Deep End(36)

Anything like this, he said. This. So vague. I understand exactly what he’s talking about. “The alternative?” I ask, surprised at how firm my voice is.

“Say the word, and . . .” His jaw tightens. I marvel at the play of lights on the hollow of his cheekbones. “We’re going to find a time and place to meet.” It’s a subtle shift, but his fist tightens under the elbow, knuckles bleeding white. It’s a sign, a promise. Goose bumps chill my skin. “And we’re going to negotiate.”

He gives me all the time I need to reply, and then some. He slouches, lazy, composed, and I’m struck by how much I want to say something, by how difficult it is. I can’t think clearly around the pounding of my heart. Around the odd mix of fear of making a mistake, fear of not making a mistake, and just pure fear lodged behind my sternum.

He gives me all the time I need, and when I stare in helpless silence, he’s true to his word. There is a moment of twitching tension, but it fades immediately. His smile is warm. “I’ll see you around, Scarlett.” Then he’s gone, padding away barefoot, as confident as when he arrived .

I, however, am a coward.

I beat myself up about it for five minutes, and it takes me ten more to collect myself enough to return downstairs. The lights have dimmed, and the party has gathered in the living room, around a sheet cake decorated with too many lit candles.

“. . . the thought process behind it?” someone is asking.

“I dunno—since Bree’s turning twenty-two, and Bella’s turning twenty-two—”

“You put forty-four candles on their cake?”

“That’s just not how it goddamn works, Devin.”

Kyle pats Devin on the back. “C’mon, Dale, let the kid show off his math.”

“Is it time to cut into that amazing cake yet?” a girl next to me yells. There aren’t enough seats for everybody, and Pen is perched on one of Lukas’s legs, leaning forward as she chats with Rachel. Behind, Lukas is once again talking with Hasan. It’s like he never left.

Stupid, I tell myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“There’s actually a surprise we’ve been working on for a while.” Devin clears out some space at the center of the room and looks at Kyle, whose phone is at the ready. “We have a choreography for you,” Dale declares.

The room fills—cheers, groans, whistles, claps. Bree shoots to her feet, almost flipping the cake over. “Oh my god, is it BTS?”

More excited screams.

“Can’t wait for when Coach asks me how they pulled a quad and are out for the season,” Lukas says.

“Just don’t drag BTS into this,” Hasan suggests. “Say they were giving a lap dance.”

“Shut up, you losers,” Pen commands. “This is gonna be the best!”

“Thank you, Pen.” Dale salutes her. “For your support, and for helping us refine this over countless sessions. You’re a true friend, unlike your boyfriend and his boyfriend. ”

“You guys, it was my pleasure.”

Lukas and Hasan exchange amused headshakes, and—

I’m always on the sidelines, always detached from what’s happening around me. I never mind. But tonight, watching Lukas laugh with others, something greedy opens up in my stomach.

A little hungry, too, he said upstairs. But I think it’s more than a little.

I think I might be ravenous.

The music starts, and so do some questionable body rolls. Laughter. Nearly everyone takes their phones out, and I do the same. Except, I’m not filming. I’m not even watching. Instead I pull up an old email, type three words, and hit reply.

When and where?

Devin and Dale gyrate their hips. Lukas’s phone lights up on the coffee table. I see him glance at it once, distractedly. Then again when the message registers.

He doesn’t even have to search the crowd. His eyes lift up to meet mine, and when he nods, I finally manage a true, genuine smile.





CHAPTER 21


MONDAY MORNINGS AT THE POOL ARE USUALLY RELAXED, full of athletes slowly rebooting after their day off. This Monday morning, however, the atmosphere around the aquatics center is thicker than the fog.

“Cuts for the swim team,” Bree tells me, pale face scrunched together as she wraps tape around her wrist. “They’re finalizing the roster.”

“Already?”

“Creeps up on me every year, too.”

In the locker room, the swimmers’ cheerfulness feels forced, and I wonder how they cope. Am I the only one who cries in the shower, and can never find enough air to properly breathe, and opens the fridge hoping to discover a magic portal leading to a Narnia-like society in which competitive sports have been banned?

German, too.

On my way to breakfast, I hear, “Scarlett. A minute?”

It’s Lukas—of course it is. No one else calls me by my name. I pause in the Avery lobby and try not to blush, or to remember how many times I checked my phone, email, and physical mailbox yesterday, waiting for him to contact me. Maryam asked me if I was high on glue, which led to a twenty-minute fight over whether the USA Anti-Doping Agency would find that objectionable.

I could pretend that in the twenty-four hours he spent ignoring me I changed my mind, but it would probably just give him a chuckle. “Sure.” I walk over. Take in his hair, still wet from practice. The freckles hugging his nose and cheekbones. The compression shirt he’s wearing does great things for his thick arms, and even more for his chest. “Everything okay?”