He’d set out all the fillings, taking up the rest of the table. As he spooned salsa on top of his fajita, he looked pleased at my enthusiasm, his eyes lighting up. There was no cheese, but he’d included thick, organic sour cream, and I slathered it on my next creation.

We watched a home renovation show and ate delicious food. A sleek, black SodaStream sat on the counter in his kitchen, and even though he didn’t have any of the sugary flavors to add, the plain soda water went perfectly. I mean, an ice-cold Corona would have been great too, but that definitely wasn’t part of a pre-Olympic eating plan.

The thought of the Olympics made my stomach swoop. Here I was with my biggest rival for gold, sharing a meal and wearing his PJs while his cat rubbed against our ankles. I could imagine my mother’s fury at my softness and how shocked our competitors and everyone else would be if they could see us now.

A thrill rippled through me. It felt wonderfully forbidden even though all we were doing was eating dinner and watching a Property Brothers rerun.

It wasn’t like we were fucking—which wasn’t something I should think about, so I tried to shut it down immediately. But my mind still whirled, shaking off the lingering migraine slowness.

Under the table, if I moved my left leg an inch or two, my knee would touch his. If I leaned over and kissed him, what would he do?

My heart skipped as I looked at him. A chunk of salsa had caught on the corner of his mouth. He glanced at me, going still as he swallowed, a question in his deep brown eyes.

I reached out and swiped the tomato from his lips, touching him for a fleeting moment. “Salsa,” I said.

Henry was like a statue as I turned back to the TV renovation and took another bite of dinner. I ate and pretended everything was completely normal. He started eating again too, and when I wiped my mouth with a sharply folded cloth napkin, I darted out my tongue to lick the salsa from my thumb.

Chapter Seven

Henry

Why was Theodore Sullivan so persistently nice?

Well, I supposed he wasn’t always, but neither was I. He was generous more often than not, regularly going out of his way to encourage others.

As I ate a banana and circled my ankles, sitting on a chair backstage at the Grand Prix Final with my socked feet straight out in front of me in the air, I watched him comfort his young American teammate as she cried in frustration.

He sat on the floor in the corner with June across the nondescript open space, and though I couldn’t hear, from the way she was gesturing as she spoke I was sure she was complaining about her under-rotations. She wore a tracksuit, but her hair was still twisted into an intricate knot and her glittery makeup smudged her cheeks.