Page 40 of A Gold Medal in Love

“Oh my fuck, not this again,” I whine, putting my head on her shoulder.

She squirms away from my touch, pushing my face further away from her body. “Yes, this again. You’redistracted.”

“I’m always distracted. It’s a mental health condition,” I inform her, smirking.

“Your ADHD aside, I’m referring to the fact that your play is different. No one knows how you play better than you and I do, and you know I’m right,” Charlie brushes me off and goes straight to the point.

“Are you saying you know my body better than anyone else, best friend?” I waggle my eyebrows lasciviously at her.

“Will you shut the fuck up and listen?” Charlie huffs.

“Ugh. You’re so boring. I hear you, and I’m not paying you any attention because I think I’m playing like hot shit, Char,” I tell her mostly seriously.

She cocks her head at me, studying me for a beat.

I make eye contact and hold it until she looks away.

“Can I just say I’m worried about you?” She huffs.

“I knew you fucking loved me. Gaaaaay,” I taunt her.

Charlie’s face screws up with anger.

“All right, all right. But I’m worried about you, too! You’ve been totally absent these whole games, ever since you… I don’t know… met a girl in a bar?” I look pointedly at her.

“This isn’t about me. I’ve got it handled. Do you have Imani handled?” Charlie asks sternly, using the voice I know she uses when she wants me to stop acting like a twat and actually be real with her.

“Imani isn’t someone to be ‘handled.’ But thesituationshipwith Imani is being handled. We’ve negotiated a brief D/s interlude,” I explain, wondering where the hell my stash of beer is.

“Thank you for the correction. I don’t know if I can talk shit about that when I’m making some choices with a capital ‘c,’ but I hope you know what you’re doing,” Charlie presses.

“I never know what the fuck I’m doing. I just play an adult on television, you know that. But I know you got my back, justlike I got your back. Whatever bullshit we’re fucking up to right now, we’ll figure it out now, or it’ll come out later in the wash,” I remind her.

Charlie raises an eyebrow at my cavalier attitude.

“I love you,” I end the conversation.

“You’re an idiot,” she responds, and I know that all is well.

But as I settle in to watch Team Canada’s quarterfinal game in support of my BFF, I think about Charlie’s warning. I don’t know her side of things. Right now, we are living at breakneck speed as both of us Captain our teams and fuck two pretty girls we just met a week ago.

I meant what I said. Imani doesn’t need to be handled. She might, actually, be under the false impression that she does. She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. No one gets where she has without grit and fortitude, plus she lives with her personal perfectionist standards crippling her every single day of her life. I’m pretty sure that Imani’s biggest obstacle is Imani.

Charlie is worried about me, but I’m concerned for Imani. I can bribe her to eat in as many crafty ways as I can think of, but that’s not a sustainable solution. I’m beginning to believe that Imani has bigger issues than winning a gold medal at her first Olympics, and I don’t have enough of an ego or a God complex to think that I can solve them.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

IMANI

Olympics Day11

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Today is a practice day for both Blake and me. It’s not an off day; I don’t have those, despite what Blake coaxed me into yesterday. But there’s a little cheating, because they might be sitting right outside the ice with their own skates on.

“Come on, Cupcake!” Blake taunts from the bench, waving their phone in the air.