Deep End(26)

She laughs. “In your defense, you’re always taking so many classes and—” She stops, as if recalling something. “I heard about the project with Luk! That’s going to look so nice on your CV when you apply for med school! ”

“I hope so.” A pair of distrustful eyes flashes into my head. “I . . . did Rachel tell you?”

“Rachel? Which Rachel, Hale or Adrian?” Her brow furrows. “Either way, Luk told me. Why do you ask?”

No reason, I almost say. But this is Pen, and . . . I don’t know. I trust her. It’s a gut feeling. “The other night Lukas and I were together in the dining hall, and she looked at me like I was doing something wrong.”

“Wrong in what way—oh.” Pen’s eyes widen. Then she laughs. “Nah, Rachel’s just chilly. Freshman year she’d treat me like I was crashing swimmers’ parties or distracting Luk just by existing.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “Plus, he’s single. And I’m the one who got wasted and cosplayed a Tinder algorithm to set you two up, remember?”

“Hmmm.” I squint. “Nope. I’d forgotten. It’s definitely not seared into my mind.”

She laughs. “Don’t worry about Rachel. She has no idea what’s going on.”

A lump of tension I wasn’t quite aware of dissolves. “Will she, though?” I remember Victoria’s questions on media day. “Are you and Lukas planning on telling people that you broke up?”

She sighs. “For now, you’re the only one who knows. We’re still trying to figure out the logistics of not being a couple, you know? People have this weirdly idealized view of us, and I know they’re going to make such a big fucking deal out of it. You know how invasive the gossip is in the athletic village.” She rolls her eyes. “Plus, our social circles overlap. We don’t want to make things weird with that, especially since he and I are still best friends and together all the time. And I won’t lie . . . it’s nice, being seen as Luk’s girlfriend. During freshman year, before people knew about it, so many guys would hit on me and get aggressive when I rejected them. Luk’s existence is like an instant repellent. ”

I understand it would be a problem, when one looks like Pen and is that widely beloved.

“Not to mention,” she continues, “he’s very Swedish about this stuff.”

“What’s that?”

“Just, private. Pretty hard-core about not disclosing. Like that time an ESPN journalist asked him whether he had a girlfriend.”

“What’d he say?”

“He just calmly asked, Do you have any other sports questions for me, given that you are a sports journalist?” Her impression is spot-on, down to the faint accent. She knows him inside out, and then some. “He was sixteen, and that was the last time anyone asked him about his private life. So awkward.”

Appealing, too. I know Lukas is our age, but he seems to have skipped the self-doubt stage. Resolute. Strong-willed. Knows what and where and when he wants to be. I bet he wrote his med school essay in twenty minutes.

“He’s a good guy,” she adds, more serious, eyes toward the pool. “I know he seems . . . distant, and rarely bothers to switch on the charm, but he’s great.” I’m not sure distant matches my impression of him, but before I can point it out, Pen adds, “He deserves to live his best sexy, depraved, dungeony life.”

The athletes are walking to the starting blocks, and people around us start clapping. I ask, “Are you, um, living your best sexy, undepraved, aboveground life?”

She turns to me. Leans closer. “There is this guy—”

A piercing whistle. Pen springs to her feet. Her screams of “Go, Luk! Go, go, go!” fade in the cheers of the crowd. The sudden noise startles me, and I take a deep breath to collect myself.

Lukas wins, though he doesn’t beat Kyle by a lot. He doesn’t slap the water, dance on the lane separator, or do any of the icky things that I was forced to witness in my club youth and turned me off swimmers forever. He just evades Kyle’s (playful?) attempt to drown him and slides out of the pool. Pen takes my hand to head to dryland training, and—

Nope. We’re turning for the pool deck. “There he is.” Pen waves a hand. “Luk!”

Lukas is talking with another swimmer, but he’s wrapped it up with a one-armed hug by the time we’ve reached him. Pen beams at him. “Congrats!”

He nods. If he’s happy to have won, I can’t tell.

“Could you stop consistently being the best at what you do?” Pen teases, lifting her arms to hug him.

“I’m dripping.”

“Since when do you care?”

He doesn’t lean down, so it’s up to Pen to reach up for him. My gaze reflexively flicks away, cheeks heating. I’m intruding on this non-couple, again. I shouldn’t be here. Leave for practice. Pen’ll be right behind you. But she brought me here. And she’s my friend. And I’m doing a project with Lukas, and—No reason to be so damn weird all the time, Scarlett.

I give it a couple of seconds, then glance at them again, clearly underestimating the duration of their hug. Pen’s arms are looped around Lukas’s neck, but he’s not reciprocating. Instead, over her shoulder, I find him looking at me.