For the Record 3/5
~Chapter 3~
** August 3, 2006 **
The room practically sizzled with sexual activity. Deep breathing and soft moans filled the silence of the room as the two young men came off of their respective highs. Ryan turned to face Ian, it was too hot for snuggling this humid night in Gainesville.
“This was the best surprise birthday present I could ever ask for…” His fingers tailed up along the smooth torso of the Australian lightly, causing goose bumps to rise on his partner’s skin.
“Mmm well I’m glad you enjoyed the first part of the evening, but there’s even more in store,” he responded with a playful lift of his eyebrows. Ian had planned several months ago to surprise Ryan on his 22nd birthday. He was supposed to be back in Australia meeting with his coaches and trainers, but he couldn’t miss out on spending time with his boyfriend.
Ryan propped himself up onto his elbow, placing a soft kiss on Ian’s lips, whispering quietly so as not to ruin the moment, “Baby, there’s nothing else I could ask for. I’m so happy you could be here at all. You had me totally fooled.”
Ian returned the tender kiss with a quiet moan, his fingers gently stroking through Ryan’s soft curls. “I know you would never ask for it, love, but I wanted to do something special for you. Birthdays are really important to me so…” Ian pulled away from the younger man, sifting through the suitcase he’d left by the bed. “Ah, here it is.”
“Ian… you really didn’t have to…” Ryan’s eyes widened when he saw Ian remove the small black ring box from his luggage. “Oh my god…”
Ian chuckled softly at Ryan’s unexpected silence. “It’s not an engagement ring, love. That will come later. This is just something I wanted you to wear as sort of a promise, I suppose. A promise that I will always love you.” He opened the box for Ryan, revealing two black rings with Chinese script across the band.
“What does it say?” Ryan reached into the box to take the larger of the two rings out for further inspection.
“They’re the characters for honor, love, fidelity and trust. Everything that we share. That we’ll always share…” Ian removed the second ring and placed it onto Ryan’s right hand. While neither man was ashamed of their relationship, they still preferred to keep it quiet. It would have been too much to tell their teammates that they had been sleeping with the enemy. “I know it’s on the wrong hand but… we’ll know what it means.”
Ryan quietly slipped the ring onto Ian’s right hand, bringing his fingers to his lips to place a soft kiss over the band. “I promise to always love you Ian. No matter what happens I will always, always love you.”
**Present Day**
Ian gently thumbed the black ring hanging from a silver chain around his neck, whispering to himself quietly, “I promise to always love you; no matter what happens.” He was instantly jolted out of his seat when he heard the sliding glass door open out to the balcony. Ian quickly tucked the chain back into his shirt, not wanting his unknown intruder to catch him having such a nostalgic moment.
“So are you ready to write this, or what?” Ryan had done everything in his power to avoid the Australian all morning. He woke up at an absurdly early hour to workout at the pool, followed by a trip to the grocery store and then a walk around the neighborhood with Herman and Carter. Anything to keep him from facing the pretentious asshole of his past. It’d been a long night for the young man, full of tossing and turning, soul searching and cursing, but at the end of it all he was able to summon up enough courage to at least get this statement over with as quickly as possible. Then he would promptly kick Ian out on his ass, insisting that he never come back.
Ian closed his eyes tightly, wishing that Ryan’s words weren’t so filled with anger towards him. “Umm… yeah. I was working on an outline for us.”
“Fuck an outline, man. This doesn’t take too much thinking. We just tell them that yes, we were in a relationship. It’s over, and now I am committed to Michael and you’re still fucking around hoping to find your one true love someday.” Ryan dropped his body into the chair across from Ian, staring him down.
“I already found it…” Ian’s voice betrayed a heavy sense of sadness.
“Oh. Okay, well then we’ll say that we’re both in committed relationships and-”
“I’m not with him. He’s umm… in a ‘committed relationship’ of his own.” Ian waited patiently for Ryan to finally look him in the eyes as he was already distracted by whatever odd entity he was drawing on the notepad.
“No. No, don’t even start this bullshit with me Ian. Don’t come into my home and tell me that you made a mistake. That you never stopped loving me and that you wish you could fix things because I’m not going to listen to it.” Ryan may have sounded awfully confident in the words that were coming out of his mouth but he could feel all of his old affections build in the pit of his stomach. Damn it. Why does he always do this to me?
“I’m not going to feed you any of that clichéd bullshit Ryan. But I am sorry, not for breaking up with you, not for ignoring your calls, not for… being such an arse. But because I couldn’t be honest with you. I should have told you…”
“I get it. So, you’re not sorry for breaking my heart. You’re not sorry for manipulating me and treating me like crap towards the end of our relationship. But you are sorry for not telling me why?”
“You know, I would really appreciate it if you would just let me finish what I have to say and then we can move on and write this stupid statement.”
Ryan scoffed at Ian’s request. As if I’ve been the jerk in this whole situation. Ryan believed he’d been awfully civil towards the older man considering all that had transpired between them. “You know, I would have really appreciated it if you hadn’t lied about loving me.”
“I never lied to you, Ryan. I did love you. I always loved you, from the moment I saw you in Athens. Your spirit, your competitiveness… That’s not the point. The point is that I never stopped loving you. I ended things with you to protect you. Both of our sponsors came to me after it was brought to their attention that we were seeing each other. I wouldn’t have cared if they pulled out of my contracts but I wouldn’t let them do it to you. You were so young with so much potential…”
Ryan slouched back into his chair, chewing on the side of his cheek as he heard Ian’s explanation for what happened. He didn’t want to believe it. His heart was telling him that this was all concocted to make Ian look like his savior from financial ruin, but his head wanted to believe him. When he thought back to the fall of 2006, several moments came to mind when he’d been looked over for an ad campaign or an opportunity to do press for a new product. Once he and Ian were over, he was given every chance to gain the exposure he’d expected.
“I wouldn’t have cared about my fucking sponsors. I swam for 22 years without them. It doesn’t explain your cruelty, your need to dominate me and control every part of my life. God… and I let you do it. I let you convince me that you were smarter, that you were better, that I was so fucking lucky to even be in your presence.”
“That was my fault Ryan. I don’t even know where to begin to try to explain… I’ve been working on it. I’ve been working really hard to accept someone else on an equal plane with me. I believed all of my own hype. I let myself get sucked into that world and if I was the best like they said then nobody else could be equal with me. I had to be in control. I had to be on top.” Ian stared down at his hands, too afraid to let Ryan see the pain and guilt he’d been hiding for so long.
Ryan knew how hard it must have been for Ian to admit that he needed help, much less actually seek it out. It was admirable that he’d been trying, that he was working to make himself a better person. Without even thinking, Ryan reached under the table to lightly grasp Ian’s hand in his own, his fingers finding a familiar pattern to trace on the back of Ian’s hand.
“I’ve been working on a lot of things in my life too. It’s been really hard, you know. Getting over you. You were the first man I had ever loved and when it ended so badly it made me think that I wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love. That I was just a stupid child. That being gay… that being gay was wrong. But now, now I have a great man in my life who loves me. Who talks to me. Who works with me to make this relationship function on a level ours never did. And you should stop being such an asshole to him.”
Ian chuckled softly, raising his head to look at Ryan full on, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I’m supposed to be an arsehole to him. I don’t like him… He’s too… tall.”
Ryan leaned forward with genuine laughter, the first he’d shared with Ian in years. “Too tall? Right… ‘cause that totally makes sense.”
“It does… at least it makes sense enough to me.” Ian reached up to slide his fingers into Ryan’s memorable curls, savoring the moment just briefly before drawing the younger man close, his lips just barely brushing Ryan’s.
Ryan was taken aback when he felt Ian’s fingers on his skin, in his hair. It brought back years of memories. Years of good memories flooded his senses and he found himself kissing Ian back, his tongue finding a familiar softness and warmth in Ian’s mouth. Along with the pleasure he found in the kiss, he also found a sense of closure. Things were really over between him and Ian. There weren’t anymore butterflies of excitement like he used to get when he kissed Ian; but there also wasn’t that tinge of bitterness he’d carried with him since their breakup.
He pulled back to look at Ian, finding the same conclusions reflecting in his chocolate brown eyes. What he found just beyond Ian, however, was far more upsetting and a surge of guilt flowed through his veins. “Michael…”
Michael had returned just a few short minutes earlier from his own training routine at NBAC, and after swimming for several hours he’d returned with clarity. He was finally ready to sit down with Ryan and talk to him about everything had had happened so many years ago. He was ready to be understanding and forgiving but when he’d stepped out onto the balcony and witnessed the kiss of betrayal, his generosity went right out the window. “What the… how could… I don’t…”
“Michael, please… please let me explain. It’s really not what you think.”
“No… no. Fuck you.” Michael paused when Ian turned back in his chair as if he wanted to defend his ex-lover, redirecting his anger towards the Australian. “And fuck you.”
Ryan jumped out of his chair to follow Michael back into the house. “C’mon Mike. We have to talk about this. I swear it’s not…”
“You’ve got to let him go, mate. You and I both know he’s not the type to listen when he’s pissed off. It’ll just go in one ear and out the other.”
Ryan paused just briefly to speak down to Ian, who remained seated. “I… I know that but, that doesn’t mean I can just let him go. I don’t want him to think that I’m not going to fight for him, that I would just let him walk out.” He dashed to the front door, stopping Michael from slamming it in his face. “Michael, please. You have to let me fix this.”
“I don’t want to fix this right now, Ryan. I don’t even want to think about you right now. You disgust me. You’re so fucking weak and pathetic to let him come in here and ruin what we have together.”
“No, Michael. That’s not what happened.” Ryan’s words were silenced by the glare he received from Michael and he knew that nothing he said right now would make a difference. He stood in the doorway as he watched his partner walk down to the garage.
Ian stepped up behind a defeated and sad Ryan, clearing his throat softly so as not to scare him. “I’m going to go… I know that the kiss wasn’t... it wasn’t, love. You love Michael and you two, even though I hate to admit it, you two are perfect together. It’ll work itself out, you just have to talk to him.”
Ryan stepped to the side to allow Ian passage through the front door. He knew he couldn’t be mad at anybody but himself, but it was a lot easier to project it onto Ian. “Whatever, Ian. You should just get the hell out of here. We’ll deal with this in the morning before the press conference, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. I’m really sorry mate.” Ian gently squeezed Ryan’s shoulder, not knowing what level of encouragement would be appropriate, before making his way through the same garage Michael had left in a fury.
How could this happen? How could so much change in just one day?
“You know the answer to that, Ryan. You fucked it up, just like you always do.” Ryan stepped back into his home with Michael and gently shut the door, praying this wasn’t another heartbreaking end to a seemingly perfect relationship.