Chapter 14
fourteen
“Do you think either of them are going to show up?” Leah asked.
It was ten minutes into when each of our last classes of the day was supposed to start, and we both had yet to see our students.
The pool windows overlooked the most commonly used parking lot, so I was keeping an eye out for a car to pull up, but thus far, there hadn’t been any movement.
“There’s still time,” I said. I tucked a pool noodle around my back and leaned my head back into the water.
My hair was already wet, so I figured I might as well enjoy floating around now.
Since there were only supposed to be two classes for this last hour, we’d taken out all but one of the lane ropes to give us more space to just spread out and relax.
The first few weeks of the summer were always stressful, but as far as they went, that year wasn’t the absolute worst. Since everyone had worked there previously, we all knew how to work well together, and Courtney was being kept so busy by Kelly that I hardly ever saw her—something that I had no doubt was intentional on Kelly’s part.
And best of all, I’d gotten to see Charlie every day.
Our drive home from work had turned into a little ritual where we’d stop in a random parking lot for a bit to make-out.
When Matthew started questioning why I was coming home so late, I told him that my schedule had changed to have later classes in the evenings and to my delight, he hadn’t doubted it for a second. It all fell into place perfectly.
“What’s the rule again?” Leah asked. “Can we leave after fifteen minutes?”
Our managers didn’t want us hanging around the pool, waiting for students who weren’t going to show up, so for our last classes of the day if the student hadn’t shown up within a certain amount of time, we could just go home.
If they showed up extremely late for some reason, our manager would take over the class for the day.
“I can’t remember, honestly. All I know is that my students have a knack for showing up right when I’m about to leave.”
Leah laughed. “Right? It’s like they try to cut it as close as possible.”
I tensed as I heard the sound of footsteps coming towards us. The tell-tale sound of flip-flops told me who it was without even having to see her—it was like I was trained to know she was coming in the same way that hearing the click of high heels told me a teacher was approaching.
“Hello, Courtney,” Leah said politely as our supervisor came sauntering into the room. Courtney had a smirk on her face that only ever appeared when she knew she was going to make my life a living hell, so I watched in trepidation as she came up to the side of the pool and glanced at her watch.
“You can go now, Leah,” she said as if she were a principal dismissing a student from their office.
“I...” Leah tilted her head in confusion. “What?”
“Fifteen minutes have passed, and your student isn’t here,” Courtney said. “So you can go home. See you tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Leah pushed herself out of the pool and glanced back at me with a confused look on her face. I was sure she had the same question running through her mind as I did—why did she get to leave while I had to stay? “Um, bye.”
“Should I go too?” I asked.
Courtney looked at me with an unimpressed look and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
I took a deep breath and mentally counted to five before responding, knowing that getting annoyed with her would not get us anywhere.
“My student also isn’t here,” I said, gesturing at the empty pool around us.
A couple of the lifeguards were still there, but they were sitting on the benches in the back corner of the room.
Technically, they were supposed to remain standing and such at all times, but most of them took advantage of sitting when there were only instructors in the pool to take a break.
We were all good swimmers and knew enough about lifeguarding to help each other out if anything went wrong.
“No,” Courtney said.
“Why not?” I asked through gritted teeth. Could she do that? Just let Leah leave and make me stay on a whim? I felt like she had to have a good reason to do that, but I couldn’t think of why she would be able to.
“Your class was supposed to be an hour,” she said.
“And?”
“Leah’s class was only forty-five minutes,” she said, looking at her watch again.
It looked like some sort of smartwatch and I wondered whether it was waterproof.
It seemed idiotic to wear a non-waterproof watch to a job at a pool, but I wouldn’t put it past her to purposely do that just so she would have a reason not to go in the water, or to get mad at us if we splashed water on her.
She was petty like that. “For a class that’s forty-five minutes, the instructor can leave after fifteen minutes. ”
“So then I can leave after twenty minutes for an hour-long class, right?” I asked.
“What?”
“A third of the class,” I said. She stared at me blankly. Goodness, if she couldn’t understand that, then she really didn’t have business being our supervisor. She’d do better as a student upstairs where Violet was working.
Courtney shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I need you to stay here for the full hour—I need at least one instructor in the pool in case the kids show up.”
That wasn’t how it worked and we both knew it, but I also knew she was just trying to irritate me.
I was determined not to give her the satisfaction.
I was happy enough to get paid to hang out alone in the pool for the next forty-five minutes.
If Leah’s student showed up and Courtney tried to demand that I teach them, I would find Kelly and explain the situation, because I sure as heck was not going to take on that responsibility.
I shrugged and leaned back on the noodle again. “Fine,” I said loftily.
Courtney stared at me with her mouth agape, like she had been prepared for me to argue with her and now didn’t know what to do.
“Fine,” she replied, crossing her arms. She stared at me for another second before turning on her heel and storming off.
Once she was completely gone, I stood up again and chewed on my lip as I thought about what to do.
I could go hang out with the lifeguards that were still on duty, but I couldn’t see who it was from here, and I was a little worried about getting caught up in a conversation that I wouldn’t be able to leave without a lot of awkwardness.
Finally, I figured that if I was in the pool anyway, I might as well take advantage and swim a little.
I didn’t have any goggles, so I opted to go on my back, my limbs moving in easy and lazy strokes.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the chlorine-scented air, taking strange pleasure in how my eyes started to water.
There was something so euphoric about swimming—I always forgot how much I loved it until I came back to it after some time away.
As I finished my third length—ending at the deep end of the pool—I noticed a figure standing by the diving block out of the corner of my eye.
I jerked up instinctively, my heart pounding.
Why would someone be standing ominously like that, watching me swim?
“What are you…” I trailed off as I realized it was Charlie smiling down at me.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” I said automatically, even though it was obvious that he had. “What are you doing?”
“Just my job,” he said. “Making sure you don’t drown and all that.”
I smiled and shook my head as I swam the last couple of feet to the wall. I rested my arms on it and smiled up at him. He crouched down so his head was almost at the same level as mine.
“I think I’ve got that pretty well down by now,” I said. “Seeing as I’m a swim instructor.”
“Well, you can never be too careful.”
My gaze drifted from his eyes down to his lips. “No,” I murmured. “I guess you can’t.”
I was thinking things that I definitely wasn’t supposed to be—thoughts related to the other night, to what we couldn’t do again. I needed some sort of distraction from this.
I held my hand out to him. “Help me get out.”
He grabbed my hand with both of his, completely surrounding it. Before he could stand fully or pull me up, though, I tugged forward, making him fall into the water alongside me.
I screamed and ducked backwards as the impact made a huge splash, completely soaking my head. I guess it was deserved, but I still didn’t appreciate it. Charlie broke through the surface, spitting out a stream of water.
“What was that for?” He shook his head, simultaneously getting some of the water out of it and making the waves fall back into place instead of sticking awkwardly to his forehead.
“I don’t know,” I said innocently. “I just wanted to swim with you.”
Charlie shook his head and laughed. “You will be the death of me, Madison McKinnon.”
I glanced over his shoulder to the corner of the room where he’d been sitting with someone before.
Whoever he’d been talking to was now gone, leaving us completely alone in the pool.
What that should have meant to me was that we needed to be extra careful in there because there was no longer anybody else watching out to make sure we didn’t drown. But my mind was totally elsewhere.
“You know,” I said, taking a couple of steps towards him. I probably looked stupid since it was hard to walk through water flirtatiously, but I did my best. “We probably shouldn’t be in here together.”
“Oh yeah?” Charlie asked.
“It’s dangerous,” I said. “Something could happen.”
“Something?” He raised his eyebrows and took a step towards me as well. “Like what?”