“You’re not wearing... Oh, never mind. I think the competition shirt—”
“The what, now?”
I waved a hand. “The leotard,” I said. “I think it kind of... holds it all in place. Some of them wear tight briefs or compression shorts. I’m not... Oh, forget it, you’re fine. You’re not going to get a dick hernia,” I added, trying very hard not to look at his crotch.
“You’re an awful coach,” Ollie said. He tried a few more cartwheels, but his shirt kept falling onto his face. Eventually he whipped it over his head and tossed it onto a nearby lounge chair. I tried not to stare at him, but the man looked... great. I knew he worked out. RJ, Ollie’s bunkmate, was constantly muttering under his breath about tripping over Ollie’s free weights and knocking his head against the pull-up bar whenever Ollie left it up in the doorway. But beneaththat ridiculous graphic tee, he was much more in shape than I expected.
I tried talking Ollie through the steps of doing a cartwheel, but the lesson ended up being more physical than I’d planned. My hands were all over him—his shoulders, back, waist. I was too drunk and enjoying myself too much to feel self-conscious about it, though. At one point, when I had his ankles in my hands, he had me laughing so hard, I nearly dropped him on his face.
When Ollie finally achieved a half-decent cartwheel, he turned to me with a grin. “That was it, right? That one was good?”
“I mean... relatively speaking, yes.”
He rolled his eyes, and I noticed a small oval-shaped medal that had fallen on deck.
I stooped to pick it up and squinted at the image of a woman with a sword in one hand and a book in the other. “Is this yours?” I asked.
“Hmm?” He looked at the medal in my hands. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Who is she?”
“Saint Dymphna,” he said. “Says so right there.”
“Well, yeah. But what’s her thing?”
“What do you mean,What’s her thing?” he said, putting on an impressive American accent.
“Don’t they all have specialties or something? What’s hers?”
“Anxiety,” Ollie said, sounding annoyed. He plucked the medal from my hands and shoved it back in his pocket. “Jesus, I’m langers. Better stop now before I cartwheel overboard, yeah?”
He crossed the sun deck and sat with his back against the outside of the hot tub. With the medal tucked out of sight, the amusement returned to his face, and he seemed like a totally different person from the moment before.
After I sat beside him, I nodded to his lap. “How’s your...”
Ollie laughed. “It’s wonderful,” he said. “Rave reviews.”
“Well, it can’t be worse than your cartwheels at any rate. You’re awful.”
“That’s not a fair assessment. You come from Olympian stock. I’m amazing for a beginner.”
“I come from Olympian stock, huh?” Everyone on board knew I used to be a kids’ gymnastics coach, but I hadn’t said anything about my professional athletic career. If anyone knew, they hadn’t breathed a word of it around me.
Ollie rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, looked you up after we met. Just couldn’t shake the feeling I knew you from somewhere.”
“Let me guess, you knew me asthat girlfrom Olympic trials.”
“I watched your other stuff too. I think I’ve seen it all now. Not on purpose... I don’t want you to think...” His ears grew pink as he fumbled for words. “YouTube has that autoplay thing. You watch one video and, next thing you know, it’s two hours later and you’re...” He let the words trail off. “What I mean is, you’re really good. Incredible.”
I sighed. “Not anymore. As you can see, I am now retired.”
“You didn’t want to go back to it?”
I flexed the leg that rested against his. “Not really,” I said.
His fingers grazed my knee. “Does it still hurt?”
“Sometimes.” I tried to ignore how nice it felt to have his hand there.God, I’m drunk.
