Deep End(77)

“Springboard or platform?”

“Platform,” I reply. It’s how it started. First love, first heartbreak.

“Don’t you have to put that thing on your body before diving?”

“The what?”

“That stuff you guys are always putting on your legs?”

“You mean, the stripper pole wax? ”

He stops to give me a wide-eyed look. “You put stripper pole wax on your shins?”

“It’s a grip aid. Divers use it to hold on to their legs, strippers use it to hold on to their poles. Have you ever seen strippers do their thing?”

“This feels like a trick question.”

“They’re elite athletes. In great shape.” I plant my hands on my waist. “Did you really not know what it was?”

“Pen uses tape spray.”

“Right. Well, I prefer the stripper stuff.”

“You prefer the stripper stuff,” he repeats, toneless.

My eyebrow quirks. “Are you surprised?”

He puffs out a small laugh, and mouths something that sounds more admiring than weirded out (was it troll again?), but I’m too busy hauling my ass ten meters high to investigate.

I’m a little more wet than I like to be when I dive, but I forgot to bring a shammy. I take my position at the edge, savoring the familiar ruggedness of the floor, letting my heels poke past the rim. “Any last words?” I ask Lukas.

It’s nice that inward dives start facing toward the diving tower. Nice that his face can be the last thing I see. His amused frown. The way he crosses his arms. “Is there something I don’t know about this pool?”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “Does it have its own Loch Ness Monster? Piranhas? That Amazon River fish that swim up your pee hole to raise their babies in your genitalia?”

“I . . . do they actually exist?”

“Two out of three.”

“I sure hope you have scientific evidence on the Loch Ness Monster.” I sigh again. “So, no last words? ”

“Scarlett, I’ll talk to you in five seconds. What ‘last words’ are you going on about?”

I smile, because he’s right. I’m going to try an inward dive, and if it works, great. If it doesn’t . . . nothing hangs on this specific dive, does it? Actually, nothing hangs on most dives. If I’m honest, nothing hangs on my overall ability to dive, either.

It’s true. Whether I manage to do this or not, when I get out of the pool, I’m still going to be me. And Lukas . . . Lukas is still going to be here. And admitting it to myself is such an odd relief, I find myself laughing.

And laughing more.

And some more.

It’s not a hysterical cackle. I’m not deranged. But for the first time in what feels like a century, with Lukas standing in front of me, with the water ten meters underneath and the cold biting into my skin, diving seems fun again—and lifting my arms, bending my knees, taking off just high enough to manage a pike . . .

It just works.

Second nature.

Like it used to be.

And I’m almost sure . . .

It’s a bit of a blur, but I think . . .

I may be wrong . . .

I punch out of the bitter chill of the water to meet the bitter chill of the night air, fluttering my legs to keep afloat. “Lukas?” I scream, sputtering, dragging locks of untied hair out of my eyes, fixing the bra riding half off my tits. I tilt my head up, and he’s already there, peeping from the edge of the platform. “When I entered the water, was I facing the tower?”

He presses his lips together. “Hmm.”

“Or the other way?”

“Let me think. ”

Oh, for fuck’s—“Remember when I entered the water!”

“Hmm.”

“Was my face looking at you?”

“Your face?”

“Lukas, I swear to god—”

“Scarlett,” he says, in that tone that’s final, that makes me feel like he’s hearing me and he’s got me and he’s there. That tone that makes me go silent. “I learned what an inward dive is after the first time you mentioned them to me. And I know one when I see it.”

I blink up at him, my lashes clumped with water and chlorine and something else.

“You mean . . .”

“I mean.” He smiles, lopsided. “You did it.”





CHAPTER 42


IT TAKES ME SURPRISINGLY LITTLE TO CONVINCE LUKAS TO JOIN me in the pool. He throws his jeans and T-shirt from the platform, and says, “I’ve never done this. Any advice?”

I think about it. “Make sure you jump into the water.”

“Great tip.”

A moment later he dives in feetfirst, oddly elegant, managing something that’s almost a rip entry.

Show-off.

I’m ready to yell at him for being good at things, but he doesn’t reemerge for a long while. In the dim lights the water is opaque, and I grow anxious. I’m about to dip my head back in, when a tight grip sharks my ankle, pulling me underwater. I thrash and paddle and even try to pull Lukas’s hair, but he doesn’t let me resurface.

“I hate you,” I splutter afterward, arms circling his neck. The water remains stomach-turningly cold, but Lukas’s body is a block of heat.