“So you can make the podium, even if you don’t make the podium,” Mara said, deadpan, and Kirby laughed.
She was impressed with how well Mara was doing. She’d even made a joke.
Kirby held up the gold one. “If you can’t get an actual gold medalist inside you, this is the next best thing.”
Mara giggled, which set Kirby off too. She would have to cut some of the laughing, but she wanted that smile on Mara’s face to last forever.
They finished going through the box of condoms and dental dams. Mara was a great sport but also played up their animosity enough to be believable. She acted very put-upon, especially by the time they’d seen their third condom with the Olympic mascot on it.
Thereweretwelve condoms total—a mix between male and female—plus dental dams.
“All right, Mara,” Kirby said, wrapping it up. “And what do you think about the selection of safe-sex accoutrements provided to us?”
“I don’t know. It’s good for athletes who have the time for stuff like that.”
“Oh, and Princess Mara is too busy to think about something as pedestrian as sex?”
Mara gave her the most hateful glare, which sent Kirby’s brain and body in two opposite directions. Kirby’s body had learned that Mara’s contempt often led to the hottest sex ever. But Kirby’s brain was worried she’d gone one step too far.
“You can fuck all you want. Wear yourself out for the fifty-k, Bonham.”
“Oh, I will,” Kirby laughed. “I’ll cut it there.”
Mara stood up. “I didn’t like that.”
Kirby stood too. “Me calling you Princess Mara, or?—”
“Or.” Mara shook out her arms like she was trying to fling something gross off her body. “But also you calling me Princess Mara. I don’t love that.”
“Sometimes you do love it, though,” Kirby said. Mara definitely loved it when she was naked and about to come.
“Everyone is going to think I’m such a prude. Obviously, I have time for sex. We just had sex. But Ishouldbe too busy for sex. We both should be resting. I should be asleep. You should be getting your head together. God, Kirby, you have the sprint in two days.”
That sounded so responsible. And innocuous. But Kirby bristled at Mara’s roundabout reference to getting her head on straight. She probably hadn’t meant it in relation to Kirby’s panic attacks, but that was where Kirby’s mind went. Because anxiety about her anxiety was always right there on the surface. She tried to pull out the mantra that occasionally helped calm her, helped her feel less upset—it is okay to feel out of control—but it wasn’t hitting right. She didn’t like losing control of this moment at all.
“You worry about yourself, Mara. I’ve been multitasking my whole life. I can handle a little booty call every once in a while and still perform. Trust me. This is nothing.”
Mara stopped her fidgeting and went motionless. “Nothing.” Mara nodded. “Okay. Good. I agree.”
Silence descended between them, and it felt like the old Mara—the Mara that had iced Kirby out for years, the pre-Janette Collins interview Mara—was in the lounge instead of the angry, passionate woman Kirby had become obsessed with.
Kirby didn’t know how to get them back to the hot and fun place they’d been not five minutes prior. She stood, crowding Mara. Mara’s breath sped up. Kirby wrapped her fingers around the wild tendrils of Mara’s hair that fell over her shoulder, and Mara’s eyes fluttered closed.
There. Perfect.
Kirby took a step back, and Mara swayed.
“I’ll walk you back to your room. You’re exhausted,” Kirby said.
Kirby didn’t touch Mara on the walk, but she wanted to.
They reached Mara’s door. Someone, surelynotMara, had taped a huge red, white, and blue smiley face poster on it. Kirby wasn’t patriotic. She didn’t go for the rah-rah America stuff. But the decoration was so silly and whimsical, it made her smile.
“I want to kiss you again,” Kirby admitted as Mara’s hand went to the door handle.
Mara’s lips tipped up at one end, not a full smile but almost. “Yeah. I want that too.”
Then Mara opened her door and went inside. It closed behind her, leaving Kirby staring at the poster. She pressed her forehead to the smiley face’s forehead and laughed. There wasn’t anything else she could do.
