Page 114 of The Forever Vault

“Was that…?”

“Different,” Noah finished for me.

“It was the Kane, but…more.”

I didn’t know how to react when he came down, but was ready for anything.

“You guys like that? The Kane Two.” He waggled his eyebrows and finally gave me a smile before sitting down, leaving me and Noah half-in-shock and standing with our mouths hanging open.

“Where did you pull that from?” Noah asked, walking over. I followed.

Cam shrugged. “Always had it. Didn’t have a reason to do it. I’m pushing, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Oh, we had fucking noticed, mister.

“Uh huh,” was all Noah said, and we waited for the other guys to fall short of Cam’s greatness. Etienne Beaufort was the only other gymnast that had ever done the Kane and he hadn’t done it successfully in the last year, so…no threats on the vault here tonight.

I still couldn’t get over the change in Cam’s demeanor. It wasn’t dominant Cam, it was more like detached Cam. I’d seen him focused before, but this was almost a caricature of that. But it was working, so I liked it…and didn’t at the same time, which made me feel like an ass. People did worse things than act a little machine-like to win a gold medal.

“Just let it ride. Cam’s an adult,” Noah whispered into my ear. “It’s weird to me too.” He squeezed my thigh before leaning back in his chair, waiting for the signal to move to the next apparatus.

I heard the crowd react and instinctively looked at the high bar. Miles hadn’t fallen off, so he must’ve done something good. I watched the end of his routine and hadn’t seen any mistakes. It was a pretty ambitious routine; his score should reflect that.

Hudson and Woodward greeted him with high-fives and butt slaps. The former picked him up in a bear hug when his score was announced.

14.900. The highest score on bar of the afternoon.

And it moved him into third place.

The Wolf fell off the parallel bars, and then Hiruto and Inácio both fell off the high bar, launching Miles into first place with Cam set to go last on the high bar. Without any mistakes, Cam should overtake Miles. The gymnasts left on the floor weren’t in reach of a medal.

With each release, I held my breath. Like the floor exercise, he put a lot into each rotation around the bar, kind of like he was angry. I practically flinched each time he let go because it seemed like he was going to fly into the stands. But he never missed. He always found the bar. And when his feet hit the mat, they were planted solid. He wobbled for half a second, but caught it, and the arena erupted into cheers and applause.

He fucking killed it.

* * *

Watching the replay later, the announcers agreed that Cam seemed like he was out to prove something. It wasn’t until after the medal ceremony that I understood everything.

He came off the podium, tears streaming down his cheeks, and immediately ran into my arms. I squeezed as hard as I could with my right arm and rested my left hand on his waist.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m sorry I was such a robot the whole afternoon. I just had to win. I needed that gold medal.”

“I get wanting to win, Cam, but why the desperation?”

He nuzzled into my neck and answered, “Because this medal isn’t just mine, it’s ours. It was for you. You couldn’t win anymore and I felt like if I won then maybe your injury wouldn’t have been for nothing. I needed to win so at the very least, we’d have a gold medal to share.”

“Dios santo, Cam. That’s so sweet of you. I would love to share the medal, but you were scary. Don’t do that again. Even Noah was weirded out.”

“Well, it worked.”

Miles and Hudson were nearby and I pulled him into a congratulatory hug. Even Hudson wore a bright smile and he even gave me a hug too. Miles earned his silver medal.

Woodward walked over to us, ear to his phone. “Yes, Madam President. He’s right here. I couldn’t say it better myself. Oh, I’m just the coach, ma’am. Yes, here he is. One second.”

He covered the phone with his free hand. “It’s the President, Cam. She wants to talk to you.”