Deep End

UNKNOWN: On my way

I stare into the abyss of those three words—and boy, does the abyss stare back.

Does Lukas know why Pen won’t come herself?

I close my eyes and lean back against the wall, taking several deep breaths. This will be over soon. A pinch of discomfort is well worth the obscene amount of lo mein I’ll stuff inside my face once I’m home.

I can be brave. I can be anything for noodles.

Lukas arrives less than ten minutes later, damp hair falling on his forehead, a single pair of keys dangling from his index finger. He approaches with the relaxed, long-legged gait of someone who’s at peace with the universe. I stare at him staring at me, not quite sure how to make myself stop.

Notable fact of the day: he’s wearing shoes.

It occurs to me that one of us should probably say something—hi or how are you or you ruined my night, shithead—but for indecipherable reasons that don’t fully have to do with nerves or discomfort, neither of us speaks for too many seconds. Until:

“Want to get it out of the way?” he asks.

Rich. That’s what I’d call his voice. Rumbly, maybe. “Get what out of the way?”

“The elephant in the room.”

I swallow. Is he referring to . . . ?

“The one with the ball gag in his mouth.”

Laughter pops out of me. “Wow. Ball gags?”

He shrugs. “Not really my thing, actually.”

I stop myself from saying, Not mine, either, because—it’s not like he cares. Still, the knot of tension between us loosens. “Maybe the elephant’s just . . . blindfolded?”

He nods slowly. “And tied up.”

“And doing as it’s told.”

He looks like he might find that more appealing. “What a good elephant.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks. I tear myself away from the weight of his eyes. “Okay. Well. I’m glad we got over the awkwardness of barely having had a conversation and yet somehow knowing the kinky sex stuff the other’s into.”

“I don’t know what you’re into,” he says. It almost feels like something’s being withheld. A yet. A but I’d like to. An unfortunately. Or it could just be his intonation. English is not his first language.

I clear my throat. “Thank you for coming.”

“No problem.” He unlocks and holds the door open for me, careful to keep his distance—which I appreciate. Deserted hallway. Big man. Not a huge fan. “I’ll wait till you’re out.”

“You don’t have to.”

“The doors have been jamming both ways.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

He stares at me, doesn’t move, and . . . okay. Fine. Thank you. Polite, decent people who care about your safety—gotta hate them. I hurry to pick up my stuff. Dinner, I tell myself. My reward. The promised land.

As it turns out, he was right. The door won’t open from the inside, either. I have to knock. Ask to please be let out, like he’s my own personal warden. “I hate this,” I mutter.

“I’ll email maintenance again,” he says. So much more graceful than told you so.

I set my backpack on the floor to tie my hair in a ponytail, and when I lift my head, I find him staring at me. Shouldering my bag. “You don’t have to . . .”

“Let’s go.”

We walk toward the exit. I’m usually comfortable with silences—

have to be, since I never really know how to break them—but this one prods at me. Maybe because I cannot stop thinking about Pen. The male voice. What Lukas might not know. “I’m sorry, I would have called one of the other captains, but—”

“It’s all right, Scarlett.”

His tone is simple and firm and doesn’t brook any further genuflecting on my part, so I shut the hell up and steal a glance at his profile. The fuzz of his jaw, like he hasn’t shaved in a while—typical preseason swimmer stuff, but instead of sloppy it looks kind of GQ on him. And those freckles that shouldn’t work, but really do. I wonder whether he’s considered handsome in Sweden, or just your run-of-the-mill ordinary guy. Is it a favorable exchange rate—a Stockholm three translating to a US ten?

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” he asks.

“Nothing.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction—a bit of manifesting, mixed with some old student athlete denial. Calmer, I add, “How can you tell that there’s something wrong with it?”

He gives me a half-puzzled, half-contemptuous look. Then the corner of his mouth twitches. “Right. I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“That you have no memory of meeting me.”

I flush. Was I that obvious?

“I should have introduced myself,” he continues. “I’m a swimmer.”

“Oh. I know?”

“Same team as yours actually.”

“I know.”

“One of those people with caps and Speedos.”

“I know.”

My glare doesn’t faze him. “Why do you keep massaging your shoulder?”

Do I?

“I thought your surgeries went well and you were healed.”

How does he—Pen must have told him. “It did. I am.”

We step out of Avery, and Lukas keeps his distance, just a bit more space than is customary, like he knows that I’m easily spooked. Maybe he doesn’t want me to feel threatened—out and about with a known sexual deviant past sundown. But I’m just as deviant, and the plaza teems with people strolling past us, headed for what are undoubtedly fun plans.

I watch them a little enviously, but putting on makeup to drag myself to a bar sounds more exhausting than a decathlon—a normal feeling, surely appropriate for a twenty-one-year-old.

Meanwhile, Lukas could be anywhere. The world is his oyster, and I stole his Friday night pearl.

“Labral tear, right?” he asks.

I nod. “It’s mostly rehabbed. I overdid it today, though.” It’s hard, getting used to a new body. New limits. New rules. “What about you? Any injuries?”

“My back, a while ago. Nothing big yet.” Yet. Like it’s just a matter of time. Water’s a cruel mistress, and all that. “Come closer,” he orders.

Lukas stopped a step behind me. I turn and frown up at him. “Why?”

“Because I just asked you to, Scarlett.”

It might seem a bit out of character, given my . . . proclivities, but I really don’t like people who order me around with no authority to do so. There’s something about Lukas’s serious, no-nonsense tone, though, that works on me like the opposite of a red flag. So I go for it and take a step closer. His scent envelops me, soap and chlorine and something warm.

What now?

His hands descend on me—one on my wrist, the other on my shoulder. They’re unyielding and other things I’m not going to think about. He shuffles me with ease, turning me away from him, pinning my wrist against my lower back, gently but ruthlessly making sure that my spine stays straight, and . . .

God, the extension feels good on my muscles. Really, really good.

I close my eyes and let out a small moan. This might set a new gold standard for partner stretches—while Lukas’s former partner is out there, stretching with—

“Why are you so nervous, Scarlett?”

“Me? I’m not.” Lie.

“Is it because you feel uncomfortable around me—”

“No, I—”

“Or because you think I don’t know where Pen is?”

My stomach plummets. I try to look at him, but his hold stays strong.

“Calm down.” His voice is even-keeled. “You know you don’t have to feel guilty about any of this, right? It’s something you were dragged into. I’m just glad that cutting out your air supply last week didn’t kill any brain cells.”

A breathless laugh bursts out of me. He’s just so blunt. Direct. Difficult, to not be direct back.

“Do you know where she is?” I ask quietly. How did she meet the guy? We’re DI athletes. Perennially exhausted. Not stellar at socializing with other students. Maybe she’s on dating apps? Maybe she’s hooking up with other swimmers?

“I didn’t ask,” Lukas says.

“Don’t you want to know?”

“No.”

“And are you . . . okay with that?”

“My ex sleeping with someone else? Why should it matter whether I am okay with it?” He could stuff so much recrimination and self-pity in the words, but he’s a straight arrow. I detect only genuine puzzlement.

He and Pen really were perfect for each other. Extroverted and reserved. Grumpy and sunshine. Warm and frosty. They remind me a bit of Josh and me—except that I was the Lukas of the relationship. “You just recently broke up. Are you really not jealous?”

“Nope.”

“Is it a Swedish thing?”

“Maybe? I’ll ask my brothers. They might have some insight.”

I catch a small smile with the corner of my eye, and it relaxes me just enough to ask, “Do you still have feelings for her?”

It’s so not my business. He tells me, though. “Sure. We’ve been through a lot.”

It’s not really an answer, but it echoes what Pen said. I wonder what it is that ties them together. Blood pacts? Body in the trunk of their car? Same sleeper cell?

I should tell him that I’m better, that he can let go of me, but my shoulder is in the throes of a hundred little orgasms. Which must be why I blurt out the question that has been buzzing in my head for days. “If Pen hadn’t . . . if you guys hadn’t broken up, would you have just gone with vanilla sex for the rest of your life?”

He mutters something under his breath. “Put like that, it sounds . . .” He exhales a laugh. His grip remains steady.

“Sad?”

“Frustrating.” A pause. “But yes, I would have.”

“Because you love that much?”

“Because I made a commitment to her.”

That’s more stubborn than noble, I think. Or maybe I say it out loud, because a soft laugh slides out of him, and my cheeks burn. “What I meant is, I don’t think that settling for an unsatisfying sex life because you take your commitments seriously automatically makes you a better person than Pen, who—”

“I know what you meant, Scarlett.” His thumb digging into my trapezium feels so good, I lose track of my mortification.

The thing is, I love reading Mafia erotica as much as the next girl with daddy issues, and my attraction for fictional guys making scenes in iconic, over-the-top ways is among my most virulent traits. But jealousy is born less of love and more of insecurity. And it intrigues me, the way Lukas obviously cares about Pen without being possessive of her.

His quiet self-assurance seems surprisingly mature. Boys around me, they feel like . . . well. Boys. But Lukas might already be a man.

“So,” I ask, “are you going to . . .” He finally lets go. My shoulder begs me to whine at him to continue, but I shut it up and turn to him. “Start seeing other people? Ball gag them, or . . . whatever it is that you prefer.”

His smile sits there, at the corner of his lip. “Still considering.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You’re single. Isn’t it simple?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“You can probably go to a bar tonight and find five hundred options.”

“Five hundred.”

“Well . . . many. Several.”

He nods like I’m making a good point, but then asks, “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“Oh. No.”

“Then you’re free to fuck whoever you like.”

A sparkling, unusual sort of heat drips into my stomach. Spreads all over my chest. “I guess I am.”

“You could go to a bar. Find some options.”

“Five hundred?” I smile.

He doesn’t. “Realistically, no. But several. Many. You could look for someone who’ll give you what you need.”

Drip. Drip. “Yeah. I could.”

“Will you?”

“It’s not so . . .”

“Simple?”

I face-planted right into that one. I rock on my heels and try to think of a witty comeback, but my brain is a rotting wasteland.

His mouth curves. “I don’t think Pen’s date was the real reason you were anxious.”

“Yeah. I think it was.”

“We cleared that out, and you’re not any less nervous.” He cocks his head. “Is it me? Or men, in general?”

Jesus. Does he always just—say what he thinks? Narrate the world as he sees it? Shouldn’t some things stay unspoken?

“I need to go,” I say, holding my hand out until Lukas returns my backpack. But even then, I stand rooted in front of him for several beats, until the realization hits me that I’m hoping he’ll say something else.

Ask me another question, maybe.

Ask me to . . .

Oh my god. Pen’s drunken ramblings must have wormed their way into my prefrontal cortex.

“Thank you again. I really appreciate you coming out.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

And what? We chat amiably about the rigors of collegiate sports?

I don’t think that’s what I want. I’d rather not think about what he wants. “No, thank you. Have a good night, Lukas.” I walk away—and after a few steps I look over my shoulder and he’s still there, hands in the pockets of his jeans, haloed against the streetlights. He’s invincible. And golden. And focused wholly on me.

“I really do hope you have a good night,” I murmur. It’s too low for him to hear me, but I still wish him something . . . nice. So odd, the sense of kinship I feel toward this man with whom I’ve exchanged no more than a couple hundred words.

I turn around, head home, fall asleep before I can eat dinner. And wake up early the following morning, ravenous, to an email delivered a little after midnight. The subject line just reads What you need. The body:

If you decide to go for it, I think it should be me.