“And then two more days and I don’t see you again until forever,” Jason sighed.
“What do you think about me moving to Colorado after I graduate?”
Startled, Josh hesitated too long.
“Never mind. It’s just one option,” Jason said.
“No, that would be - like, I can’t even imagine it, it would be so perfect,”
Josh said. “But you’d leave Kori? Who’d you work with?”
“Kori’s been talking about moving,” Jason said. “Rinks are crazy expensive in
Chicago, and I don’t want to go to college there anyway. Colorado’s on her
list. I think if I say it’s my first choice, she’ll go for it.”
Josh hadn’t given much thought to college. He was looking forward to passing
his last few exams so he could train full-time. Maybe he’d take a community
college class here or there, just to keep his brain functioning. “That’s - I
mean, if you’re good with it, then - then tonight is kind of the best night of
my life, so -”
“One more year,” Jason said drowsily. “And the first thing I’m going to do is
buy a really big bed.”
 
*
18.
This was Jason’s new apartment, full of boxes and not-yet-assembled IKEA
furniture and textbooks still in plastic wrap. He’d wanted to live in the
dorms, but Colorado College didn’t allow freshmen to have cars on campus, not
even when they were Olympic hopefuls who needed a way to get to the rink. So
instead he had this too-big place to himself because apparently there was no
such thing as a small apartment in Colorado Springs, and if there was his
parents would have refused to let him live in it because they thought he
required “somewhere nice.” But “nice” places had white walls like blank
computer screens, and they echoed when he slid across the hardwood floor in his
socks.
Jason wanted to text Josh and invite him over, but he was afraid of smothering
Josh. Josh needed alone time in a way Jason respected but had never understood
from personal experience. Maybe his new apartment could teach him about being
alone and liking it. He looked out at the mountains out his window, at how
quiet they were, and tried to come up with some meaning behind them. After a
minute of trying to bend his brain into a shape that it didn’t want to take, he
gave up, put on some music, and assembled a bookshelf.
With the bookshelf built, Jason checked his phone. The music had drowned it
out, and he had a whole bunch of texts from Josh. They didn’t sound sad or
worried, but they did say he wanted to come over, which made Jason feel like
his heart was whizzing around the room in every direction.
Still there??? Jason texted. Please come over I’m so bored!
Josh texted back almost immediately, giving Jason a sad mental image of him
sitting by his phone and brooding. Ok thought you had a class or something,
whats the address
Josh got there so fast, he must have broken a million traffic laws and maybe
some laws of physics. They kissed in the doorway like they hadn’t seen each
other in months, even though Josh had just been there yesterday. “Sorry,” Jason
said, “I should have invited you before, but I thought, like, maybe you would
want some space instead of being here all the time.”
“But I want to be here all the time,” Josh said. “Or, you know. When I’m not
skating and stuff. Didn’t we spend, like, years wishing we could see each other
every day, and now we can?”
“Yeah, but, like - you’re not going to get tired of me?”
“Let’s see,” Josh said. “You skate three hours a day, you’re going to college
full time, and I’ve never gotten tired of you in my entire life. So not
really.”
Jason kissed Josh, bouncing on his toes. It was awkward standing in the
doorway, so he led Josh over to his new couch, which was bright red and squishy
and perfect. Josh rested his head on Jason’s shoulder. “So I talked stuff over
with my parents,” Josh said. “And they said, like, I can’t officially move in
with you, because rent and skating expenses and whatever. But I can stay over
as much as I want as long as I’m not blowing off my training or failing my
classes.”
Jason hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Josh moving in. His own
parents would probably have a fit if he suggested it, no matter how much they
liked Josh and trusted Jason. As romantic as it sounded, Jason was wise enough
to realize he’d miss out on a lot of his freshman year, more than he was
missing out on already, and besides, it was an Olympic year, even if it was an
Olympics they were never in a million years going to qualify for. But he didn’t
feel like he needed to say any of that. Josh had probably gone over it in his
own mind more times than Jason had. So instead, Jason said, “You’re taking
classes?”
“Yeah, I signed up part time at Pike’s Peak. Math and Music Appreciation. It
was kind of a last minute thing. I just, like, it gets really mind-numbing to
train all day, and you were so excited about going to college, it was
contagious. So we’ll see. The music class is really good.”
“Is it weird if I say I’m proud of you?” Jason said.
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Seriously, though,” Jason said. “Look at us being all independent and making
mature decisions and stuff.” Their sarcastic high-five turned into very earnest
making out. In the middle of it, Jason said, “Yeah. We’re super mature.”
*
19.
Jason was going to the Olympics. The Olympics! Josh was in the Winners’ Lounge,
on his way to his second consecutive Goat Medal, when Jason realized he’d won
the free skate, a silver medal, and a trip to Russia. Jason ran around
screaming and hugging everyone, but when he got to Josh, he paused, smiling
contritely. Josh swept Jason up in his arms and whispered, “No kissing on the
mouth.” They hugged and giggled like this was any other podium, any other time
one of them edged out the other.
Jason got sucked back into the vortex of interviews and photos, spit out
briefly for the medal ceremony, and sucked in again until the gala rehearsal.
Josh and Max threw themselves a two-man pity party off to the side. Jason kept
looking over at Josh like he had something to apologize for.
At the gala, Jason stood at the boards to watch Josh skate, then followed him
backstage. “I love that program,” Jason said. “I wish I could, like, feel the
music the way you do.”
“Stop trying to make me feel better,” Josh said. “I’m, like, ridiculously
excited. Like, we’ve been talking since we were kids about someday going to the
Olympics, and now - you’re going.”
“But I always thought when I went, you’d go too.” He looked around, justifiably
paranoid about photographers, before clasping both of Josh’s hands tight in
his.
“So you’ll just have to kick ass for both of us,” Josh said.
“Don’t lie to me like that when we’re alone. I know how I’d feel if I were you,
and I know you, and there’s no way you’re all happy and flouncy and supporting
me like it’s just as good as being there.”
“There’s also no way I’m taking this away from you,” Josh said. “I’m a million
times more happy for you than I’m sorry for myself.”
Jason studied him for a moment, then kissed him. “I sort of believe you.”
A high-pitched “Hey!” interrupted them. It was the girl who’d come in second,
Polina Something. “They sent me to find you guys.” She looked them over; they
were still hand in hand. “Probably because I was the only one who didn’t know
you two were a couple.”
“Hey, silver twin,” Jason said, reaching out to fist-bump her. It looked like
Jason had connected with her instantly. He had that effect on people.
“It’s so quiet here,” Polina said. “Can I hide with you guys for a minute
before we go back?”
“Sure,” Jason said.
“Listen,” Josh said. “Can you do me a favor?”
Polina nodded.
“When you’re in Sochi, and he’s freaking out about something or has some, like,
amazing idea, or a song he needs you to listen to? Just, just giggle
hysterically until he picks up on it. You’ll chill him right out.”
“Josh.” Jason glared at him fake-seriously. “You can’t hire someone to pretend
to be you while I’m at the Olympics.”
Polina shrugged. “He’s not paying me. I’m volunteering.”
“Never mind, she’s perfect,” Jason said. They walked back to the waiting area
where they were supposed to be, Josh towering over both of them in his skates.
 
*
20.
Getting through a press conference sitting next to Josh was a major feat of
endurance. They had to not look at each other at all or they would start
laughing, although chances were they would start laughing even if they didn’t
look at each other, and that didn’t solve the problem of finishing each other’s
sentences. Adam took matters into his own hands at the free skate press
conference, interrupting Josh before he could tell America what Jason meant to
him and then TLDRing all over Jason’s gold-medal limelight. Jason couldn’t
decide which one had annoyed him more, so he was calling it a draw.
Jason dealt with negative feelings in his usual way, smiling and chatting with
Adam like everything was fine, then whispering snide comments to Josh. Jason
was hanging back way more than usual, sticking with Josh and pretending that
Josh felt overwhelmed by all the attention. The truth was, people turned cold
when you won. A silver medal makes you America’s sweetheart, but gold makes you
a force to be reckoned with. For years, Kori had joked, “Any day now, kid,
people are going to start taking you seriously.” Now that the day had come,
Jason wished he could go back to being mistaken for the sweet guy who was just
skating for the fun of it.
Not enough to give up his gold medal, though, of course. Or to settle for just
one senior national title.
Jason ran into Adam in the men’s room and screwed on his smile. He hoped a wave
and a “Hey” would get him back to safety, but Adam cornered him by the hand
dryer. “You should be more careful.”
“Oh! Sorry.” Jason had no idea what he’d done.
“I mean, I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, because obviously you’ve
had media training,” Adam said. “But don’t you think, like, the two of you are
hanging on each other kind of a lot?”
“No more than, like, you and Ashley do,” Jason said. There was a fine line
between sarcasm and playing dumb.
Adam looked him over, head to toe, sneering like a Disney villain. He was
normally a nice enough guy, so Jason wondered what he was up to. Bitter about
second place much? They’d probably be friendly again by morning, when Adam got
over it, and honestly, when Jason got over it. “It’s just,” Adam said, “it’s
just, you might have noticed your boyfriend is crazy hot.”
The compliment was obviously backhanded, but Jason couldn’t tell what direction
Adam was trying to send it in. “Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things I like
about him.”
“No, totally, he seems really into you, even though he could have his pick.”
“Guess he just has a thing for national champions and Olympic medalists,” Jason
said, regaining his confidence.
“So you’re not, like, okay. I know this is weird to ask, but you’re not in an
open relationship or anything, are you?”
So that’s where this was going? Jason guessed it was better than outright
hostility. “Are you asking permission to hit on Josh?”
“No, I’m -” Adam shifted his feet. “I’m asking permission to hit on you.”
The only answer that Jason could muster was a choked sound in his throat.
“What can I say? I have a thing for gold medals, too. And, like, optimism.”
Jason found himself considering it. Adam was cute if he kept his mouth shut.
“Well, I’d have to run it by Josh, obviously. But maybe? I don’t know, I’m
sorry, this is kind of blowing me away.”
“No, I get it. I mean, invite him too! You’re kind of more my type than he is,
but like I said, crazy hot.”
“I, um, thanks,” Jason said, feeling strangely un-flattered. “I’ll get back to
you, okay?” He practically bolted down the hall, hoping to find Josh, but more
than that, needing to escape a situation that was not only awkward but
tempting. He’d never had sex with anyone but Josh. He’d kissed two other people
- a girl when he was fourteen, to see what it felt like, and a boy when he was
sixteen and mad at Josh for some reason he couldn’t remember - and both times,
Josh had forgiven him sweetly. He’d wondered what it would be like, though,
wondered a lot, and had dirty nightmares about cheating. But if Josh was there
too, it wouldn’t be cheating - it’d kind of be the opposite.
He found Josh about three seconds later in the hallway. “There are all these
people looking for you,” Josh said. “And of course you left your phone in your
bag, so they’re all asking me, and I’m like, ‘Hell if I know.’ Where were you?”
“Getting propositioned for a threesome.” Jason was totally incapable of not
giggling.
“For real? Who?”
“Adam,” Jason said, laughing harder.
Josh caught his giggle fit, finally. “What did you tell him?”
“That I’d ask you if you wanted to.”
“You’d ask me if I -” Josh took a moment to collect himself, not that it did
much good. Still laughing, he said,“Do you want to?”
“Maybe? I’m not sure. I kind of want to punch him in the face,” Jason said.
“But the general idea, like - if you were there, it might be fun. Like, only if
you were there, and it was someone we were both really into, and -”
“And not someone you kind of want to punch in the face? Because I think, like,
probably that would be a better situation for everybody.” He took both of
Jason’s hands, the way they always seemed to when they were telling each other
something important. “But some other time, definitely. Maybe even tonight.”
“Maybe not tonight,” Jason said. “I’d kind of rather just celebrate with you.”
*
21.
Josh had thought that winning a national medal made a person fucking tired, but
it was nothing compared to Worlds. Especially since he’d won his bronze medal
in Boston. For the international press, Josh had to remember to really abide by
his media training rules, since sarcasm didn’t translate so well into Japanese
and Russian. On top of everything else, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast because
he couldn’t trust the food and he’d accidentally left his last day’s worth of
meals with his mom. It was 9 PM, and he was never leaving this hotel room
again, which meant Jason needed to show up with dinner really fucking soon.
Josh’s mom and Jason had a whole system for making sure Josh got fed things
that wouldn’t kill him. Up until now, they’d been basically a machine, but
everyone had been too excited about his medal to remember to feed him.
Josh had managed to take off his shoes and spread-eagle face down on the bed by
the time Jason showed up. Jason poked his feet. “Don’t tell me you’ve, like,
convinced yourself a World medal is some terrible burden.”
“No, just tired,” Josh said. “And starving.”
“Well, you’re going to have to roll over, because I got the Tupperware from
your mom. And something else.” The way Jason said it, “something else” could
have been anything from an armful of fan gifts to Jason’s penis.
Josh wanted dinner, so he sat up. His meal was already rotating in the little
hotel room microwave. Jason presented him with a rectangular white box, tied up
with string. Flowers, maybe? Josh picked the knot loose and opened the box,
releasing a whoosh of sugary smell. “Donuts? Donuts I can eat?”
“They’re from a vegan bakery,” Jason said. “They swore on their firstborn that
everything is made in-house and they don’t permit any dairy products in the
kitchen.”
“Oh my God.” Josh wiggled a donut free from the box, coating his fingers with
frosting and sprinkles. Jason lifted the box out of Josh’s lap and leaned in to
kiss him, but Josh waved him away. He was communing with his donut. More
responsible food choices wafted from the beeping microwave, but today was the
first day of a hard-earned off-season, and Josh was having his dessert first.
Jason hung back, looking proud of himself.
When Josh had devoured his donut, Jason slinked into his lap. “Anything else
you want?”
Josh knew that when Jason got flirtatious, it was mostly about Jason. Josh
enjoyed that about him - he never had to wonder when Jason wanted a blow job.
“I want to suck my boyfriend’s dick,” Josh said.
They switched places, Jason sitting on the bed, Josh kneeling on the floor.
Josh loved taking him in like this, no lead-in, no warning, just Jason’s jeans
around his knees and Josh’s mouth around his cock. With all the strangeness of
the past few days, Jason’s familiarity became a refuge: the sound he made when
Josh teased his balls, the way he jerked and shifted his hips to make sure Josh
took him in just deep enough. He knew Jason’s timing, knew how to pull back
when Jason edged and keep him enjoying it longer. He felt Jason tense, about to
come, and let him release.
Jason pulled Josh to his feet and kissed him. Josh didn’t understand why Jason
always wanted to be kissed right after, but he didn’t mind, either. Jason held
him for a moment, kissing his neck. “Are you too tired? It’s okay. I don’t want
to push.”
Josh flopped back onto the bed. “Maybe. I’m kind of tired and kind of … just do
things to me and see what happens.”
Jason looked inspired and devious. “Really?”
“You got the donuts right. I trust you.”
Jason stood for a few moments, smoothing his hair, his mind clearly hard at
work. “Okay, so, can you take your clothes off and close your eyes?” That was
reasonable. Jason’s attempts to sexily undress Josh usually ended in
uncontrollable giggling and unintentional bondage. Josh piled his clothes
indifferently on the floor and lay on his back, knees bent, eyes shut. He felt
Jason’s lips on his wrist first, trailing up the soft and translucent skin on
the inside of his arm, sucking and biting harder as Jason reached his bicep,
probably leaving all kinds of mysterious marks. Jason nuzzled up into Josh’s
armpit, getting his tongue in there. It was a weird little habit of Jason’s,
something Josh would never ask for but wouldn’t want Jason to stop doing. It
almost tickled, made his toes curl.
When Jason went after Josh’s nipples, though, that was what made Josh’s dick
hard. Jason squeezed one between his fingers, enough to make the blood rush, on
the edge of pain, and barely touched his tongue to the tip. Still pinching one
nipple, Jason licked the other into a knot of nerves, then abruptly abandoned
them both. For an eternal moment, Jason’s weight on the bed was the only sign
that he hadn’t walked away.
Jason blew across the tip of Josh’s dick and laughed when Josh shivered. Jason
wrapped a slicked-up hand around Josh’s dick and stroked, not quite forcefully
enough, more of a tease than a hand job. The stuff on his hand was thick -
hotel moisturizer? No, wrong smell, probably the lube that felt like
moisturizer and tasted good. Josh had thought they’d run out of that. Tasted
good, that meant getting his dick sucked. Josh wanted that, but didn’t want
this to be over so easily.
Josh felt fingers in his ass, probably just two, not enough to stir more than
anticipation. So he wasn’t getting fingered, but Jason didn’t usually bounce
back that fast. Tongue, maybe? But that was more of a him-on-Jason thing than
the other way around.
Something teased at the rim of Josh’s ass, something not attached to Jason’s
body. An object, a toy. It was slim at first, easy to take, but as Jason inched
it deeper, it got thicker around the base, stinging Josh where it entered him
and filling him up so he pushed back instinctively. Another nudge deeper, and
the tip curved upward, hitting the edge of Josh’s sweet spot, the one Jason
could just barely get at with his fingertips. Josh gasped as Jason gave the toy
another nudge, and then it was right there. “Stop,” Josh choked out. “Perfect.”
Jason kissed his stomach.
And then the fucking thing started vibrating, and Josh was not responsible for
anything he screamed. It was mostly, “I love you, I fucking love you.”
Jason took his hands off the toy and went down on Josh. It was a good thing
Josh’s body was worn out from a day of skating and press, or he wouldn’t have
lasted more than a few seconds. His sore muscles gave him extra time to enjoy
the hum and stretch of the toy and the caress of Jason’s lips before he came so
hard, Jason had to hold him down.
Jason left the toy to buzz for another minute before he wiggled it out and told
Josh he could open his eyes.
“You didn’t, like, buy that today, did you?” Josh said, his voice hoarse, his
body unwilling to sit up.
“I picked it out on the internet a few months ago,” Jason said. “I’ve been
waiting for the right moment. I was worried you’d, like, not be into it.”
“I might not have been if you’d just whipped it out one night,” Josh admitted.
Jason curled up next to him. He was naked except for his glasses, and his skin
was warm.
“How did you know, like, that it would fit?” Josh kissed him, laughing at his
own stupid question.
Jason sucked in his breath like there was an unexpectedly serious answer. “I
have one. Its name is Josh. Actually, Josh Three, I ruined the first one with
the wrong lube and left the second one in a hotel room in France.”
It was impossible not to giggle at someone who named his butt plugs like they
were goldfish. “But you didn’t tell me?”
“I don’t know, it just seemed like my own private thing,” Jason said. “Like, I
don’t ask you what you’re jerking off to on the internet.”
“You want to watch my porn?”
“Could be fun,” Jason said. “Bowl of popcorn, bottle of wine. Movie night.”
“We could switch off between our favorites and make it a film festival,” Josh
said.
Jason nestled in tighter against Josh. “You have the most beautiful ideas.”
Josh held him silently for a while, kissing his forehead and his cheeks,
tugging strands of hair loose from his ponytail. “You know what?” Jason said.
“I think your dinner’s still in the microwave.”
“Let it sit,” Josh said. “I’m getting another donut.”
*
22.
“Jason, you have cake on your face. And I’m not touching it.” Jason almost used
his sleeve before remembering that he was in a suit, and weddings provided
napkins. Semi-formal wasn’t a particularly good look for either of them: even a
well-tailored suit made Jason feel short, and Josh shone more in a t-shirt and
jeans than in anything that required dry cleaning. Still, it was cool that
Alexa and Chris had invited them, and even cooler that they’d sent a joint
invitation, Mr. Jason Brown and Mr. Joshua Farris.
The wedding band struck up a sultry slow dance, and the singer said, “Okay, we
want all the happy couples to join Alexa and Chris out here.” Half a dozen
older couples trotted out to the dance floor immediately, people who looked
like they’d been married longer than Jason had been alive. Jason looked out at
them enviously, remembering his media training. Weddings had napkins, and they
also had a closet.
Mariah nudged him under the table. “What are you waiting for? Go.”
“You know we’re not supposed to -”
“Come on, Jason,” Mariah said. “Who here doesn’t know you two are together?”
“America,” Jason grumbled. But he’d had a glass of wine, and he wanted to
dance. What was the worst that could happen? He stood up and held out his hand
to Josh, who giggled before leading him out to the floor.
As they put their arms around each other and swayed to “At Last,” Josh said,
“Is this the first time we’ve slow-danced together?”
“Yeah, probably,” Jason said. “That’s kind of sad.”
“But it’s fun now,” Josh said, kissing his forehead.
Now that Jason was convinced they wouldn’t be hauled off the floor by USFSA
spies, it was fun. They hardly left the dance floor for the rest of the night,
jumping around and twirling each other during the fast songs, melting into each
other’s arms during the slow ones. The band wrapped things up at midnight, but
Jason could have gone till dawn. “I guess that extra off-ice stamina training
is paying off,” Josh said, and Jason laughed.
A couple of days later, Jason woke up to a text from Mariah. Cutest pic of you
guys on IceNetwork! With so many skaters at the wedding, the website had put up
a whole slide show. And there they were, halfway through the photo set, giant
smiles on their faces, shimmying to some unknown song. Josh was off somewhere
being an early bird, and Jason called out to him, “Hey hon, did you see the
wedding pics?”
Josh ran into the bedroom. “Wedding pics?”
Jason showed Josh the image on his phone. “So I guess we’re out now. That was
easy.”
“No, look at it,” Josh said. “We’re not, I mean, we’re not touching or
anything. If you were really dense or, like, the Russian government, you could
think we were just friends.”
“That’s kind of disappointing.”
Josh kissed Jason and tugged his fingers through Jason’s unruly morning hair.
“It’s a great picture of you though. A great picture of us.”
*
23.
Josh had thought the best feeling in the world was winning Nationals in an
Olympic year, but no, the actual best feeling in the world was winning an
Olympic medal. Sure, it was silver, and sure, it was just the team competition,
but it was his medal, and he was never taking it off. It seemed unlikely that
anyone was going to let him, with the deluge of interviews and hugs from
strangers he’d been caught in since the medal ceremony.
Someone had hung an enormous banner in USA House with Korean-style cartoon
drawings of the two of them in their costumes from the team competition, Josh
from his short program and Jason from his free skate. Jason whispered,
“Whatever else we do tonight, we have to steal that for our apartment.” Josh
laughed and agreed, but he also looked around at the crowd applauding them. To
each other, they were we and us and ours, but to most of the people cheering
them on, they were two separate guys, competitors and rivals.
Josh had a mission, and he was going to follow through before he lost his
nerve. He found his mom among the partygoers. “Do you have the ring?”
The noise and bustle must have drowned him out, because she replied, “Your
food’s in the fridge in that kitchen area down the hall. It has your name on
it.”
“No. Mom. The ring.” She’d helped him pick it out a few weeks before, then
guarded it so Jason wouldn’t snoop around the apartment and find it. When he’d
told her he wanted to propose at the Olympics, she’d gotten even more excited.
“I thought you were going to wait until after the Closing Ceremonies,” his mom
said. “But I did bring it tonight, just in case.”
Josh had the world’s best mom. He hugged her and thanked her.
It took about ten frustrated minutes to get Jason’s attention. Josh dropped to
one knee, and Jason gasped. Josh realized he hadn’t written a speech at all,
but he’d been through enough press conferences to trust himself to wing it. “So
I was trying to think of what could make this day even better than it already
was,” he began, and as he finished that sentence, he figured out the rest of
it. “And, like, during the medal ceremony today, I looked over at you, and I
realized it was the first time in our lives that we were even. Like, our whole
lives, sometimes you’ve beaten me, and sometimes I’ve beaten you, but today we
won together. And that’s, that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life, is
share amazing things with you. So will you -” he fumbled momentarily for the
ring - “will you marry me?”
Jason shrieked before he said anything. “Oh my God. I mean, yes! And I love it,
and it fits, and I am totally surprised, and yes. Do you think it’s okay if I
kiss you?”
“I think it would be weird if you didn’t,” Josh said.
Josh didn’t want to think about how many people were taking pictures. Hell,
someone was probably uploading this to YouTube already. “I think we just stole
a news cycle,” he whispered. And they were kissing and laughing at the same
time, because they were Olympic medalists with excellent coordination.
*
24.
Jason’s body was kind enough to hold off on the serious pain until after the
Olympics and Worlds, but the post-season tour did him in. He slept funny on a
flight to Japan, and the twinge in his back that he’d nursed since he’d been
skating Novice turned into a giant fist with a knife. In Colorado, the doctor
told him he had a repetitive stress injury and needed surgery, needed it now,
risked permanent numbness in his legs or even paralysis. The pain was so bad,
he would have signed up for the surgery even without the doomsday predictions.
The recovery was more brutal than the injury itself. It was a week before he
could sit up, and two more before he could limp to the bathroom on his own. His
parents and siblings took week-long shifts, flying out to Colorado to take care
of him. Kori, his friends, and Josh’s parents came by for frequent visits, and
Josh called every day from the tour. Still, Jason felt bored and lonely, and
the painkillers made him queasy.
His dad drove him to the doctor for his one-month checkup. The doctor prodded
and tested, then ran through a long list of questions, half of which didn’t
seem at all related to Jason’s back. “Your recovery’s been slower than we
usually like to see,” the doctor said. “I don’t think you’ll need another
surgery, but we might have to push back our timeline a bit.”
“What timeline? How much?” All Jason wanted to do was get back on the ice, back
to training, back to normal.
“When we talked before your surgery, I told you the best case scenario was that
you could start skating again sometime around October,” the doctor said. “That
seems overly optimistic now.”
“How overly optimistic? Like, November or December? Because that might still be
enough for Nationals.”
“It’s possible,” the doctor said. “But the difficult thing about this kind of
injury is, it often requires you to relearn a lot of your technique to
compensate for the changes in your mobility. I would recommend against trying
to compete this season. Give yourself time to heal, and to adjust mentally.”
Jason held it together until he got into the car, and then he let himself cry.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?”
He hadn’t wanted a real answer, but his dad was practical. “Well, you must be
close to graduation by now. Maybe you can see this as an opportunity to focus
on your education.”
The more Jason thought about getting to go to college full time, the more the
idea brought him out of his funk. When he’d started college, he’d planned to
have the kind of normal experience he’d had in high school, but qualifying for
the Sochi Olympics had rearranged his priorities. He’d transferred to an easier
school and down-shifted to part time. It wasn’t a decision he regretted, but he
longed sometimes for the road he hadn’t traveled. His dad was right: it was an
opportunity, a sign.
Jason called his college counselor and confirmed that he had less than two
semesters left to qualify for graduation. “You’ll have time for an internship
in the spring,” his counselor assured him perkily. For the first time since his
surgery, he felt like himself again, full of energy and excitement.
Jason waited until Josh came back from the tour to explain the extent of the
bad medical news. Josh hugged him carefully. “That’s literally the worst,” Josh
said. “A whole season, and - I mean, if you need me to be around for you, I -”
“No, what I need you to do is skate,” Jason said. “Skate, and be beautiful,
like you are, and win everything.”
In December, Josh won the Grand Prix Final and Jason got straight A’s.
After those accomplishments, Jason felt ready to put his skates on. For the
first time Jason could remember, everything felt wrong when he was on the ice.
His back felt tight, and his legs felt like Jell-o. Kori encouraged him when he
finished his half-hour of no jumps, no spins, no bending, but he knew she could
see it even more clearly than he could. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll get it
back.”
“I know,” Jason said, “and I will, I mean, probably not the quad, but most of
it. But now, I think it’s just for fun.”
“You’re just saying that because it was your first day back, and you had to
keep your blades on the ground,” Kori said.
“No, I’ve been thinking about it since the summer,” Jason said. “And, I mean,
twenty-four-year-old guys come back all the time, people come back from
injuries, I know it’s possible. But, like, I’m doing really well in school, I’m
getting married, and I know it’s weird and I’m the last person you’d expect to
ever say this, but I kind of want to grow up. And to skate, I always want to
skate, but now I just want to do it because I love it.” He was fighting tears
by the end of the last sentence, and so was Kori. She hugged him for a long
time.
Jason kept trying to tell Josh about his decision to retire, but Josh was so
focused on Nationals, and Jason didn’t want to demoralize him. They’d never
been the kind of couple to share absolutely everything, but Jason had never
held in a secret so huge and so life-altering.
They got to go to Nationals together because IceNetwork had hired Jason as an
intern for the spring semester, and they were throwing him right into the deep
end. On the plane, Josh said, “So. I’m pretty sure this is going to be my last
season.”
“Really?” Jason was as surprised as he’d been when Josh had proposed. “Because
you’re healthy, and you’re getting the best results of your life.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’ve been looking at you and, like, you have time to do all
this new stuff, and you’re free, and I just keep thinking - what else do I have
to achieve in the sport that I haven’t already done? I had this long talk with
Christy about going out on a high note, and that’s where I am, that’s what I
want.”
“Oh, God, that makes this so much easier.” It wasn’t the most supportive thing
Jason could have said, but he’d been sucking it in for so long, it tumbled out.
“Because I talked to Kori, like, a month ago about the future, and there was a
lot of hugging and crying, and we’re going to train me back enough so I can do
shows and stuff, but I’m never going to be back to a hundred percent, so I’d
rather just have fun than be, like, the world’s saddest comeback.”
Josh squeezed Jason’s hand. He sounded for a moment like he was going to say
something, but instead he rested his head on Jason’s shoulder. Jason let the
moment linger for several minutes before he laughed, “What the hell are we
going to do with ourselves?”
“Well, you have a career in broadcasting ahead of you,” Josh said.
“It’s an internship,” Jason said. “And I’m not sure I even like that part of
it. I mean, they hired me into the marketing and PR division, and that’s way
more interesting.”
“Then it’s good you’re going to make some money, because I was planning on
trying to make it as a singer-songwriter.”
Jason almost believed him for a second before the mutual giggles set in.
“No, seriously, I -” Josh cleared the last of the laughter out of his throat -
“I’ve been thinking about sports psychology? As, like, an alternative to
playing the guitar all day.”
“Isn’t that, like, years of school?” Jason said.
“I think I can handle it if it’s a clear goal, and I have you to help me with
my papers, so yeah.”
Jason loved Josh’s ability to throw him for a loop, even now. “I think it’s a
really cool idea.”
“But first I’m going to kick all those 18-year-old kids’ butts at Nationals,”
Josh said, in the placid and laid-back way that meant he was out for blood.
*
25.
I got the job!!! Josh got Jason’s text while he was teaching a studio rink full
of seven-year-olds how to do forward three-turns, and he had to wait until
their class was over to check his phone. Josh loved his Basic Skills classes,
the little girls in their pink dresses holding their arms out wide as they
remembered to stroke outward instead of trying to run, the boys who he
convinced not to switch to hockey because in figure skating, you got to spin
around really fast. The rink where he was working part-time was pressuring him
to take some higher-level students, but he actually wanted to put school ahead
of skating for the first time in his life. A few parents were paying him top
dollar to choreograph competitive routines, and that was fun, although he had
to tone down his artistic ambitions for eleven-year-olds who stared up at him
with defiant confusion.
THE job?! Josh texted back. Since they’d moved to California, they’d had no
problem finding coaching jobs, so they had no trouble paying the rent. But for
a friendly and outgoing person, Jason sure hated coaching. Jason had never
mentioned what his problem was. Josh suspected that he didn’t know, himself,
but Josh’s theory was that Jason had put too much effort into his marketing
degree and internship to be happy doing anything else. Jason put on a brave
face, but Josh could tell the difference between a genuine Jason smile and a
well-meaning fake.
There were more opportunities for Jason to get a real job in public relations
or marketing in Los Angeles than in Colorado Springs, but there was also a lot
more competition. It was enough to make Josh feel bad, some days, for dragging
Jason out here. But on the other hand, Jason was never really happy unless he
had a challenge to overcome, a challenge he’d set for himself. It was one of
the ways the two of them were alike.
Josh packed up his skates and headed home. He’d gotten used to biking
everywhere because his favorite thing about Southern California was 75-degree
weather in November, and his least favorite thing was traffic. His brother made
fun of him for letting L.A. turn him into a hipster, but he’d come there
already wearing skinny jeans and playing the guitar. Biking was more satisfying
than the gym, and the time alone, outdoors, helped him focus.
On the ride home, Josh thought about the pile of homework awaiting him. As
uninvested as he’d been in his community college classes in Colorado, he’d
gotten all of his gen eds out of the way, and his adviser had told him he might
finish both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees over the next four years. That
estimate had brought him to Long Beach in the first place. If there was a time
frame Josh could handle, it was a four-year cycle. He liked the classes, too,
not only because he wished someone had taught him principles of kinesiology at
fifteen, but because everyone else in his major was an athlete, current or
former. Also, lots of labs and field work, not a lot of writing, which made
everything easier to understand.
He beat Jason home by a few minutes but barely had time to crack open his
Biomechanics textbook before he heard the garage door rumble below. Jason
bounded up the stairs, still goofy and childlike when he was happy. He looked
really professional and put-together in his button-down shirt and new glasses,
though. “You got it?” Josh said redundantly.
Jason hopped onto the couch next to Josh. “Yeah, I could tell from the way they
looked at me when I walked in that it was probably good news, but I knew I
could still say the wrong thing and screw it up, so, like - Anyway, it’s a
small firm, they mostly do online publicity, they want to get into some sports
promotion but aren’t sure how to, and that’s basically all my experience. And,
like, I don’t want to make too much of this, but pretty much the entire firm is
gay, and it’s like, I didn’t realize I was uncomfortable before, but it’s just
so - where I want to be. I mean, apparently you have really good taste in
engagement rings. There was a lot of excitement.”
Josh couldn’t begin to find words for how he felt, so he kissed Jason instead.
“So I guess we can stop being terrified about the future now,” Jason said. “Or
I can. Were you ever, or was it just me?”
“About moving to a new state to study something that, like, I randomly came up
with one night as a job that I could maybe possibly do? No, I had that totally
fucking covered.”
“I was so afraid of being one of those people who, like, they retire, and they
realize they’ll never be anything else,” Jason said. “And obviously I did a lot
of stuff to make sure I wouldn’t be, but even so, and now here we are, and it’s
not remotely the same thing as winning a medal, but - does it feel that way for
you?”
“Sort of,” Josh said. “I mean, I always knew I could win medals.”
Jason nestled into Josh’s arms. “So it’s not weird that this feels like a
bigger deal?”
“Maybe other people would think it was weird?” Josh said. “But whatever. Fuck
‘em.”
It was Jason’s turn to seem not to know what to say, and to kiss Josh instead.
But that didn’t last long. “You know what we should do?” Jason said. “We should
get married. I mean, now that things are more settled, we can stop putting that
off.”
“Can we wait until after finals?” Josh laughed even though he was mostly
serious.
“No. You gave me this ring, and now I’m cashing it in,” Jason said. “But I can
take the lead on the plans if you want me to. I mean, it’ll give me an excuse
to quit my stupid coaching job that I’m not going to have time for now.”
“As long as the band doesn’t suck and I can eat the cake, I’m good,” Josh said.
*
26.
For all that Jason had dreamed of marrying Josh since he’d been twelve years
old, he’d never given much thought to the actual wedding. If he had, it might
have occurred to him that it would be really hard to find a wedding location in
Colorado Springs where they wouldn’t sigh when he explained why the entire meal
needed to be scrub-the-kitchen-down dairy-free. He might have realized that
Josh’s parents would be less than okay with a rabbi no matter how much they
loved Jason, and a ceremony that mentioned Jesus would have sat with Jason
about as well as cheese sat with Josh. He might have considered that if they
held the wedding in Colorado, the politics of the skating community would turn
the guest list into War and Peace in more ways than one.
He might have given up and taken Josh on a field trip to City Hall.
Instead, he improvised. A Justice of the Peace with a free Saturday night in
July, a co-worker with a friend of a friend who could help them rent a stretch
of private beach, emails to immediate family and the twenty friends who really
mattered. He reserved the back room of a Japanese restaurant that had succeeded
in not killing Josh yet, ordered four dozen vegan cupcakes, and gave an
ecstatic Josh the assignment of making a playlist.
They stood on a beach at sunset, barefoot in blue jeans, and pledged their love
to each other. In some ways, it didn’t feel different than any time they’d done
that before. But Josh put the ring on Jason’s finger, and Jason caught his
mom’s eye for a second, and the whole thing hit him at once. He had an
audience. Whatever he felt, they wanted to feel with him. He’d gotten so used
to seeing his relationship with Josh as private, something he couldn’t share or
explain. He’d been wrong. They kissed, and everyone cheered.
The judge urged them to take a few minutes to themselves while everyone else
drove to the restaurant ahead of them. They sat in the sand, looking out at the
ocean. “Hey, we did it,” Josh said, putting his arm around Jason’s shoulder.
“You’re my husband. I have a husband.”
“Hey, me too,” Jason said. “Pretty cool how that works.”
*
27.
Josh was stuck at the master’s degree program welcome picnic alone. Jason had
wanted to go - well, not wanted to, necessarily, but wanted to protect Josh
from several hours of unstructured interaction with strangers who would keep
asking why he wasn’t eating anything - but he was stuck at work because
something had gotten messed up on the client end of one of his projects. So
Josh was out there alone, letting other people initiate small talk, drinking
iced tea and gnawing carrot sticks because the smell of burgers on the grill
was killing him.
The itchy burn began in his eyes and spread down his face to his lips and
throat. What had he eaten? Something in the tea? Well, it didn’t matter. He
interrupted one of the women he’d been standing near and said, so calmly she
probably thought he was making it up, “I’m having a severe allergic reaction.
Can you please call 911 for me?” Once she realized he was serious and dialed,
the party went into a frenzy. The good thing about a picnic full of former
athetes was, they didn’t get squeamish about shooting him up with epinephrine
and Benadryl. There were more helpful people than jobs to be done, and Josh
mostly wished they would back off and let him wheeze in peace.
Someone half-carried Josh to a lawn chair. Josh remembered the guy from his
orientation group, a quiet giant who’d introduced himself as a former college
defensive end who hadn’t quite made it to the NFL. “Ambulance is on its way,”
the guy, Keshaun, said. “I could see you were getting stressed out by all the
attention, so I hope you don’t mind that I moved you over here. What should I
do to keep you safe until the paramedics get here?” He sounded like a guy who’d
been the only level-headed person during a lot of medical emergencies.
Josh went through his checklist, relieved that the drugs were letting him get
enough air in to talk. “Keep me sitting up so my airway stays open. Talk to me
so I stay awake and out of shock. Call my husband when the ambulance comes so
he knows which emergency room to drop everything and run to.”
Keshaun did the double-take that Josh had gotten used to when he referred to
Jason as his husband. Sometimes people were surprised he was gay, sometimes
that he was married. Both seemed obvious to him.
“I’ll come clean, I googled you after Orientation,” Keshaun said. “Man, if you
want to be all over YouTube, learn to ice skate. How do you even do that
stuff?”
“Practice,” Josh wheeze-laughed.
“Sorry, I won’t make you talk.” Keshaun said he was getting married next
spring, and he had a phone full of pictures of decorations that he and his
fiancée had picked out. For a minute, Josh resented that Keshaun had mistaken
him for the kind of gay who understood flower arrangements, but it became clear
pretty quickly that Keshaun was the kind of straight who understood flower
arrangements and was thrilled to have a captive audience. Josh liked being
happy for people. He also liked maybe making a friend. He got along with people
great, but they had to push pretty hard to get him to relax. When he’d been
younger, it had been easy, since there had always been kids around the rink to
hang out with. Adulthood, and living in a big new city, had set him adrift in a
sea of people.
Two paramedics rushed in with a stretcher. Josh tried to breathe a sigh of
relief, but his windpipe was too tight. He called Jason and handed the phone to
Keshaun. When Keshaun gave it back a minute later, he said, “Here, I put my
number in your contacts so you can text me and let me know you’re all right.”
The paramedics had already covered Josh’s face with an oxygen mask, so Josh
nodded and thumbs-upped.
The ride to the hospital and initial treatment were the usual blur of
familiarity and terror. Settled in a hospital bed with an IV pumping anti-
inflammatory steroids into his arm and a mask pushing a bitter mixture of
oxygen and medicine into his lungs, he checked his phone and found a ton of
texts from Jason to cheer him up.
On my way. Eta = a million years because traffic.
Seth from work is driving me because I guess I am a crazed ball of panic so
don’t worry, I am not texting and driving.
Looking forward to seeing you on lots of drugs so you can drop f-bombs and
maybe fire someone.
Just as Josh was running out of ways to entertain himself on a mobile phone in
public, Jason came barreling in. “You know what’s incredible? Coming into an
emergency room and saying you’re looking for your husband. It’s like, ‘Right
this way Mr. Brown, he’s doing fine and resting, this is every single thing we
did to make him not die of food, do you have any questions?’”
It was really hard to laugh with an oxygen mask on, but Josh did his best.
Jason pulled a chair up next to Josh’s bed and snuggled as close to him as he
could. “I promise not to miss any more of your grad school social events,” he
said. “If you’re going to get rushed to the hospital, I want to be there.”
Josh tapped their foreheads together and messed up Jason’s hair until he dozed
off.
*
28-29.
“Remember when we used to have sex?” Jason said one night as he got home from
work at 10:30 to find Josh surrounded by a fortress of library books and data
for his master’s thesis.
“I think we saw each other more often when we were sixteen,” Josh grumbled, not
looking away from the computer. They rallied enough that night for a round of
sleepy blow jobs and a promise that they would go on an amazing vacation during
Josh’s winter break.
Two months later, they had a private villa in Cabo San Lucas and an agreement
that if Jason didn’t check his work email, Josh would ignore his thesis. They
spent most of their first day in Mexico asleep. Now, with the afternoon waning
on the second day of their vacation, they were sitting on their villa’s patio
in their swim trunks, drinking the margaritas that magically appeared within
three minutes of calling room service.
“So I guess tomorrow we go parasailing?” Jason said.
“I don’t think I agreed to that,” Josh said.
“Come on. You have to admit it looks cool.”
“It looks like paying eighty bucks to ride around in a jump harness,” Josh
said.
Jason giggled because the mental image was annoyingly accurate. “You’re no
fun.”
Josh set his drink down and straddled Jason’s lap. “I’m fun in other ways.”
Jason raked his fingers up Josh’s chest. Sometimes, Josh’s body shocked him. In
Jason’s mind’s eye, and often in dreams, Josh looked the way he had when they’d
been seventeen or eighteen, rosy-cheeked and gangly. Awake, Jason knew that
skinny boy wouldn’t appeal to him anymore. Josh had grown into his proportions
and the angles of his face. In his mid-twenties, right around when they’d
retired from skating, Josh had suffered an explosion of body hair. Ashamed,
Josh had offered to wax it all off. “Only if you want to, I mean, I like you
fuzzy,” Jason had said, only half meaning it at the time. But the more Jason
had gotten used to it, the more he liked Josh’s scruffy masculinity. He watched
the dolphin-smooth guys at the gym and wished they’d take a few weeks off from
the salon.
Not that Jason would have followed that advice, himself. He enjoyed his spa
days. But his body had changed, too, in other ways. After his back injury, he’d
gained some weight, which had refused to drop off when he’d returned to
training, instead redistributing itself as bulky muscle. He still wore his
shirts a size too loose, afraid of being misread as a gym queen, but he liked
when Josh kissed his pecs and told him he was ripped.
These bodies, too, were moments in time. But Jason trusted that whatever time
did to them, he’d still be into Josh.
Josh was in his lap, asking him what he wanted. “I want you inside me,” Jason
said.
Josh kissed Jason’s forehead. “Of course you do.”
For a couple of years when they’d been teenagers, Jason had hoped they would
outgrow the two-bottoms-one-relationship problem. Luckily, neither of them
minded being on top, and they both got off that way. But Josh’s weight holding
him down, Josh’s arms around him and cock inside him, was just more satisfying.
The other way around, Jason always felt like he was about to fall.
Josh ground against Jason and gave him a mouth full of tongue. Jason loved
letting Josh take control after he’d had a couple of drinks. Tequila made him a
little rough, a little messy. Josh knelt on the floor and tugged Jason’s trunks
off. He rolled his tongue over Jason’s balls and the base of his cock, not so
much a blow job as a wake-up call. Josh went for Jason’s ass next, working the
tip of his tongue past the ring of muscle as Jason yielded to him, teasing
Jason until he thought he’d have to beg.
“Fuck, lube’s still in the suitcase,” Josh said. Jason laughed with his legs in
the air. They’d so perfected frantically digging through luggage for sex
supplies that they could have earned an extra Olympic medal for it. Josh came
running back on his toes, hard cock bobbing as he squeezed lube onto his
fingers.”You need to move,” Josh said. “This angle, like, either I won’t get it
in or we’ll knock the chair over.”
Inspiration struck. Jason bounced out of the chair and braced himself against
the wooden patio railing. Josh cracked up. “You want me to fuck you over the
railing?” But he sounded more turned on than incredulous.
Josh took a long time with his fingers, stretching them to stroke Jason’s
prostate, getting most of his hand inside before he let up. In comparison, his
cock felt almost small. But Josh had a lot of power in his hips, standing up,
so much that Jason almost asked him to slow down. Instead, Jason dug in his
grip and pushed back against him, drawing him in deeper, forcing rough thrusts
into the hand Josh had wrapped around his cock. “It’s good,” he breathed.
“More. More.”
He came hard, almost losing his footing, and balanced weakly on his toes until
Josh came inside him. Josh’s knees buckled into him, and Jason twirled around
to keep his weight from knocking them both over. Jason kissed Josh’s prickly
cheeks and neck, Josh’s breath warm across his ear.
Jason’s phone started to ring. “No,” Josh said, rocking him back and forth in a
slow dance to match his ring tone. But when Jason’s phone stopped, Josh’s went
off almost immediately. “Fine,” Josh said.
Jason tried to figure out who was calling, but all he could determine was that
it wasn’t a tragic emergency. “No, it’s fine, we’re just on vacation,” Josh was
saying. “Can you hold on a second?” Josh put the phone down on the villa’s
little coffee table. Hopefully, he’d remembered to mute it before whispering
loudly, “Put some pants on. It’s the adoption agency.”
Jason uttered a squeal of anticipation as he shook his trunks right-side out.
He and Josh had signed up with a private adoption service about a year earlier,
accepting the warning that a good match often took time. “You know, straight
people make these on their own,” Josh had said after a long afternoon of
filling out forms. “They make them by accident.” A week before their trip,
they’d met with a teenage girl who’d seemed shy and uncertain of them, and
they’d gone home assuming that, like two others before her, she’d end up
picking some other couple with shorter work hours and better dress sense.
Josh put his phone on speaker and said, “Okay, we’re both here.”
“I wanted to be the first to offer you congratulations,” the woman from the
adoption agency said, scripted and sincere at the same time. “Maritza wanted me
to apologize on her behalf for keeping you hanging for so long. She says her
parents tried to push her in another direction, but your kindness and respect
for her made a strong impression. She also says she hopes you’ll teach your
child to ice skate.” When they both laughed, the woman said, “She wanted to
make very sure I told you that.” The woman went on for a few more minutes about
finances and medical care, but all Jason could hear was his heart in his
throat. Finally, she wished them a good vacation and hung up.
Jason threw his arms around Josh. “We’re having a baby! We’re having a baby.”
Josh squeezed Jason tight, and Jason could feel him crying with joy. “Right in
time for graduation,” Josh said, a touch of dread in his voice.
“Well, that’s what you get for bending me over a railing,” Jason said, needing
to laugh away his own fear as well as Josh’s. He laughed and sniffed tears
away, trying to feel all his emotions at once.
*
30.
The baby was finally asleep, for now, so Josh could check his personal email.
His mom had sent a short note with a bajillion attachments, because no amount
of explaining all the better methods of sending photos over the internet would
change her ways.
I was going through old pictures, and I thought you might get a kick out of
these. Mostly from your skating competitions, a few from family vacations. My
favorite is the one of you and Jason from 2005. I didn’t realize you’d known
each other that long! Make sure he sees that one!
Josh went through all the other pictures, including several of him and Jason
together at later competitions, but when he got to the one his mom had
specifically mentioned, it seemed wrong to open it alone. He found Jason in the
bedroom, so close to sleep that he’d let his hair down, but with the light and
his glasses still on. Josh slipped into bed next to him. “My mom sent a bunch
of old pictures. I guess you can look tomorrow if you’re too tired now.”
“No, I’m up,” Jason said. “I keep thinking I hear, like, wild shenanigans on
the baby monitor.”
Josh tapped his tablet screen and opened the picture. There they were, ten
years old, arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling widely in their sneakers
and skating costumes. “Oh my God, is that the day we met?” Jason said.
“It must have been,” Josh said. “I forgot that my mom took a picture.”
“We were so little,” Jason said. “Do you think we knew?”
“Knew what?”
“That twenty years later we’d be married with a kid.” Jason laughed. “God, that
sounds dumb when I say it, of course we didn’t, we were ten.”
“I knew I was really happy that a boy kissed me, so much that I didn’t care
that I messed up my jumps,” Josh said. “And I thought you had really cool
hair.” He twisted a lock around his finger, and Jason didn’t swat him away.
“Still do.”
“I was just happy you didn’t die when I kissed you,” Jason said. “Still am.” He
kissed Josh’s cheek.
They sat in bed, looking at old pictures, Jason’s head on Josh’s shoulder.
Jason laced his fingers with Josh’s and squeezed his hand. Just like when he
was ten, Josh felt like he was getting away with something wonderful, something
he totally deserved.
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