“I remember,” she said, not looking up from her plate.
“Well then you might also remember that they leaned into me pretty hard. Ale and Leo, too, but they took it better, I guess. Me? Not so much.”
The local news had asked if they could send a journalist and photographer out to talk to him at the pool not long after his father passed. They’d wanted a standard story of the young athlete working hard despite the loss of his father and the subsequent path to victory. When they showed up unannounced, it happened to be the day after one of the meets where he’d choked so bad it was like he was swimming backward. He’d been sitting in the coach’s office, watching the TV broadcast from the competition, when he heard one of the commentators say that maybe Cris had better take a break from swimming in order to not sully his family legacy.
He lost it. He marched outside and threw three empty recycling bins against the brick wall of the training center before realizing that the two guys watching him were actually filming the whole thing. He calmed down enough to give them an interview, but they still ran part of the footage of him going bananas in the parking lot and positioned him as an emotionally unstable loose cannon instead of the victorious hero. He choked again at the very next meet, when Gio and Ellie had come out to see him. He was mortified. And he was also certain that even the press could see he was failing to be the role model he wanted to be—the one he felt he had to be when Alessandro died. To have all of his hopes erased by one low moment was intolerable. So, instead of fighting to set the record straight, he stopped wanting to fight at all. He’d tried his best to stay under the radar ever since.
“I remember that, too,” Ellie said quietly. Her eyes finally met his.
“Let’s just say I developed an allergy to the media, in general. I avoided dealing with them at all costs. I know that sounds like an excuse.” Ellie was watching him, not reacting. He was surprised to see an old trait of hers still intact—studying him for clues when they talked,as if she were trying to understand some hidden subtext. It made it impossible for him to hide things from her when they were kids. He hoped like hell she wouldn’t pick up on how hard he was finding it to focus on the conversation when he wanted to break past this awkwardness and reach across the table to pull her into his arms like he used to without even thinking.
“The truth is that I figured it didn’t matter what I took because I was done,” he redirected. “And I only took it twice. I don’t even know if it worked. I might have felt better just because I stopped swimming. I actually kind of forgot about it.”
“What did you take?”
“I didn’t know it was banned,” he said. “I didn’t even know it was a real thing.”
“What the hell did you take?” Ellie pushed her plate forward and clasped her hands under her chin, staring at him.
“Deer antler velvet.”
“Excuse me, what now?” She guffawed.
“You heard me.”
“I understand all three words, but I do not understand them together.”
“It’s this fuzzy stuff they scrape off deer antlers as they mature. I got it from a doctor in New Zealand. They use it all the time down there.”
“Oh, God, you’re serious.” The corners of Ellie’s mouth started to turn up.
“Why is this funny?” Was she going to laugh right now?
“Deer horn. You got busted for what? Snorting deer horn?” She leaned closer. Ellie was trying to put on a straight face, but it wasn’thappening. She mashed her lips together, clearly trying not to crack up. “Wait. Is this like amaleperformance enhancer? Is that what you’re so mortified about?”
“What? No!” Cris was about to be really pissed, but the sight of Ellie covering her mouth with her hand and trying like hell not to laugh set him off, too. He broke a smile watching her shoulders shaking, and she silently convulsed behind her hand. “Come on, it’s serious,” he said, but it was a total loss.
Ellie let a rip of laughter out, making Cris cackle when she snorted. The table of kids next to them even looked up from their iPads long enough to try to figure out what was going on. Before he knew it, they were both wiping tears out of their eyes and coughing. It wasn’t even that funny. The situation did not deserve to be laughed at. But, the sight of Ellie practically peeing herself at his expense was a lot better than her looking at him like he’d gone moldy. For a second, the old light of what they used to be shone through, and after fearing it was gone forever, he was thrilled to see a glimpse of it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It sounds like something from a bad movie. I get EPO and steroids and whatever, but who thinks of deer horn silk?”
“It’s deer antler velvet, and, by the way, you don’t snort it.”
“Whatever you do with it—it sounds ridiculous.”
“And this is the first time you’ve heard of me doing something ridiculous?” he said, looking into her eyes with a slight smile. Ellie’s gaze flicked down again, her smile fading. He coughed. “It’s actually used to repair cartilage and tendons. My shoulders are destroyed, Ellie. I was desperate. Also, I was not trying to compete. I was not looking to do anything illegal, I just didn’t consider the timeline.”
Ellie drew her eyes back up to his. The grace period of silliness was over. “Well, that was a mistake.”
“I told you, I know.”
“But you might still be able to fix it.” She took off her sunglasses, folded them, and carefully placed them in a black leather case. He didn’t think people actually did anything with the cases that came with sunglasses except shove them into the recesses of a glove box. Those people weren’t Ellie. “If you’re sure about your facts, you’ll be in good shape. Having the truth on your side really means something. I’ve seen it happen over and over with people.”
“Yeah, I bet you have. I’ve heard your show. You’ve had some pretty big bombs dropped in your studio.”
Ellie’s face tightened for a second. “I guess you can say that.”
“I don’t know if I am that kind of person, you know? I’m not exactly the apology tour type.”
