Deep End(30)

“We’ll see.”

“Your girlfriend lives here, right? Wait—weren’t you dating a diver?” His eyes dart to mine. “It wasn’t you, right?”

“No.” I clear my throat. Consciously slow down my breathing as Lukas’s grip trails upward, under the hem of my leggings.

Zach nods anyway. “Gotcha.” He laughs. And after an awkward beat: “What about you?” He points a pencil at me. “Are you dating a swimmer?”

“Me? I—”

Suddenly, Lukas’s hand is a manacle around my ankle, like I’m something for him to hold and control and restrain. My brain trips. I’m sure everyone—Lukas, Zach, the front desk librarian downstairs—can hear the erratic pound of my heart.

“She’s not,” Lukas replies, eyes steady, fixing mine. Voice rumbly and calm. His hand is a vise, and—

It’s just the way I’m wired. It’s written in my neurons, how much I enjoy the strength behind his grip. His size. The ease with which he could overpower me. He could make me do things, and knowing that stokes a hollow ache in my abdomen. But he will not, not unless I give him the go-ahead, and that’s the kind of belly-warming knowledge that makes that ache even sharper.

It’s not morally wrong. It doesn’t hurt anyone. There are no victims here, but maybe it’s messed up? At the very least it’s so fucking—I don’t even know, heteronormative of me. Gender conforming. Regressive. Stereotypical. Banal. I hate it.

I love it.

“A diver, then?” Zach jokes, somewhat clumsy, and I need to rethread the conversation, find its lost stitches. Whether I’m dating a swimmer. Or a . . . ah.

“Nope,” I say, and Zach nods, like I’ve given the correct answer. He excuses himself with a soft “be right back,” and Lukas and I are alone, his touch light again. I open my mouth to ask him what he’s doing, why now, why here, but—I haven’t opened my mouth at all.

I’m just staring, lungs and heart not quite steady.

“He was trying to figure out if you’re single,” he tells me. His casual stroking continues in small, light patterns.

I swallow. Collect myself. “I knew that.”

“Did you? Really?”

Truthfully, no. But it has nothing to do with me being oblivious, and everything with his hands. “I’m not clueless.”

He hums low in his throat. By now, I know him better than to believe it’s in agreement. “Do you remember Kent Wu?”

“I don’t—wait. Swimmer?”

“Butterfly. Distance. He was a senior when you joined the team.”

“I think I do?”

“He tried to ask you out twice.”

“What?” I frown. “How do you—how would you even know that?”

“We were good friends. Still are.” He drums his fingers over the back of my foot. “He noticed you. We talked about it.”

Talked about it? What does that even mean? Lukas is probably thinking of someone else. Swimming and Diving are more incestuous than we like to admit, mostly because our chaotic schedules match well enough to allow the penciling in of some fucking. “You’re mixing him up with Hasan. He asked me out when I was still with my ex, a million years ago— ”

“A million?”

“Two. Two years ago.” I bite the inside of my mouth. “You are very literal.”

A twitch of his lips. “And you are prone to exaggerations.”

“It’s a rhetorical figure also known as—”

“Hyperbole, yes.” He thumbs my skin, and I nearly shiver. He seems to weigh me like I’m a pound of meat. “Kent was after Hasan. Toward the end of the season.”

“I don’t—”

“Remember. Because you never noticed. Don’t worry, Kent’s happily engaged, I just got his save the date.”

I glance away. Lukas’s flesh is still warm against mine, and so is that liquid feeling traveling down my spine, but the implications of what he said sit heavy in my gut. “I’m not clueless,” I repeat.

“You’re not. You just keep your head down. Focus on what you can control, and cut the rest out as much as you can without letting your world collapse. Right?”

I exhale. “Just because Pen shared something about me she should never have, it doesn’t mean that you know me.” It comes out nicely firm. I’m proud of it. Except that Lukas’s reaction is not contrition, but amusement, the beginning of that crooked smile on his lips, and I don’t—

“Ready to start again?” Zach asks.

I do what I should have five minutes ago—pull my feet away and fold them underneath me.

“Yeah.” I smile at Zach without glancing at Lukas or waiting for him to echo me.





CHAPTER 18


DURING THURSDAY MORNING DRILLS, AFTER I HAVE EXHAUSTED every other group of basic dives, I stand on the edge of the three-meter springboard, head hanging, eyes closed, two words beating against the wall of my skull.

Inward.

Tuck.

Inward.

Tuck.

It’s an overcast day. A little foggy. The early breeze brushes against my too-tight muscles and breaks me into shivers.

I lift my arms above my head and let them fall again, limp as noodles. I rotate the tension out of my shoulders, and after a deep breath I arrange myself into position again. Backward press.