Deep End

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?”

“Have you met Johan?” He points at the guy next to him, whom I recognize as The Other Swede. He looks like he could be Lukas’s cousin, just blond.

“I’m Scarlett, nice to meet you.” I smile and hold out my hand.

Which he takes, even as he says, “It’s also very nice to see you, but we already met.”

Shit. “Oh. Um, right, of course, I—”

“Don’t take it personally, Johan. She didn’t remember meeting me, either.” Lukas’s smile, somewhere between teasing and tender, has me flushing. He and Johan have a brief Swedish conversation that ends with Johan nodding, and then smiling at me like we’re more than one—no, two-time acquaintances. Like he knows things about me.

I look up at them, neck craning. They could be talking about the stock market economies, their favorite dactylic pentameters, or the size of my boobs—I have no way of telling. Did I hear the word troll?

“What was that?” I ask Lukas after Johan leaves.

“He asked me if we’re together.”

Does he know Lukas broke up with Pen? “And what did you say?”

“The truth.”

“Which is?”

I’m beginning to suspect that a conversation is over when Lukas Blomqvist decides he’s had enough, because he doesn’t reply. Instead he reaches into his pocket and hands me a sheet of paper, folded once and then again. I open it out, and—

Oh my god.

Cheeks on fire, I hug it to my chest. Where my heart is racing against my ribs.

“You know what that is?” he asks casually, like he’s talking about calculating a molecular orbital and not—

“Bye, Luk!” A small group of swimmers walks by us. “See you later, Sweedy,” another adds, trailing behind them.

“Great job today, everyone,” Lukas says. Then, still looking at his teammates, but lower: “Breathe, Scarlett.”

I’m trying. I’m trying, but it’s not easy.

“We’re going to need to work on this,” he says.

“On w-what?” I scrape out.

“Your tendency to let your vital organs shut down whenever something unexpected happens. Your neurons can only take so many anoxic events.” We’re in the middle of the lobby of our place of employment. Lukas’s voice is low and warm. And in my hand . . .

In my hand there is a list of the filthiest things two people can do to each other.

“Do you know what that is?” he repeats, patient.

I nod, forcing myself to inhale deeply. Here, brain, have some oxygen and glucose and . . . porn? “I am familiar, yes.” It just caught me by surprise. And it’s not my fault if the first thing I read on it was cum play. It’s a dramatic sea change—from talking about sex in the vaguest of terms, to holding a piece of paper that proudly proclaims DDLG.

“Ever used one of these?”

“Not really. I . . .” Truthfully, I researched them. And I read them through. And I debated showing them to Josh. And then I realized someone who balked at the idea of nipple clamps would probably not enjoy reading a BDSM checklist that included stuff like anal fisting, cross mounting, and chastity gear. “No.”

“Are you okay with using it now?”

“Yes. I am.” Very Fifty Shades, Pen would say with a smirk.

Pen. God. Will sober Pen still be okay with this?

“Text me when you’re done filling it in,” he says. All business.

“What about yours?”

“I’m done with mine.”

“Can I see it?”

One of those crooked smiles. “Are you trying to copy my homework?”

“Well, it would help.”

“And it would save you the ordeal of having to admit to your own wants, wouldn’t it?”

He’s absolutely right. And I am mortified that I even asked. “Okay. I . . . thank you for giving this to me. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” I make to leave, but a finger slides in the belt loop of my jeans and pulls me back. Close.

“Hey,” he says, soft. “I need to know what you need, Scarlett. And whether I can provide it for you.”

It should be me.

“What if . . .”

“Listen.” His thumb and forefinger find my chin and lift it. His eyes are a level, impossibly pretty blue. “I spent the last few years with someone who had no interest in any of this, and have lots of experience with mismatched sex drives. I can handle you not wanting the same things as I do, and I’ll never judge you for what you’re into. Fuck, some of the things that I want—” His laugh is an unamused huff. His hand runs through his hair, tousling it a little.

It occurs to me that maybe it’s hard for him, too, coming clean about this. That we both have some baggage when it comes to being honest about what turns us on. And more importantly, that I want to know everything about his desires, and it’s natural for him to want the same.

“Okay.” My smile is small, but sincere. “I’ll do it as soon as possible.”

“Take your time. Think it through.”

I snort. “I feel like the weak link in a group project. Last to do her part.”

“Hmm. That’s not incorrect.”

I poke at him. My index finger finds the side of his stomach, and for a moment I cannot process the everything of what I’m feeling. The solid muscle of his obliques, the lack of yield, the shock of warmth.

Because he may have touched me, but I never touched him before. And he knows that, too, because the following silence stretches long, as thick as molasses.

“How’s German going?” he asks quietly.

I let my head hang low. Listen to his soft, deep chuckle. “About as well as my other classes. I’m not good at this stuff.”

“What stuff?”

I gesture vaguely. “Pronouncing Foucault? Diving into the marketplace of ideas? Telling apart different waves of feminism? Opining.” I shrug. “Textual analysis is way harder than logarithmic differentiation.”

He stares down at me like I’m—god. Like I’m cute? I’m not a fan of that patronizing look. At least I shouldn’t be. All messed up. Yup, that’s me.

“Anything I can do?” he offers.

“I don’t know. Do you speak German?”

“Despite what you Americans believe, Europe is not a single country where everyone speaks—”

I quietly flip him off, and he laughs like I handed him the exact thing he wanted. Then there’s another silence, smaller, lighter, until he says, “You’ll text me, then.” Not a question, but I nod, feeling a warm, pulsating sort of anticipation spread through me, one that has as much to do with the list as with . . . I’m not sure.

“Go, Scarlett. You need to eat breakfast.”

Right. Yup. Did I tell him where I was heading? Doesn’t matter.

I feel the heft of his eyes on me all the way to the dining hall, even after it becomes a physical impossibility.

My first synchro practice is that afternoon.

I try to play it cool, like it’s not a big deal, but last year, while Pen and Victoria placed sixth at the Pac-12 finals, I was . . . home, probably trimming my toenails. Binge-watching The Great British Bake Off was likely part of it, too. I’m the new kid here, and I’m painfully aware of it as I stand between Pen, Coach Sima, and two volunteer coaches who I really wish had not decided to stick around to witness my unavoidable screwups.

I bet they wish the same, especially thirty minutes and fifty takeoffs later, after Pen and I have been working on matching the simplest of hurdles without the blippiest trace of success. It doesn’t help that we’ve started with dryland, and that we cannot look at the fourth portable board without seeing Victoria and her sheared ligaments.

I know she asked for space, and I get not wanting to be inundated by condolences while still mourning the loss of her sport, but I can’t help wishing she were here to make some snide comments on the futility of carbon-based life-forms.

“Pen,” Coach Sima says between disapproving sighs, “you’re too fast. Your hurdle is about five inches too high, and ugly to boot. Vandy, you’re too . . .”

“Slow?”

Coach rubs his temple. “I’m not even sure what’s wrong with your technique. Let’s say everything and just start from scratch, okay? Take ten, you two. Have some water. Think about your ancestors and ask yourself whether they’d be proud of your performance today.”

Synchro is a scary, three-headed beast. Pairs aren’t scored just on the success of the individual dives, but also on how well they harmonize. There are so many ways to lose points, and Pen seems to be thinking the same. We sit side by side on the deck, heads bent over our water bottles, and I want to apologize to her. I want to tell her that I’m a mess, and it’s my fault. That I’m sorry I’m not Victoria, and I’ll try harder, and to please not hate me.

But she’s silent, and I’m silent, too. I try not to stare as she takes out her phone and begins tapping at it, wondering if she’s mad at me, wondering if—

The first few notes of “Hot for Teacher” fill the air.

My snort is so sudden, I choke on my sip of water.

Everyone turns to give us curious looks, but Pen’s eyes are fixed on me, and after a couple of seconds, we’re laughing like we haven’t just been laid into within an inch of our lives.

Coach is not amused, but the weight in my chest feels a thousand pounds lighter.