Beyond the Stroke (Carolina Current #1)
Chapter 1
one
. . .
RORY
“You have to wonder if this is the end of the road for Rory Shields.”
The voice cuts through the quiet afternoon like a slap. I glance at the screen. With gray hair and a smug grin, Roger Selby’s face fills the frame. The words Retirement for Rory? are plastered under his name in bold.
I press the ice bag tighter to my knee.
“He’s thirty-four, coming off a tough injury, and the competition is only getting faster. You look at guys like Xio Valdez stepping onto the scene, and Connor Fisk who’s in his prime, and you have to ask—does Shields still have what it takes to compete at the highest level?” Roger Selby, Swim-Span’s lead swimming correspondent, remarks before turning to one of his co-hosts. “What are your thoughts, Jim?”
Jim Koster, a legendary swim analyst, nods, considering Roger’s point before speaking.
“I wouldn’t count him out just yet. We are talking about a guy who has been at the top of this sport for over a decade. He knows how to push through adversity. But, I’ll admit, the timeline is tight. If he’s not at full strength soon, his chances for another medal run could slip away.”
“What do you think, Jan?” Roger asks, motioning to Jan Stevens, an Olympic gold medal swimmer and former training teammate of mine at the Carolina Current. “Does Shields have a chance?”
Jan hesitates, the way a friend does before saying something that hurts. “Only if he wants it. But even then, comebacks at this age aren’t just physical. They’re brutal mentally. And someone younger might need that roster spot more.”
“Let’s not sugar coat it. He’s not getting any younger, and swimmers don’t have the longest shelf life. Even if he does make it back, is he still a medal contender, or is he just swimming to prove a point?” Roger remarks.
“You’re no spring chicken either, Roger,” I mutter at his visibly white hair on screen.
“So, you think Shields should retire?” Jim asks Roger.
“Definitely. I think with the MCL injury he sustained after nationals last year; he doesn’t have enough time to rehab to full strength and get what is ultimately seen as an older body in the world of swimming into the shape he’ll need to be in to compete with guys half his age.”
I remove the ice bag from my knee and drop my leg from where it had been resting on my coffee table to the ground. While full body ice baths have been a weekly routine for years to keep inflammation down, icing my rehabilitated knee has become part of my everyday routine.
It’d be easy to drown out the noise of naysayers like these guys, but even my parents think I’m done.
The television goes dark, and I swivel my head to find my best friend, Eli Mitchell, standing behind my couch with the remote in his hand.
“That’s all bullshit and you know it.”
“Do I?” I thought I had. After the surgery, rehab went exceptionally well and once I was back in the pool, I felt like my old self again, but since I made the decision to return to Coral Cove, the training home of the Carolina Current, I’ve been bombarded with negative news media. It’s not how I imagined my homecoming and return to training with my team would go.
Eli sets the remote on the coffee table, then drops into the chair adjacent to the couch. “These guys are idiots.”
“What about Jan?” I ask, lifting my brows.
“You know my rule about calling women names.”
I nod. Eli has a rigid exterior, and I don’t mean his toned physique that has made him the world’s fastest back stroker. But within that quiet, contemplative body is a heart of gold. He’s by far the gentleman of the team. Cool under pressure and laser focused. The only time I’ve seen him get frazzled is when someone mentions his ex-girlfriend, Blair. He completely shuts down, so we’ve learned to keep her name out of our mouths.
“When athletes are injured, people speculate they can’t come back, let alone stronger than they were before. You’ll show them what’s possible.” He nods, affirming his motivational words.
“Thanks, man.”
The front door slams shut, no knock preceding it.
Voices fill the hallway. I know it’s not a home invasion, because outside of the aquatics center, my beach house is team headquarters. It’s how it’s always been.
Charlie Wallace strolls in with all the confidence of the reigning world record holder in both the one-hundred-meter and two-hundred-meter freestyle, wearing a backwards hat and a neon yellow t-shirt that says Cool Vibes , and carrying a cardboard box.
Behind him, Logan Wilson, four-time national champion, and international gold medalist in the one-hundred-meter and two-hundred-meter butterfly, follows carrying a bucket of chicken.
“If you wanted some, you should have ordered some for yourself,” Logan tells Charlie.
Charlie motions to the bucket of grilled chicken pieces. “When you ordered a ten-piece bucket, I figured I could snag a piece.”
Logan shakes his head in disappointment. “It’s like you don’t even know me, man.”
“Yeah, you’re like a toddler when it comes to sharing food.” Charlie huffs.
Everyone knows Logan doesn’t share food. We burn a shit ton of calories every day in the pool and while most of us can handle going a few hours without eating, Logan is known to get hangry if he doesn’t keep his blood sugar up.
“Oh good, you’re not watching it,” Charlie says, motioning to the blank television.
“He was,” Eli pipes up from where he’s now checking his phone. “I turned it off.”
“How’d you know about it?” I ask Charlie.
“Swim-Span reached out to me for a comment. I told them you’re the GOAT and they can go fuck themselves.”
I groan. “Seriously?” The last thing I want is to add fuel to the fire with this feature.
“Nah. Vivi told me not to respond.”
I laugh because Vivi is the team’s publicist and brand manager. She’s also Charlie’s best friend. They’ve known each other since high school. She represents most of the swimmers on the team that require PR management. When Vivi told me about the feature, she’d advised me to not watch it, but I couldn’t resist. Now, I’m torn between letting their words make me question my decision not to retire, and using them to push myself even harder.
“Fuck that noise,” Logan grumbles around a chicken thigh. “They have no clue what they’re talking about.”
I chuckle at his grumpy demeanor, which Logan is known for being anything but.
It feels good to be home and surrounded by my teammates, my best friends. The guys that have been training with me for over a decade.
Eli, Logan, and I swam together at UC-Berkeley. They’d been high school teammates who signed with the Golden Bears when I was a junior there. We had two stellar years before I graduated, then when they finished school, they followed me to the Carolina Current. Charlie came from Stanford, a UC-Berkeley rival, which once we got to know him, we forgave him for.
While we know there’s always new talent in younger swimmers and the relay team can change up until the starter goes off, the four of us have battled together the last twelve years. Holding off the French by a fingertip-touch to clinch the gold in Sydney, then a world record performance in Paris that cemented all of us in the record books. I’ve won plenty of races on my own, but it’s this team right here that has made it difficult to imagine retiring from the sport.
“How’s the knee?” Charlie asks, setting down the box on the coffee table before nodding to where I’ve set the ice bag next to me on the couch.
“Stronger than it’s been in months.”
“That’s fantastic.” He grins.
“Yeah, it feels good.”
My statement is true, but there’s still the possibility of injury hovering in the back of my mind. After an MCL tear last spring, I’ve rehabbed and strength trained to get back to where I was. I lost precious training time, going backwards instead of forwards and now I’ve got to make up for that. My priority is swimming and staying healthy for the upcoming team trials.
While my body has healed, there’s still the mental piece of having been injured that takes time to reconcile. The psychological effects of returning after an injury, managing expectations, and making sure that while I want to get back to where I was before, I need to build up to it, not overdo it and chance the possibility of reinjury.
Swimming is as much a mental sport, if not more, as it is physical. With the long stretch between the summer games, you have to be internally motivated to keep showing up every day and working hard to shave what could be only a fraction of a millisecond off a split.
Outside of the games, most meets, even nationals, aren’t televised. Unlike football and basketball and hockey, we don’t get the chance to compete weekly and most people don’t know who we are until the summer games come around every four years. Even though we train year-round and there are important international meets, it’s the summer games that everyone is shooting for.
Yeah, I do need to think about how my injury has impacted my body, but more than that, it’s the loss of support from family that has been frustrating. My parents have supported me throughout my career, but since I injured my MCL, they’ve been pushing me to retire. They think I’m done with swimming and want me to pursue other things. A broadcasting gig I was offered, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but also reconnecting with my ex-girlfriend, Daphne, and settling down. I’m not ready for that commitment and even if I were, I don’t want to rekindle things with my ex.
As if she can read my mind from fifty feet away, my phone buzzes.
Mom
DAPHNE SAYS YOU HAVEN’T BEEN RETURNING HER CALLS!
I’m not sure if her all caps use was intentional, but I wouldn’t put it past her to be shouting via text message. I love my mom, but she is not known for being easy to get along with.
I’ve been back in Coral Cove for twelve hours and I’ve been inundated with messages from Daphne, and now my mom. It’s clear they’ve formed a reconciliation task force.
Tossing my phone onto the couch next to me, I don’t reply only to keep up the appearance that it’s not just Daphne I’m not responding to.
My phone buzzes again, this time continuously as a call comes in.
Beside me, Logan glances at the screen.
“Oh, shit. Daphne is calling you. Did you get back with her?”
Charlie chokes on the protein shake he found in my refrigerator. “What? Please no. She’s terrifying.”
“She’s sweet, but if you get on her bad side, then she’s terrifying,” Logan confirms.
“Yeah,” Charlie concurs, “and when Rory broke up with her last year, we were on her bad side by default.”
“What’s that animal that looks all cute and sweet, but will rip your limbs off and beat you over the head with them?” Logan asks.
“A honey badger?” Eli offers.
“Yeah,” Charlie nods, “that’s exactly how Daphne is.”
“I’m not back with Daphne,” I confirm.
We fizzled out a long time ago when she complained I was prioritizing swimming over her, which I was, because I’d always put swimming first, and I made that clear to her when we started dating. It was over a year ago when I finally called things quits. I’d hoped that the breakup would allow her to move on and find the things she wants in a relationship, things I wasn’t ready to give her then and have no intention of giving her now or when I do finally retire from competition.
Daphne’s father and mine are business partners at Atlantic Freight & Logistics, a logistics company specializing in transporting goods through North Carolina’s ports and managing supply chains for major companies. Our families see a marriage between me and Daphne as a way to turn AFL into a family business.
Logan lets out a breath. “Thank fuck.”
“So, we’re all single, then?” Charlie asks, before directing his attention to Logan. “Logan?”
Logan grabs another chicken wing out of the bucket and waves it around. “Is that a serious question?”
While all of us have had girlfriends before, Logan is the king of no commitment. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to be tied down, but I have a different theory that involves a certain team trainer.
“Eli?” Charlie asks.
Eli doesn’t respond but instead points to the box on the coffee table. “What’s in the box?”
A smile splits across Charlie’s face. “Team shirts.”
He opens the box and tosses each of us a shirt. They’re in Carolina Current blue with our last names on the back. I turn mine over and read the front.
“In hard, out wet.” I read the white print.
“That’s this season’s theme.” Charlie smirks. “I came up with it myself.”
“Did Owens approve these?” Eli asks, referring to the head coach of the Carolina Current, Bob Owens.
“More like, did you get permission from Vivi?” Logan snickers.
The color drains from Charlie’s face. Eli and Logan are messing with him, but it’s clear that the thought of disappointing Vivi messes with his typically unflappable demeanor. They’re lighthearted shirts that are meant to be funny.
“Don’t let them give you shit.” I stand to clap Charlie on the shoulder. “The shirts are great.”
“If we can’t give each other shit, what is the point?” Logan laughs.
“Where are you going?” Eli asks.
“Haven’t been in yet.” I nod to the beach where the Atlantic Ocean is lapping gently at the shoreline. “Going to head out there now.”
“Rory?” Eli calls as I turn toward the hallway.
“Yeah?”
“You know I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. I meant everything I said.”
He extends his right hand out to me in a fist.
“Yeah. I know.”
My knuckles meet his, then I leave him there in the living room with Charlie and Logan, who’s still eating his bucket of chicken, to change for a swim.
My phone buzzes in my shorts pocket. I don’t even have to look to know who it’s from.
While the guys are good at drowning out the noise of the media, short of changing my phone number, I know it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to avoid Daphne and my parents.