Alan met my eyes over his head, and I knew he understood Evan’s joke was only half a joke. “I don’t think you’re easy, Evan Baily. Not at all.”
Evan pushed away from him. “I am. I’ve told you all about how easy I’ve been all my adult life.”
“Past you made choices,” Alan admitted. “Would you now make the same choices as you then made?”
Evan glanced over at me, his eyes dark and soft. “No.”
“Then what does it matter? Who you were isn’t who you are. It informs who you are, but it isn’t you.”
Evan nodded. “Okay. That makes sense.”
“Okay.” Alan hugged him again. “Okay.”
After a minute, Alan moved back so he could look at us both. “You guys understand that I don’t care about the team, the medals, the Olympics, like I did before I met you, right?”
I frowned at him.
“Okay, no. Not that I don’t care. I care. Obviously. But before you, it was all I cared about. I was willing to be shitty to the Darrens, to cut them loose so I could get you guys on the team because those things were all I wanted.”
“Well, to be fair, the Darrens were shitty first,” Evan said.
“No lies. But my point is that I see now that I did fuck them over so I could have what I wanted. I didn’t care if they found another team, as long as they weren’t dragging me down. I was never going to win anything with that strategy.”
“But we did win.”
“We won because I got my head out of my ass and realized how unbalanced my life was. Is. Look at all of you, killing yourselves to get us to some pinnacle that doesn’t matter if we’re too tired and burnt out to appreciate it. To appreciate each other.”
As was his way, Evan leered at him. “I don’t know. I’ve been feeling pretty appreciated at night.”
I snorted and Alan rolled his eyes.
“Sex is your first love language,” I told Evan. “And that’s okay. But it isn’t the only one and maybe you haven’t learned enough of another one to realize that when Alan cooks for us, all the coaching and practice and training, and making sure we’re all at top performance, so we can be the best, is how he loves.”
“He wants us to succeed,” Evan said. “But what if I can’t? You said it too, out there. What happens if we let him down?”
“You can’t,” Alan said.
“We could lose in Milano.”
“We could. But if we’re all doing it together, if we’re all trying our best, then it doesn’t matter.”
“He loves by trying to give us more of what we love. Ever notice he makes chicken more than beef?”
“I don’t love beef,” Evan said.
“Exactly. But you do love chicken. And he makes salad with every meal because I feel like I’m getting rickets if I don’t eat vegetables every day.”
“Vegetables don’t cure rickets.”
“Point is, he tries to give us the life we love, as hard as it sometimes is, and we’re living it the best way we can. That’s all he cares about. Winning is just icing.”
Alan’s eyes got big. “Oh, I see.” He glanced from me to Evan. “You aren’t a strategy, Evan. You’re mine. That doesn’t change, win or lose.”
This time, Evan went to him and wrapped his arms around his waist, leaning into him, head against his collarbone.
I had a flashback to our first weekend together. It was the Sunday afternoon after I’d dragged him out of that party, and we’d been getting ready to say goodbye after three days of hanging out, no sex involved, and he’d done the same thing, leaning on me, breathing into me, giving me all his weight.
I knew now, though I hadn’t at the time, it was him giving me his heart.
