Chapter 5 Deep End #2
But I felt it. His hand warm against my skin despite the water.
His fingers pressing in with casual familiarity that had no idea what it was doing to me.
We were standing close enough that I could feel the current he made when he shifted, could see his chest rising and falling with each breath, could track the water sliding down his throat without even trying.
And for one terrible second I wanted to close the remaining distance and find out what would happen.
I pulled back too fast. Put space between us and turned away before whatever was on my face could be read.
“We're done,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I'd intended.
“What? We've barely been in an hour.”
“You've been in long enough. Don't push it.”
I hauled myself out of the pool and grabbed my towel without looking back. I could feel Troy watching me, could feel the confusion starting to sharpen into something more pointed, but I didn't turn around. I just headed for the locker room and tried to get my head back where it belonged.
I changed fast and was sitting on the bench pulling myself together when Troy came in dripping water everywhere and looking like he'd arrived at a verdict.
“So are you going to tell me what that was, or are we doing the part where you pretend nothing happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Right.” He dropped his towel over the door and looked at me with the flat assessment he used when he'd already decided someone was lying to him. “We were fine. We were actually fine, which, for us, is basically a miracle. And then you got out of the pool like the building was on fire.”
“I was done.”
“You were done.” He repeated it like he was examining the structural integrity. “That's what you're going with.”
“Get dressed, Troy.”
“You dragged me out here,” he said, and the edge in his voice had sharpened now.
“You basically frog-marched me into a sixty-eight-year-old building and made me put on a stranger's swim trunks.
And then the second we stop actively wanting to kill each other, you shut down and act like I crossed a line I can't even see.” He crossed his arms. “What line, Declan? What did I do?”
“You didn't do anything.”
“Then what the hell is your problem?”
I didn't have an answer that wouldn't blow this wide open. So I stood up and grabbed my bag. “Get dressed. We're leaving.”
“Declan.”
“Just get dressed.”
He stared at me long enough to make the silence uncomfortable, which I suspected was the point.
Then he turned away and started getting changed without another word, and the silence between us was different now.
Heavier. All the progress we'd made in the water was sitting under the weight of whatever I'd just broken.
We left the club and got back in the truck without speaking. I pulled out of the lot and focused on the road because it was easier than looking at him.
We were halfway home when Troy broke the silence.
“I don't get you.”
“What's there to get?”
“You bring me here. You make me swim. We're actually getting along for once, which, if you remember, isn't our natural state.” His voice was tight and controlled, the kind that meant he was angrier than he was letting on.
“And then you flip a switch and act like I'm the problem.
If you didn't want to be around me, you should've just left me at the house.”
“That's not what this is.”
“No? Then explain it to me. Walk me through the logic, because from where I'm sitting, you did something nice and then punished both of us for it.”
I gripped the wheel. “You needed to get out. You looked like you were going to lose your mind cooped up in the house. I didn't know what else to do that wouldn't turn into a fight.”
He was quiet for a beat. “You could've just said that.”
“Would you have listened?”
“Probably not.” A pause. “But I might've been less of an asshole about the swim trunks.”
“That's not a high bar.”
“No,” he agreed. “It's really not.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence that had lost most of its edge but was still carrying weight.
When we got back to the house, Troy headed inside first. I stayed in the truck with my hands on the wheel and my head tipped back, staring at the ceiling liner and trying to get a handle on what had just happened.
It would settle. It had to settle. I just needed to get some distance and stop letting him get under my skin every time he was in the same room.
I told myself that all the way inside. Told myself that while I made dinner and Troy sat at the table pretending to look at his phone.
Told myself that through the careful politeness we'd fallen back into, the kind that kept us at a manageable distance without actually requiring either of us to address anything.
I didn't know what came next. All I knew was that being near Troy was no longer neutral.
Every conversation felt heavier than it should.
Every casual touch landed and stayed. I was in serious trouble if I didn't figure out how to get a grip on this before it became something I couldn't walk back from.
This was temporary. He'd go back to London eventually and I'd have my house and my life back and enough distance to remember why this could never happen. I just had to hold on until then.
I just had to keep him at arm's length and stop noticing the way he moved through space like he owned it. Stop noticing the way his voice sounded when he actually laughed. Stop noticing the heat of his hand against my shoulder in cold water.
I closed my eyes and waited for sleep that didn't come. The house settled around me with familiar sounds that should have been comforting but just felt like reminders that I wasn't alone anymore.