Chapter 2
two
. . .
CONNOR
Vivi said it like it was a cure.
Practice.
Show up. Be a teammate. Be boring.
Right. Easy. Nothing screams boring like walking into a building full of men who have a group chat without you and one guy who has every reason to hate your guts.
Coach Owens didn’t make a production of signing me. He looked me in the eye and said, “You swim. I coach.” We did the trial block at dawn, no cameras, and I earned my shot the old way—lungs on fire, legs like lead, a coach who cares about my splits, not my brand power.
Which is great.
Also means there was no announcement. No team meeting. No “welcome our newest guy” speech where everyone politely claps and pretends they’re not already forming opinions.
For all I know, half the roster hasn’t even heard I’m here.
Or they heard, and they’ve been talking about it all week in that group chat I’m definitely not in. The one with a name like Current Mood or Lane Sharks or whatever normal, likable people call their group chats.
Either way, I’m walking in blind.
I don’t know if the guys are going to treat me like a teammate or a liability.
I don’t know if Coach Owens has told Rory anything beyond the bare minimum.
Rory could ignore me; go full silent treatment. Or he could decide to make my first day a public execution with splits.
The not knowing sits heavy in my chest as I push through the doors.
The Carolina Current facility is state of the art—glass, steel, clean lines, everything humming with ocean air and quiet money. Inside, there’s an indoor pool behind sliding doors, warm and controlled, built for disappearing.
I don’t want to disappear.
Out back, the Olympic-sized pool sits under open sky, lanes stretching toward the horizon. The deck is already alive—whistles, stopwatches, the slap of bare feet, coaches calling splits, swimmers laughing over kickboards like they’ve been doing this together for years.
Sunscreen clings to the air. While salt rides the breeze, the water still smells like chlorine.
The noise should make me tense. Instead, it makes me feel awake. Like a new routine might actually fix something.
I’m early, which means the pool is split into two worlds: the regular lanes already churning, and the middle lanes, empty and waiting.
Waiting for the guys who live there.
There’s no sign of Rory or the rest of the pro squad yet.
But lane four—my lane—is open. So, I drop my bag, roll my shoulders, and slide in, letting the cool water steady me.
The first length is all nerves. The second length my body starts to find a rhythm.
I’m halfway down the lane when the water changes pressure.
There’s a faint tug that means someone’s moving toward me hard from the other end.
Two opposing bodies, two bow waves. The collision makes the middle go squirrelly, the way it does when two boats pass too close.
I breathe right and catch a face breaking the surface beside me. Familiar. But not welcoming.
Rory.
I don’t need the look to know it’s him; sun hits the ink on my sleeve, and I see his jaw lock. I deserve that reaction.
We pass and I get a whole blast of his wake across my ribs. It’s a better slap than a handshake.
Turn. Push. I keep it warm-up honest for exactly four strokes before my chest offers me another gear just to see if he’ll take it.
He does. We cross again, and he angles under my wave like he’s been doing this since birth—which he has.
We keep ratcheting, stupid in the way former training partners get stupid when they pretend they’re just warming up.
Another turn. He’s on my heels. I feel it like a prickle at the back of my calves—his handclap off the wall, the tiny surge behind me. This isn’t what Owens meant by “inclusive leadership,” and I know I’ll pay for it in the main set, but god, the water feels good when he’s pushing me.
Final stretch, he slides past, long and efficient, and touches just ahead. We pop up, both hanging on opposite lane ropes, elbows hooked, breathing like we’re calm.
I push my goggles to my forehead and let my mouth tilt because I don’t know how else to say hello. “Didn’t know you still had it in you, old man.”
His mouth doesn’t twitch. “You shouldn’t have come here, kid.”
Yeah. Guess we’re not pretending.
Charlie appears at the gutter. “Hey, did you hear—”
He stalls mid-sentence, eyes locking on me.
“Yeah, I did,” Rory says, eyes sharp on me.
I remember Vivi’s advice. Be boring. And Owens’ advice: show restraint. But none of that really locks into my brain. Instead, my old reflex—deflect, smirk, turn it into a bit—flashes through me. It’s a path that’s been taken so many times, I easily fall into the footholds.
“Why so serious, Shields?” I tease with a smirk. “I’m just here to swim. Let’s not make this more complicated than it has to be.”
He’s not giving me an easy out. He shouldn’t. He grabs the backstroke wedge and pulls up, taller than the conversation.
“You can act like we’re good all you want,” he says, even and edged, “but I haven’t forgotten what you did. You crossed a line, and just because you’re here doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore that fact. You’re here to swim. That’s all I need from you. Keep your head down and don’t get in my way.”
My jaw locks before I can stop it. The part of me that wants to argue—explain, defend, rewrite—knocks once, loud, but I have the wherewithal to swallow it.
I nod. Earn it, then talk. That’s the order.
Owens materializes at the head of the lane like he’s been there the whole time. “Gentlemen, I’d say you’re warm now. Four hundred free at eighty percent. We’re going at the top.”
Goggles down. The second hand hits the zero and we push off.
Rory leads; I sit two body lengths back, where I can see the pattern of his catch and not make this a chest-thumping thing. He’s still textbook—no wasted motion, nothing showy. I keep my line, keep my breath. There’s a whole conversation in the water we don’t need words for.
I feel him in front of me the whole way—not as a wall, but as a target you earn the right to chase.
We accelerate into the wall. I don’t look over because I don’t need to. I know exactly where he is and exactly where I am.
Push harder.
Be better.
Win the right way.
Owens flips the board. “Top in thirty. Build by fifties. Lane leaders start the send-off.”
Rory glances my way. He doesn’t say get out of lane four. But he doesn’t say welcome. He just looks at the clock like it’s the only judge that matters.
“On the top,” he says.
“On the top,” I say back.
Then, we’re off again.