Chapter 16 Eighteen years old Sam
Eighteen years old
Sam
Contrary to my bleak prediction, I do have a good training session that afternoon.
Though I did spend almost the entirety of the warm-up and cool-down thinking about Kath.
And they were most certainly not the type of thoughts someone who is “ just friends” should be having.
Though I’ve always had a lot of not “just friends” thoughts about Kath.
The problem is that now I’ve been given permission to have them, my brain has gone into overdrive.
Kath’s waiting in the car park when I finish.
“Good session, Champ?” She grins at me, turning the engine back on as I throw my stuff into the boot.
“Surprisingly good given our previous conversation.” I wink at her and she blushes.
Huh? Maybe she isn’t quite as unruffled as she appeared earlier in the park.
She brushes her hair back behind her ears and breaks my gaze, pointedly examining the car radio like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
“Cool. Your dad left some stuff in the fridge for us. I was thinking we could watch a movie or something.”
“Sounds fun.” I change the music as we start the drive back home. Kath hums along, hopelessly out of tune as usual, and I let the summer breeze start to dry my hair with the window down.
“One day, we can do a road trip in the US,” I tell her and she nods along, starting to sing even louder.
“Do you need to stretch when we get back?” she asks.
“A bit. Not loads. I did a quick cool-down, but my right shoulder was playing up at the end of the session, I think I should just make sure I stretch everything out before my early swim tomorrow morning.”
We pull into my street, and she parks the car, hopping out and grabbing my stuff out the back.
“Start stretching. I’m just going to hang some of this up and pop the rest in the wash.”
“I can do that,” I offer.
“Nah. I want you to start stretching soon. I have other plans for you this evening.”
I nearly choke on my water… for probably the tenth time since this afternoon. Fuck me. All those years of pining for Kath, but not wanting to ruin our friendship. All that iron resolve that I’d built… it completely crumbled after one conversation.
I’m an idiot. Realistically I’m sure this will be fine. She was the one who offered. Everything’s on her terms, it’s two months, no hearts will be broken. Except now, every fantasy I’ve had for the last four years is playing out rapidly in my mind.
Who am I kidding? It’s more than four years of fantasies. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to reset myself after this.
But it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I can hurt my own feelings. Just not hers. And she wants this, no strings attached. So I can give that to her.
I complete the fastest stretching routine of my life before heading back into the kitchen, where Kath’s standing by the microwave, heating up lasagna. She looks casual, oblivious to the havoc she’s played on my mind and body.
“It smells good,” she says. “Your dad’s a good cook.”
“He’s alright.” I pull out the cutlery and glasses to lay the table. Suddenly I’m not quite sure where to look. She plates up the food and slides into the chair opposite me.
“You’re being weird,” she says. “If you can’t do this, just tell me. I really don’t mind. We can just go back to pretending it never happened, and everything will go on as normal.”
“I’m not being weird,” I say around a mouth of lasagna. “I’m just adjusting, that’s all. You’ve thought about it for a while. Let me catch up.”
“OK.” She digs back into her portion. “Have you heard anything more from Florida?”
“Nah. Just some emails from the coaching team at the Gators.”
She snickers.
“What?” I ask, curious about what has got her laughing at me this time.
“Sorry. Florida Gators, it’s so American it makes me laugh.”
“All right, Little Miss Medicine at Exeter. I won’t give you any of my university T-shirts.”
“How dare you?” She looks horrified. “Those are the best pyjama T-shirts.”
We eat in silence for a few moments.
“Can I establish some ground rules?” I ask.
“Sure. Whatever makes you more comfortable, Sam. And if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”
I push my finished plate away and look at her. I want her to be on board with this. I want to make sure nobody gets hurt.
“OK, well, rule one is can we take things a bit slowly for a week? No, like, full frontal sex.” I feel myself blushing at the words, and attempt to plough on before she notices.
“Of course.” She nods, and I let out a breath of relief.
“Rule two is that if either of us ever feel uncomfortable, we stop.”
“Yep,” she says. “But I’m always comfortable with you, so it should be fine.”
I know the feeling. I’ve always been comfortable around Kath too. The problem is that I feel too comfortable around her. That’s why we need the last rule.
“OK. And then rule three is that this is just friends with benefits. Nothing more. I feel like this is already blurring the lines quite a lot, and I really don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
I’m framing this for her, but in reality it’s for me. She means so much more than just these eight weeks.
“I agree. We can add all the rules to the pirate’s code.” She looks so sincere that my nerves start to dissipate. Maybe that clarifies that she never thought about me in that way anyway. I store that thought away to decode on my next long swim.
“We can talk about contraception and stuff too, but for now let’s watch some TV,” I say, and we clean up the plates, stacking them into the dishwasher.
She makes a hot chocolate for herself and a cup of tea for me as I turn on a re-run of Friends.
Then, she turns off the main lights, and the room is lit only by the flicker of the screen.
The sofa creaks as I sit down, back against the cushions my mum picked out one Christmas.
Think with your brain, think with your brain, I tell myself as Kath climbs onto the sofa, shorts riding up and revealing her underwear.
Swimming stats. Kath’s underwear. No, go back to the stats.
Kath’s underwear. Medley winners. Kath’s underwear.
Now that her offer is on the table, my brain is glitching.
“I’m not a complete newbie to this stuff.
” She turns to me, as we watch Chandler make another joke that has her laughing and me groaning.
“I’ve done stuff too. Just not everything.
Like I did a lot with Bobbie, but I just didn’t want to have sex with him.
Which was a good thing to be honest, as he was a bit of a dick. ”
“Yeah, he was,” I say darkly. “You deserve way better than him.”
Kath is looking at me curiously. “Can I kiss you?” she asks. “Or does that violate rule one?”
My throat goes dry as I nod.
All I can see is Kath leaning forwards, brown eyes fixed on mine, hair falling out of her bun and around her face.
She’s beautiful. She pauses a few centimetres away, and I can feel her breath ghosting my face.
The moment she bridges the gap and her lips touch mine, I know I’m screwed.
Deeply, deeply screwed. She tastes like hot chocolate, and she smells like her coconut shampoo.
As I pull her closer she lets out a soft moan that opens her mouth slightly. I take advantage of the moment, pushing my tongue between her lips and wrapping it into a dance with hers. Kissing Kath is addictive. Thank god we never did this before. I wouldn’t have been able to stop.
She sighs again, lacing her hands around my neck and moving across the sofa to straddle me.
Fuck. It feels like all my blood is draining from my brain.
I’m hard already. Think about swimming stats, think about swimming stats.
But it’s impossible when I have the most beautiful girl I know sitting on top of me and tugging at my hair.
My hands wrap around her back of their own accord, pulling her closer.
I want to feel every inch of her skin, even though I already know it’ll never be enough.
She feels so right pressed against me, her chest rubbing against mine through the fabric of my shirt.
It’s hard to believe this is a first kiss, not our hundredth.
“That feels good,” she says, as I make a pass just by her bra line. She grinds down into me, causing me to hiss out a breath. She’s right, this does feel good. Too good.
“We need to move this upstairs.” I break our kiss. “I really, really don’t want my dad to come home to this.”
She giggles, climbing off me and turning off the TV. Her hair is messier than it was a few moments ago and her cheeks are flushed. I wish I’d seen her like this before. “What time will he be home?”
“About ten, I think.” I grab her hand, pulling her towards the stairs. It’s a few hours away, but it doesn’t feel long enough.
I push her into the room and shut the door behind me, adjusting myself in my shorts. “What do you want to do?” I ask her, stalking her backwards towards the bed. This has escalated faster than I thought it would. “Remember, only what you want. You call the shots.”
Kath smiles at me. “Can we kiss some more?” she asks. Thank god. I pull her back towards me.
Her lips slant over mine again, and we end up backwards on the bed, me on top of her and her legs around my waist. I lose myself in the moment, listening out for the slight hitches in her breathing that show me I’m doing something she likes, something I can file away for the future.
A few moments later, her hands tug at my shirt.
“Can I?” she asks, and I nod and sit up, allowing her to pull it off over my head.
“Can I?” I ask in return.
Kath grins and pulls off her own T-shirt… and I just have to take a moment. Nothing in my life has looked as good as Katherine Ford lying in my bed, wearing a slightly faded grey bra patterned with blue polka dots.
I think I manage to get out a strangled “Fuck, you’re so hot” before I lean back down to capture her lips.
I bite out a gasp as she runs her fingers down my abs, tracing downwards and toying with the edges of my shorts. I shudder.
“Kath,” I warn her, swatting her hand away.
“What?” She bites her lip innocently.
“You know what.” I scowl at her, capturing her wrists and pinning them above her head and out of the way.
I lean back down, and she arches up into me.
This is a balance of bliss and torture. Bliss that this is happening.
Torture that I know it’s not forever. We kiss for a few more moments, her legs around my waist, hands exploring my back after I release them again.
They run across my shoulders, tangle in my hair.
I can’t even keep up with what’s happening.
I break the kiss and look down at her. “Is it alright if I take this off?” I say, gesturing to her bra.
She nods enthusiastically.
“I need words, KitKat.”
“Ugh, you’re so annoying. Yes, Sam, please take off my bra,” she grumbles. “Actually, I’ll do you one better. I’m going to take it off myself.”
She sits up and reaches back to unclasp it, throwing it to the side and then pulling her shorts off.
Yep, I’m so screwed. Her nipples are dark pink against her skin, and I’m desperate to touch them.
My hands start a gentle journey along her collarbones, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
I break away from the kiss to look down as her chest heaves beneath me; I run my fingers further down and palm her breasts.
They fit so perfectly in my hands. I run my fingers around her nipples and watch them harden.
She hisses in a breath. “God, Sam, do that again.”
“Because you asked so nicely.” I lean down and capture her lips again as my hands continue their journey. I feel like I’m drowning in her, but also like I can’t get enough.
A few minutes later when I feel like I’m about to burst I pull back.
“We have to stop.” I pepper kisses onto her cheeks.
“Ugh, why?” she whines, reaching up to pull me back down to her.
Looking down at her splayed out beneath me, cheeks and chest flushed, hair falling across the pillow, I hate myself for stopping. But it’s the right thing to do.
“Because tonight is kissing only, and if we keep going, this is definitely going to escalate.”
“Maybe I want it to escalate.” She reaches towards me.
“Kath,” I warn her, grabbing her hand. “Remember rule one.”
“Yes.” She flops back onto the bed. “Taking things slowly. You win. Fine. Can you pass me a T-shirt? One of your swimming ones.”
I open the drawer and pull out one of the county swimming tops, throwing it to her. I need to get out of this room. Away from temptation.
“I’m just going to go for a quick shower,” I tell her.
“Why?” She looks at me in confusion. “You literally just showered at swimming.”
I gesture down, turning red.
“Oh right,” she says, taking in my discomfort. “Err, OK, go and sort yourself out. Let me know when you’re done, and I’ll come brush my teeth.”
When I return to the room, she’s set up the futon on the floor and has picked out a book to read. Part of me’s annoyed that she’s put a shirt on. But another part of me knows I wouldn’t be able to cope with any more topless Kath.
“All sorted?”
I blush again. “Yep.”
“I could’ve given you a hand.” She winks at me and then disappears down the corridor to the bathroom before I can formulate a response.
I flop back in bed. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m royally, royally screwed. And I have no one to blame but myself. Well, myself and Kath.
When she comes back into the room I pull down the covers and pat the bed.
“For the purpose of these few weeks, I want to share,” I tell her.
“Seriously? Don’t you think it will make things weirder?”
“No.”
She gives me a long look before climbing off the floor and into the bed. We roll to face each other.
“That was pretty fun.” She brushes a lock of hair off my forehead. I have to fight not to lean into her touch.
“It was intense,” I say. Because it was. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life, and I’ve raced in arenas in front of thousands of people.
“You’re pretty amazing,” she tells me.
“Well, you're exceptional.”
“Remarkable.”
“Outstanding.”
“You sound like Mr Rudd describing your swimming talents,” she giggles. “I swear I saw him whip out a thesaurus in assembly at one point.”
“Maybe he was onto something, because you are worthy of synonyms,” I tell her.
“You’re an idiot.”
“You’ve broken me.” I bury my head into her shoulder, feeling her body shake with laughter.
“I’m setting the alarm for 5 a.m. tomorrow.” She rolls over to set the bedside clock. “Early training session.”
“Sounds good,” I yawn.
“Let’s go to sleep,” she says. “Need our eight hours.”
“We live a wild life,” I say as she turns off the bedside light. “Two eighteen-year-olds in bed at nine on a Thursday night.”
“Well, what we did earlier was a bit wild,” she says.
“Yeah, it was.”
The smell of Kath’s coconut shampoo is the last thing I’m aware of before I fall asleep.