Deep End(76)

“So, you’re saying—” A shameful, mortifying hiccup. “That I won’t be able to do inward dives again until I—” Another. “Dive only for myself?”

His muttered “Fuck, no” has me laughing through my sobs. “I’m not a psychologist. I have no idea how to fix a block. You divers do things I can barely fathom, and what works for one athlete is trash for another. But.” He kisses a hot tear from my cheek. “I think letting yourself be sad would be a great start.”

“But I—”

“You don’t have to be angry at your ex or at your father. I’m angry enough for you. But you need to acknowledge that what happened to you last year was terrible, that it gave you pain, and that you deserve time to heal in more ways than just the physical.”

“But what if I never . . . What if I don’t . . .” I sniff, unable to put thoughts into words. “What would I even be, without diving?”

A hushed, barely audible Swedish word, exhaled into my hair. Lukas pulls me deeper in his lap, and my skin sticks against his. “It’ll be okay, baby. No matter what happens, you will still be you. No matter what happens, you will be okay.”

“But what do I do in the meantime?”

“In the meantime . . . just cry it out.” He sighs deeply, and the swell of his chest, the gravel of his voice, his hands stroking my hair, are as comforting as any perfectly executed dive. “I’m here, okay?”

I hope he’s right. Because I don’t know how much longer I cry on his shoulder—but I do know that once I cannot bear it anymore, I fall asleep in his arms.





CHAPTER 41


ICOME TO WITHOUT TRANSITIONS—SEAMLESS, ASLEEP TO awake, lost to lucid, burning with a very specific need.

“Lukas,” I immediately whisper.

He’s unresponsive, heavy biceps folding me into him. A hand cups the back of my head. The thick denim of his jeans is rough between my bare legs.

“Lukas.” He’s an annoyingly deep sleeper. I jostle in his arms, hoping the commotion will do the trick. All it accomplishes is a small frown, and him pulling me closer.

“Lukas!”

Nothing.

I roll my eyes, contemplate the lengths that I will go to wake him up, and decide that they are very long: I tilt my head, open my mouth, and bite into his triceps like it’s an Iowa State Fair corn dog.

I expect him to yelp. Instead he slowly opens his eyes, buries a yawn into the bottom of my throat, kisses the very same spot, and asks, “Is it morning already?” Bleary lidded and confused, he’s just . . . adorable.

Whatever. I’m allowed to think that the guy with whom I’m having power-exchange sex is cute. It’s fully within my rights. “I want to go to the aquatic center.”

He frowns. Lets me go long enough to retrieve his phone from his pocket, which lights up with more unread notifications than I’ve had all month. He ignores them, unalarmed, and instead squints at the numbers.

“It’s one twenty-three a.m.”

“Oh.” I deflate—then reinflate when I remember: “You have keys, though. Right?”

His skeptical “Yes” is more question than reply.

“Can you let me in?”

He slow blinks at me. “Scarlett—”

“I never get to—you’re right. It’s for other people. It’s always for others—Coach Sima, all the trainers I’ve had since I was a child, Pen. I feel guilty about disappointing them when I fail a dive. And it’s hard to shut them out, because they’re always around when I’m practicing.” They have to be—it’s regulation. Unsupervised training is forbidden. The risk of injury and drowning is too high. “What you said about doing it for yourself, about having to prove something—”

“I’m not going to let you dive alone, Scarlett.”

“You can be there.”

“I’m serious. If we get to Avery and you decide you don’t want me around, I’m not leaving.”

“It’s fine. You can stay, because you don’t count.”

“I don’t count,” he repeats. Stony faced.

“No, because you don’t care.”

“I don’t care.” He sounds like the word displeased was invented for him and only him, and I don’t understand why—until it occurs to me how he’s interpreting my words.

“Not because—not in that sense!” I’m hot with frustration and embarrassment. “What I meant is, you care about me being well more than about me being good at something—anything. And when you’re around I don’t feel as anxious or scrutinized as I do with—”

He interrupts me with a hard, quick, somehow encompassing kiss. When he pulls back, his mouth twitches into that little smile that makes my heart gallop, and orders, “Grab your parka. Nights can get cold.”



Lukas wraps an arm around my shoulder, and even wearing a jacket, I still freeze my ass off as we walk through campus, shocked by thermal excursion following a perfectly nice fall day. In a T-shirt, he shakes his head in his most Swedish I just caught you setting fire to a children’s hospital disappointment, and says, “Americans are so weak,” before pulling me even closer.

Avery is well lit throughout the night (good), but when I dip my toe into the water, I find it so chilly, it belongs to Lukas’s BDSM list (bad). I forgot to put on a swimsuit, but my sports bra will do. I take my clothes off and prep with a shower, setting the temperature several degrees hotter than usual to warm my muscles. I turn on the pool sprayers. I stretch a little, but I’m not stalling, or trying to put distance between me and the dive. I’m eager to climb the steps of the tower, and keep my surprise to myself when I realize that Lukas has taken off his shoes and is coming up with me, a tall, reassuring presence at my side.