Stick Your Landing (All In #3)

5. Finley

5

Finley

“Do you always look so serious?”

I glare at Zach for asking the question, but it’s more playful than angry. He’s followed me silently around the gym, watching me intently through the dark glasses protecting his brain, not interrupting. His unspoken respect for my craft tugs at the center of my chest. No one in my life ever questions the difficulty of my sport—it’s not like any of my nongymnast friends can flip themselves in the air three times and survive, let alone land upright—but they never understand my sacrifice.

Zach does. It makes me want to know him more, despite the reasons I shouldn’t.

“I’m concentrating,” I say, lifting one leg in front of me in a pike position and balancing on one foot as I do a full turn. “I have a lot of work if I’m going to have any shot at making the team.”

“What team?”

“UPC. It’s where I go to school. I’m training for next season. It’s a long shot, but my coach went there. She says when I’m ready, she’ll reach out to her former coach to see if he’ll give me a tryout.”

I suck in a breath, readying myself for the first pass of my balance beam routine. It’s watered down from when I competed, and I’m still struggling to nail it every time. I raise my hands over my head and take a step, pushing off from the beam to tumble into a roundoff, back handspring, back layout. My feet land on the beam, digging in to prevent my fall, my arms waving to stop my wobble.

I could’ve done this tumbling pass with my eyes shut before. Now I’m lucky to hold onto the beam for dear life.

“It should be fun, right?”

Zach’s question yanks me out of my pity party.

I turn to face him. “It is fun.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

He sees me again, like the night of the wedding. I didn’t like it then, but I don’t mind it so much now. I’m lonely too.

“So what, you goof off and smile all practice long?”

I refocus on the beam, squaring up for my dismount. I complete a roundoff, then launch myself into a somersault with a twist. My feet land on the mat with a satisfying smack, my chest high and proud, arms toward the ceiling. Perfect . A simple skill, but executing gymnastics perfectly always gives me a thrill.

“Not the entire time, but... yeah,” Zach answers as I walk to him. “It’s my job, but I love it too. I want it to be fun.”

“Do you think if you were more serious, you’d be better?”

Zach blanches, and I wish I could rewind time to not undercut him. His question hit too close to my insecurity, and my defenses shot up. People once wanted to be around me, to hear what I’d say, see what I’d do. But I’m no longer that person, and I don’t think I ever will be again.

The least I can do is excel at my sport. I know what to do to score big, to win, and no one can take that success from me. After losing everything that made me me , I need this.

“Maybe,” Zach says finally, his features softening into a blankness I’ve never seen from him before. “Or I could train hard to get into the best shape of my life only to be pulverized in the season opener.”

“Shit, Zach, I’m sorry.” My toe digs into the mat in an attempt to ease the painful guilt in my gut. “I didn’t mean it. Not about you anyway. This is so important to me. I have one shot at this comeback, to prove I can do it, to show everyone who wrote me off they were wrong.” To prove I can have the life I want despite my condition . “It’s serious to me.”

“But you’re doing it because you love it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I reply immediately. And I mean it. Of course I love gymnastics. I remember flipping around my basement as a kid, blasting music and designing routines. Hockey was my family’s sport, but my parents couldn’t ignore the way gymnastics lit me up from the inside out. I became addicted to how the sport made me feel invincible. I worked hard because I loved it.

“I mean, I used to.” I drop my gaze to the floor. This ball of pressure inside my chest makes it difficult to relax while I’m in the gym, the way I used to forget the world outside these walls existed. I sigh deeply, words forcing their way up my throat. “I don’t remember what it’s like to have fun. My life has been very controlled these last couple of years.”

There. Unvarnished truth.

I raise my gaze slowly, bracing for his reaction. He’s wearing sunglasses but close like this, I can tell when our eyes meet. It’s freeing to talk to Zach, who won’t pick over my words, looking for a sign I’m unwell.

“That’s pretty much my superpower. People tell me all the time I’m the least serious person they’ve ever met.”

There’s something beneath his joke, something I recognize because I do it too. I dress up my words, hide the truth of what I actually think, how I’m actually affected.

Before I can figure out how to respond, Zach adds, “I happen to have a lot of time right now. And I’m already around...”

“Okay…” I say, drawing out the syllables, unsure of his point. As he continues to watch me, his meaning hits me. “You want to show me how to have fun?”

He shrugs, gaze darting away. “Why not?”

I can think of oh so many reasons this is a bad idea. When Matt returns from his road trip in two weeks, we’ll have to hide our friendship. He won’t believe the claim that we’re friends, and he might demand I stop spending time with Zach as a condition for living with him. When I was barely eighteen, his teammate, Garrett, made a move on me, and Matt lost his mind when he found out, though the primary driver of his concern was our age difference.

There’s also the matter of my jam-packed schedule. I need to focus on school and gymnastics and shifts at the café. I don’t have time to have fun.

Fucking liar , my mind whispers. I find time to lie in bed binging TV every single day. It’s safe there in my little bubble. One of the reasons I wanted to leave home, though, was to build a life. And a life should include fun.

I study Zach as he watches a couple of gymnasts doing handstand work on the floor. The crease between those dark brows, the strong lines of his jaw, the Adam’s apple working in his throat as he swallows. He knows I’m watching him, and he’s giving me time to untangle my thoughts.

Since we met, he’s never once judged me. Not when I stripped my clothes off to skinny-dip in the hotel pool. Or when I told him to lock the locker room door and stand against the wall.

Not when I told him I didn’t know how to have fun anymore.

The real reason I shouldn’t accept Zach’s offer is obvious—I could like him. He might think I have an unforgettable face, but he doesn’t know I could never be the kind of person he’d want, at least not long-term. A life with me will never be easy. I’ll never be easy to love. Relationships are complicated enough without adding my brand of challenges.

Zach turns, cheeks pink, eyes open and vulnerable. Shrapnel pings the walls of my stomach from the explosion of nerves that goes off when our gazes collide.

This doesn’t have to be long-term. Zach wants to show me how to have fun. He’ll eventually leave Matt and Gemma’s house to go back to his hockey career, and all his free time will evaporate. There’s a natural end point to protect us both from getting too close.

“Okay,” I relent.

Zach’s lips stretch into a tentative smile. “And maybe you can show me the ropes on this whole being serious thing?” His foot taps imperceptibly, the top of his shoe moving where it pokes out from under his pretzel-crossed legs.

“You want to be more serious?”

“Nah,” he replies, flicking his wrist in the air. “But I’m curious how the other half lives. So what do you say?”

Zach hops to his feet, taking two strides until he’s in front of me, and I’m breathing in his scent. It’s heady, like the cologne aisle I wander down even when I don’t need to buy any products. I stare into his warm, nervous expression—tension lingers between his eyes as his lips form a half smile. He’s biting the other side of his mouth, maybe to keep himself from word vomiting like he did the night we met.

If I told him how endearing I found it, would he still try to stop?

“All right,” I say. “What do I have to lose?”