3
BANKS MORETTI
Cowards.
Them, not us.
Part of me wishes they’d just say it to my face. Say what they’re thinking. Say what people are spouting online.
Part of me is thankful they don’t.
I have no good response queued up.
What’s my next move then? To throw a knuckle-busting, blood-boiling, right hook and cause more harm than good? I have a tipping point like Akara, and I’m not looking to be set off.
Good grief, why am I even fucking aggravated?
I don’t want to be defensive. I’m too confused to defend a thing right now. Except my love for Sulli. My love for him.
That, I understand.
I thump the back of my head to the wall. The bathroom door beside me. Sounds of fireworks grow faint, and if the pops frightened Sullivan, she’d call us inside, not push me or Akara away. Her nerves must be pre-ceremony jitters.
But she hates being alone, and I yearn to fill the void. I hope she’s not feeling that emptiness right now—I hope that she really needed this alone time and that’s why we’re here and she’s there.
I peel my concentration off the bathroom.
My mind travels back to Akara’s question.
To Vogel and Ackermann. Swimmers on Team Switzerland.
To that look they gave us. It doesn’t take fucking Scooby Doo to figure out what spun through their heads.
So I just tell my friend, “I can guess what they’re thinking, but I wouldn’t even know how to respond.” I fix my eyes on Akara. “And I’m not my brother. I can find some verbal wisdom in a pile of shit. But I feel lost for fucking words.”
Akara ends up smiling. “Only you’d say your wisdom originates from shit.”
“You think it’s born from someplace better?” I scan the empty hallway. “I’m a poor South Philly kid. Not a pretty-faced entrepreneur like you.” I tap his cheek lightly.
His lips lift. “Hey, my pretty face has nothing to do with my wisdom.” He pauses. “But mine definitely originates from higher places than shit.”
I slug his shoulder for the swear word.
He doesn’t flinch.
These days, if he curses it’s usually on purpose, knowing knuckles-to-skin are coming.
I take the toothpick out of my mouth. “You like my shit-born wisdom.”
“It has its moments.” He glances at his phone, then pockets it. “Three out of five stars on average.”
I point my toothpick at him. “You seeking out three-star advice all the damn time says more about you than me.”
He lets out a laugh, the humor fading with the softening of his gaze. He pushes back his black hair, strands falling back into his eyes. “If the Swiss swimmers are just thinking—are you two fucking?—then we know the answer, Banks.”
I raise my tense shoulders. “Yeah, we’re not fucking each other. We’re just fucking the same girl.” I hate how crass I sound when what we’re doing with Sulli is deeper than just a one-night fuck.
We’re so committed to one another that it’d take a fuckin’ tsunami to pull us apart at this point. Even then, Sulli is an Olympian. She’d find a way to swim back to us.
And I’d drown before I ever stopped trying to reach her and him.
Akara nods slowly. “Then they’d probably ask us, have you slept naked together?”
Yeah.
We have.
“Have our balls touched?” I say more bluntly.
He laughs at that one. “You know how many times I was spammed that comment last night on my Instagram?”
“Where’d you think I got it from?” I saw the trolls all over his photo of him, Sulli, and me at the Olympic Village. We both had our arms around her.
Akara shakes his head in thought. “The most annoying comment might be, how can you be a man if you let another guy share your girl?”
“Yeah. I fucking hate that one.” I’m secure with myself. With my masculinity. But the personal jabs are grating on me.
I think back to me feeling defensive. Me not wanting to be.
But I know I will always defend everything that feels so goddamn personal to me. Akara and I have a lot of differences, but we’re the same that way. I never imagined any opposition would get this close to the things that matter to me. My life, my loves, my people, my being—all of it is just sacred.
Quiet bathes the hallway and us as we contemplate the curiosity and accusations surrounding me and him. I think we knew it’d exist, but not to the level it’s shot to. “For whatever it’s worth,” I cut into the silence, “you’re all man to me, Nine.”
His lips rise again. “Appreciate it, Banksy.” He favors his right ankle and leans up against the wall beside me.
I squeeze his tattooed shoulder, then glance at the bathroom door with him.
“What’s your least favorite question?” he asks.
“All of ‘em.”
“Cop out.”
“Monaco,” Thatcher announces over comms.
I know my fuckin’ ABCs. If we’re on countries that start with M, then Sulli is losing more time to rejoin Team USA. I consider banging on the door. But I don’t want my girlfriend to jump out of her skin. Probably why Akara hesitates, too.
“We’re at Monaco, mermaid!”
“I’ll be out really fucking soon! I promise!”
“We’re putting your poop-breaks on the clock, Sul,” Akara teases. “You’re being timed. Three more minutes.”
We hear a faint hardy-har-har.
I slip my toothpick back in my mouth. Something I haven’t told Akara or Sulli yet suddenly circles back to me. Every time the memory nears the front of my brain, I push it out of mind.
Unimportant.
Not now.
Later.
Maybe never.
Why drudge that shit up?
All the excuses fade to the background, and I suddenly confess, “My ma asked me if I’m bi.”
Shock freezes his face. “Bisexual?”
“No, bilingual,” I joke. “Yes, bisexual.”
He jumps over my dry response. “Really? When? What’d you say?” He’s eager for answers. Just like my mom was eager for one.
“Months ago,” I admit, scratching my jaw.
I remember how my mom had been over-the-moon excited when I confirmed my relationship with Sulli back in Atlantic City. I didn’t know how she’d react once she heard my relationship also includes Akara.
Turns out she’s still excited. She loves Akara. But I think she’s been more excited at the prospect of me being bi like her.
I take a longer beat. Quiet.
Akara is on pins and needles. “And?”
I don’t answer right away.
He shoots me a look. “What’s with the fracking cliffhanger?”
“It’s not a cliffhanger.” My mouth curves up. “It’s a fucking pause.”
“Are you really going to make me ask again?”
“I told my ma, I don’t know.” I shake my head a couple times. “I don’t know, Akara.” Frustration I’ve felt and have been feeling starts to rumble to the surface again. “I don’t fucking know what we are…and I thought I knew. I thought I was straight….maybe I still am. I don’t know.”