"This is so frustrating," Payson said, as she attempted to store her carry-on in the overhead compartment after fishing around in it for ten minutes trying to find her iPod. Finally, she remembered it was in the suitcase she'd checked at the gate. She pushed at it, but the bag wouldn't budge.
She felt someone move up behind her, "Here, let me," he said, in her ear. A month ago, it would have made her leap out of her skin, but now, she leaned back into him, to allow him room to push the bag into the space above their seats. She felt one of his hands steady her at the waist, while he shoved at the bag with the other. She could feel the heat of his skin through the thin layer of t-shirt that separated his hand from her hip. He's like a walking furnace. She shivered in response, despite the warmth.
"Thanks," she said, and moved into the row, trying to ignore the heat she could feel practically drawing her body into his. She sat down in her seat and turned to see Sasha remove his jacket and sit down beside her. Seems he was feeling a little warm too. Good, maybe he's just as effected as I am. She doubted it.
"So, what's frustrating? You're inability to put your luggage into the overhead or going to Worlds and not being able to compete?" he asked, with a smirk. Stupid, attractive half smile with his ridiculously clear blue eyes that twinkled at her.
She looked at him; her eyes narrowed, but she didn't respond. He chuckled and turned to give the flight attendant his drink order. You, Sasha, you are what's frustrating. It was by unspoken agreement since the morning after she kissed him that they kept certain boundaries. The lines tended to blur every once in a while, but for the most part, they'd both behaved themselves. But there were moments, little things that no one else would think anything of, that sent shivers down her spine. Sometimes he'd just be near and that was enough to make every cell in her body hum in response.
They'd flown coach from Denver to New York and spent the six hour flight in the smallest airline seats she'd ever seen, practically pressed together from shoulder to ankle, their hands brushing every few minutes, unable or unwilling to get out of each other's way. Now, their flight to Amsterdam was first class, paid for by the National Gymnastics Committee, but still, almost eight hours in a small enclosed space might drive her insane, nine if you counted the car ride from Amsterdam to the site of the World Championships in Rotterdam. The mere thought of it was making her entire body tense.
"Get me a glass of wine," she practically ordered him. The words were out of her mouth before she'd even thought about it.
He looked at her incredulously, "What?"
"The drinking age in the Netherlands is sixteen and I'm seventeen, get me a glass of wine. We're in international waters I'm allowed. I need to relax and that last flight, Sasha, that was not relaxing."
"Well, I don't know, I rather enjoyed it," he said in that low, gravelly tone he used when he was flirting, but before she could respond, he motioned for the flight attendant and ordered her something she'd never heard of before.
"Happy?" he asked.
"Thrilled," she said and ran a hand through her hair which she had taken to wearing down lately, but had quickly developed a nervous habit of running her hands through it.
Sasha sighed, "Look, Payson, I know this isn't how you wanted to go to your first World Championships, but you need to be there. You need to stay on the international gymnastics radar. The media is going to love the idea that you're here to support your teammates, it's a big story, a headline really: 'Payson Keeler takes weekend off from her comeback to coach her teammates at World Championships'."
Payson looked at him, "I know, we've been over it. I just wish I had listened to you in the first place. If I hadn't tried to petition onto the National Team in France, I probably could have done it for Worlds this year, especially with the way I've been landing my routines and now I have to wait until next August for Nationals." She tightened her hand into a fist and pounded lightly on the armrest that separated her from Sasha.
He gently laid his hand over hers and squeezed reassuringly. She relaxed and he slowly intertwined their fingers. Payson felt her breath catch. The sight of her much smaller hand almost entirely enveloped by Sasha's made her stomach flutter pleasantly. His thumb softly brushed continually against the inside of her wrist, a light touch she supposed was meant to calm her, but all it accomplished was heightening her awareness of him.
"Sir, Ma'am, your drinks," the flight attendant said from the aisle and Sasha turned to face her, but didn't take his hand away.
Payson took her glass of wine from the flight attendant and took a large sip. Sasha did the same with his gin and tonic. The touch could not, would not be misinterpreted. It was a caress, something shared between lovers. The flight attendant even smiled indulgently as if she understood something about them. With each brush of his thumb against the sensitive skin of her pulse point, she relaxed further, until she was sure her bones had melted and every bit of tension in her body was gone. There was no one on this flight that would recognize them, no reason to hide anything. No, we don't have to hide this completely inappropriate and amazingly wonderful feeling at all.
She took another sip of wine and sighed.
"Feeling better?" he asked, softly. Most of the people around them were asleep, trying to avoid jet lag on the other end of their eight hour journey. She nodded and smiled lazily. "Get some sleep," he said, putting his own seatback down. She followed suit and thanks to the wonder that is first class, they could fully recline. After the flight attendant brought pillows and blankets and they situated themselves, Sasha took the hand he'd temporarily relinquished and took up the slow rhythm again, and instead of setting all of her nerves on end like his touch had so many times before, it lulled her to sleep.
She woke up somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and looked to her right to see Sasha awake and clicking away at his laptop. Most of the plane was still asleep. "Working?" she asked, sitting up and leaning over his shoulder to see the screen, her hand resting comfortably on his back, between his shoulder blades.
"Looking up the confirmation numbers for our hotel reservations, unless you'd like to sleep in the lobby?" he responded, not looking up from the screen.
Payson tilted her head in confusion, "I thought I'd be rooming with Kaylie, like in France."
Sasha shook his head, still not looking up at her, "Nope, you've got no official link to the National team besides your temporary coaching status for the Rock, Coach Keeler, so we've got our own rooms."
"Erg – Coach Keeler, promise me that those two words will never be put together again for at least two more years," she said, sitting back in her seat, as he closed his laptop and smiled at her.
"You'd be interested in coaching after the Olympics? After your injury you were adamant that you didn't want to coach." To say he was intrigued was an understatement.
"I didn't want to coach and watch other people achieve something I could only dream about," she said, knowing it sounded extremely selfish. "Does that make me a terrible person?"
Sasha laughed, "No, besides, I firmly believe that to truly understand what makes an Olympic champion, you have to be one or at least have come close. I told you before Payson, like it or not, you're a leader, people listen to you and after all this is over, coaching might be your calling."
Payson smiled. "Maybe I'll coach with you. Now wouldn't that be interesting? I mean who'd be able to resist sending their gymnasts to train under two Olympic gold medalists." Sasha smiled in return. She's right, now that would be interesting, wouldn't it, Beloff? Coaching side by side with an extremely available, extremely LEGAL Payson Keeler, day in day out, long nights in the gym office – He stopped that train of thought before it spun completely out of control. "You don't want to go to university?"
Payson shrugged, "Not to do gymnastics, could you imagine going from the Olympics to the NCAA? I think I'd kill myself, but do I think a degree would be a good idea, UC Boulder has a phenomenal Integrative Physiology program."
"Integrative Physiology?" Sasha chuckled, he periodically checked up on the girls' grades, but he tended to check for problems and nothing more, but the casual way she mentioned that mouthful of a major made him think that perhaps he should take a look at Payson's again. Was the girl a genius too? "Sounds – difficult."
She laughed, "It's the study of the human body, how it moves, its capabilities, its limitations and how you can use it for a variety of activities, including elite level gymnastics and they actually just changed the name of the department from Kinesiology to Integrated Physiology, if that helps."
Ah, well that word is much more familiar; you're not a complete knuckle dragger, Beloff. Sasha cleared his throat, relieved that she wasn't speaking out some obscure field of study that would make his head spin, "Sounding less and less difficult by the second."
"Yep, not so bad and I imagine it would come in handy as an elite level gymnastics coach, to know exactly how the body can move and bend."
He shifted closer to her, "Now, that's something I could definitely help you with," he murmured, as they both leaned closer together, unlike that moment in the gym months earlier, the buildup was slow, they had time to think about this.
A bad idea, Beloff, very bad. His hand came up to caress her cheek lightly and she leaned into the touch, wanting to be closer to him.
She's seventeen years old. He leaned in and brushed his nose against her cheek, following the path his fingertips had taken. Their noses bumped affectionately and their eyes slipped closed.
You are her coach. "Sasha," she murmured as he brushed her lips lightly, just a simple caress of her bottom lip, their breaths mingling for a moment.
This is the worst boundary you could break, the ultimate betrayal of a coach to his athlete. Her hand came up and caressed the back of his neck lightly, making his entire body shudder in response. He pressed closer, shifting focus from her bottom lip to her top, feeling her respond in kind, her tongue tentatively searching for his.
She is a child!
"Payson," he said, breathlessly moving away and opening his eyes. They both exhaled and leaned their foreheads against each other for support. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I – I'm sorry."
She pulled back from him fractionally, as if she didn't want to lose contact entirely. "No, no it was me too. We said, I said, it would never happen again," she whispered. "This is my fault." She was barely holding it together. He had never seen her look so fragile, not when her back injury initially flared up, not when she thought her Olympic dreams were dead and not when she briefly lost her path after her surgery. He'd done this to her.
Sasha sighed and put a hand on her shoulder, massaging lightly, "No, Payson, this is my fault. I never should have continued with this – whatever this is that we've been doing. It has to stop now. I'm your coach and you are my gymnast." He sat back and ran a hand over his face in frustration.
It was then and there he made a decision. He took a deep breath. "Okay, here's what we do. This," he motioned between them, "this is as inappropriate as it gets. We cannot continue like this."
Payson nodded her head, obviously waiting for him to continue. He liked the expression on her face; it was Payson's focused face, the one she wore while competing. "I agree, we have a mission and it's not just any goal, it's the Olympics."
He turned towards her and took her hand in his, marveling at how much smaller hers was than his, "Right, so this –" he motioned between them again, "it cannot happen," he said and he felt her hand tense under his, "it cannot happen now," he clarified.
Payson looked at him. Is he saying what I think he's saying? She thought of Emily and the bargain she'd made with Damon and how insane and utterly romantic the idea had sounded to her. "A little less than two years." Did I say that out loud?
Sasha sucked in a sharp breath. Two years, old man, two years is a bloody long time. "Two years," he said and looked at her. Is she worth it? Two years of nothing, no one else, celibacy, spending every waking moment with her, not being able to have her. Are you strong enough? Do you want to be? Will she want you in two years? She'll be nineteen and Lord, you'll be almost thirty, old man is right. Even then, two years from now, people will talk. But when did you ever care what people thought about you, Beloff?
She looked their hands, still joined on the seat between them, then back up at him, her dark blue gaze meeting his sky blue. "Sasha?" she asked.
