A/N: Sorry it's not MKB, but my writing time has been almost non-existent lately. I'm in the mood to post something, though, so I'm pulling out of my stash of un-posted stories sitting in my documents folder. Hope you enjoy!
Sasha had been staring at a blank Word document for nearly two hours. He kept trying to start his letter, but every time he placed his fingers on the keyboard he froze, doubted, and then changed his mind. He couldn't leave the Rock. But every time he decided to stay, the silence of the gym reminded him of why he wanted to leave. His girls were gone.
They were the reason he came to Boulder, but now that the Olympics were over and they were all off to college, did he have a reason to stay? What was holding him back from writing his letter of resignation and going back to Cambria? The woman he dated in Cambria had been sending him texts for months, making it more than clear that he would be welcomed back, and he was tempted. He'd been alone for a long time.
He made up his mind again. He was going to leave. He couldn't take the empty gym anymore—even when there were dozens of gymnasts there, it was always empty without Payson, Emily, Lauren, and Kaylie. Those girls haunted him. He could practically hear Payson's feet pounding against the floor…
He could hear Payson's feet pounding against the floor. He was out of his chair before he could even fully process the fact that the sound wasn't imagined, sprinting to the floor to watch Payson land the double Arabian stretched that had caused such a stir in London, and suddenly he realized what had kept him at the Rock. This possibility, that one day she would come home on holiday and come to the Rock. He tortured himself with their absence every day on the slight hope that he might see Payson again.
She turned toward him and smiled. He was staggered by the sheer amount of joy and pain he felt at the same time—joy because he was seeing Payson again after months apart, and pain because he realized for the first time that he loved her, and there was no chance that he could ever be with her. When she ran toward him, though, he pushed aside his pain and caught her in a hug that lasted far longer than it should have. He couldn't manage to pull away.
Payson didn't seem to mind. Even when she spoke, she stayed close in his arms. "It's so good to be home."
She might have been talking about being back with her family or back in her hometown, but she wasn't. She was talking about being back in the Rock, and Sasha was one of the few who knew her well enough to understand that. "It's good to have you home," he agreed. "But what are you doing here?"
"Well, I've discovered one of the benefits of being rich," she said. "I can fly down for the weekend any time I want. I've missed being here."
Again, he could tell that she was talking about the gym, not about Boulder. She was a member of a gym in New York, but it wasn't the same. She didn't need the apparatuses; she needed the relationships that came with them. No gymnastics floor could ever hold the memories that the floor at the Rock held.
"Do you want to work out?" he asked. She only nodded, but her eyes glowed with the happiness not only of being in her home, but of being with someone who understood her so fully. He would never judge her for flying nearly two thousand miles just to work out. He was just glad that she was there.
It was easy for them to be together, just like it had been from the beginning. They trained together for hours, and Payson eventually goaded him into tumbling himself. He hadn't worked out with another person for years, and it was more fun that he thought it would be to get into a one-upping competition with her. Their tricks eventually grew so outrageous that they moved to the pit for safety, and they didn't stop until Payson's attempt at a three-and-a-half back salto ended in her belly-flopping into the soft Styrofoam.
She sank further into the cubes as she rolled over and groaned, "Oh, that was painful."
"You're not hurt, are you?"
"I'm not injured," she clarified, "but I wouldn't say that I'm not hurt. That was every bit as bad as a belly flop into a pool."
He chuckled. Now that he knew there was no real damage he could find a little humor in her pain. "That's what you get for trying things that are out of your league, Pay. There is a reason that you only do the two-and-a-half in your floor routine."
She tossed a foam block at him—a direct hit to the face. "Don't get cocky. You can't do a three-and-a-half either."
"I can do it better than that. I landed feet first."
"Barely," she scathed.
She didn't try to get out of the pit, instead choosing to lie and catch the breath that had been knocked out of her. It was at least a couple of minutes before Sasha realized that they were staring at each other, and he searched for something to break the suddenly awkward silence. "Hungry?" he asked.
He wanted to kick himself. She flew from New York to spend time working out and instead he was—what, asking her on a date? He scrambled for a way to change the context, to make it sound like he was worried about her physical health rather than a desperate desire to spend more time with her, but she spoke before he could. "Starving. Let's go to that Ethiopian place."
It was late in the evening so they were nearly alone in the restaurant, which was lucky as they were both rather unkempt and sweaty after their hours in the gym, but the solitude gave a romantic feel to their dinner. Sasha was conflicted between wanting the night to go on forever and wanting it to end immediately before he did something stupid like kiss her. Payson seemed to be on the 'wanting the night to go on forever' side of things, though, because they talked until the restaurant closed and then she suggested that they walk around for a while. She wasn't ready to go back to real life yet, she said.
They walked in silence for a while, more comfortable than he would have thought possible, until she finally asked, "So what were you doing all alone in the gym before I came? Playing Guitar Hero?"
"No." He debated telling her the truth. He was afraid of her judgment for abandoning the gym, but he didn't want to hide this from her. It would hurt her later to find out that he left the gym without telling her, and he did promise her after the last time that he would never leave without saying goodbye again. "Actually, I was trying to write my letter of resignation."
She stopped dead in her tracks. He was afraid to look at her, not wanting to see the betrayal in her eyes, but when he turned toward her all he saw was surprise. "You're leaving the Rock?"
"I'm thinking about it," he admitted. "I've gone back and forth for a while now, but I think it's time." If he left and made a clean break from her he might be able to move on one day.
After a few seconds she gave a sharp nod of her head and said, "Good."
"Good?" he repeated. This was not the reaction he expected. In fact, it was the direct opposite of the reaction he had expected.
"Yes, good, because it means that I've got nothing to lose when I do this—"
She lifted up on her toes and pressed her lips against his, and he was just as shocked as he had been the first time she kissed him. He wasn't stupid enough to push her away this time, though, and she took that as encouragement and wrapped her arms around his neck. There was a short pause before he realized that his greatest wish was coming true and he was an idiot if he didn't take advantage of it, so he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss.
When they drifted apart Payson whispered, "I love you, Sasha. If you don't feel the same way then that's fine, I'll let you go, but you can't leave without knowing."
His only response was to kiss her again. He would say the words eventually, but he was far better at showing his feelings than he was at saying them, and Payson understood exactly what he was telling her.
He wasn't sure how long they stood together like that, but when they finally parted everything was completely different, and yet completely the same. There was no awkwardness, no long conversation to define their new relationship; they didn't need it. They walked together just like they had before, with the same quiet comfort, but their linked hands advertized to the world that they were lovers rather than friends.
They wandered around until they came to a park, and Payson led him over to sit on one of the benches. "I lied to you earlier," she confessed. "I did really miss being here, but that's not why I came back."
"Then why did you come?" he asked. Not being able to resist teasing her, he added, "Did you fly here just to confess your love for me?"
She smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. "No, that part came as a surprise to us both. I think I always planned to tell you at some point, but that point was supposed to be years down the line. When you said you were leaving, though, I knew I couldn't wait."
"I'm glad you didn't. But if that's not what brought you back here, then what was?"
She took a deep breath and then spilled out her words in a rush. "I came to convince you to move to New York."
This was at least as unexpected as the kiss was. He hadn't given thought yet to the fact that they lived in different states, and that would certainly make their new relationship difficult, but outside of the context of the past hour, he couldn't imagine why she would want him to move to New York. He asked, "Why?"
"I miss gymnastics, Sasha. Working out a few times a week isn't enough. I want to compete again."
"You have school," he pointed out.
She dismissed that out of hand. "So do most of the U.S. male gymnasts. If the men can do it, so can I. Will you come, Sasha? I know that this is big, asking you to move across the country for me, but it's not just me. There's another little girl at the gym who's Olympic material if she had the right coaching, and she'll be age-eligible for Rio. You could have two girls on the Olympic team."
He started laughing under his breath, confusing Payson. "Did you think I needed another gymnast to persuade me to come, Payson? I moved to Colorado for you; why wouldn't I move to New York for you?"
"You moved to Colorado for all of us," she protested, but the faint blush covering her cheeks said that she knew, at least on some level, that she was wrong.
"No I didn't." It was something that he had never admitted, even to himself. Even when he stood on the creek bank talking to Steve Tanner he pretended that he was interested in the group, but it was never true. At the time Kaylie and Lauren were just tools to get him closer to Payson. "If there is another gymnast in New York then that's great, just like it was great that I got to work with Emily and Lauren and Kaylie, but I don't need it. If you want me to coach you then I'm in. I'll go anywhere you want me to go."
"Then I want you to go to Rio—In 2016, with me," she said. "Let's go to the Olympics together, Sasha."
"Again," he reminded her.
She smiled and agreed. "Again."
She placed her hand in his, a more romantic version of a handshake to seal their agreement, and they walked together back toward his truck. He still had a letter to write when he got back to the Rock, but he had a feeling it was going to be much easier to write now that he knew what was waiting for him after he left the Rock.
You guys should review and hopefully give me some inspiration to work on MKB!