Chapter 9
nine
. . .
WHITNEY
The second my bedroom door clicks shut, I’m back on my bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to come down from whatever the hell that was between Connor and me on deck. My hip is fine now, but the rest of me is a mess. My brain won’t drop the moment, and my body definitely won’t.
Connor’s hands had been warm and sure, guiding my leg through the stretch, his voice low as he told me to breathe. It wasn’t flirty. But my body logged it as competence porn. And it won’t let it go.
By the time I’m replaying it for the eighth time, I’m already sliding my hand down, not shy about it because it’s my room and no one gets to judge me here.
I haven’t hooked up with anyone in, god, I don’t even know how long, and imagining Connor’s voice in my ear while I make myself feel good isn’t exactly a crime.
My fingers slip under the waistband of my shorts and I suck in a breath, letting my eyes fall shut—and that’s exactly when someone knocks on my door.
“Whit?” Rory calls.
I freeze mid-motion, then rip my hand out of my shorts. “One second!”
There’s an aggressive scramble to look like a wholesome, well-adjusted adult. I sit up, shove a pillow over my lap out of pure instinct, and try to slow my breathing.
Rory opens the door a crack.
“Hey,” he says. “Eli and I came over to cook our favorite sisters dinner.”
“I’m your only sister, nerd.”
“Still my favorite.”
He steps inside, and his gaze flicks down to my hip like he’s running a hardware diagnostic. “Heard you locked up on deck earlier. You okay?”
Of course he heard. Swimmers gossip like middle schoolers on Red Bull. I nod. “Fine now. Connor helped me stretch through it.”
I should not have said his name. The second it’s out of my mouth, Rory’s eyebrows twitch in a way that suggests he has opinions.
“It was a stretch, not a date.”
Rory lets out a quiet snort. “Yeah. That’s because Fisk doesn’t do dates.”
My brain stutters. “What does that mean?”
“It means Connor cares about Connor. That’s always been the deal. Fastest guy in the pool, biggest smile for the cameras, and zero interest in anyone else once it stops benefitting him.”
Bad-boy-swimmer thing. I’ve heard that, obviously. Everyone has. Tattoos. Tongue piercing. Smirk. World record. Headlines.
But hearing Rory say it out loud makes something in my chest flicker—half irritation, half curiosity, half you don’t actually know him, though, which is unfair because Rory definitely knows him more than I do.
My stomach tightens in a way I don’t appreciate. “Maybe that’s not who he is now.”
Rory shakes his head once. “No, Whit. That’s Connor. Sponsors, nightlife, hookups, press. All surface-level. The minute things get real or messy or require follow-through? He bails. That’s who he was when I trained with him, and nothing I’ve seen says it’s changed.”
The way he says it—flat, confident, unbothered—tells me he genuinely believes this is truth, not outdated intel.
“And anyway,” he adds, voice dropping half an octave into big brother mode, “you don’t need to get wrapped up in that. Especially not with someone like him.”
It’s not an outright condemnation, but that’s not Rory’s style. He doesn’t deal in melodramatic warnings or threats or fists-through-walls. He deals in forecasts. In patterns. In caution. He presents conclusions like weather reports—neutral, factual, inevitable.
And I know what he’s doing. It’s what he’s always done.
Trying to spare me chaos. Trying to give me the shortcut through the parts he had to navigate without help.
Twelve years between us means he lived half his professional career before I even hit puberty.
He knows how messy the sport gets behind the glossy press photos.
He knows what bad choices look like before you make them.
But just because he’s been burned doesn’t mean I want to be fireproof.
I force my voice steady. “It was just a stretch.”
“Good,” he says, nodding once. “Because I’d rather you not learn the hard way that some guys are terrible at follow-through.”
I open my mouth to argue—maybe about Connor, maybe about myself, maybe about the fact that I’m not twelve—but he’s already shifting into the physio plan suggestion and the helpful big-brother mode I know so well.
He steps a little more inside, arms crossing in that way that means he’s about to go Full Advice Mode.
“If you want, I can get you on a plan with the physio I used last year after my surgery. She’s usually booked up, but I’m certain I can get her to fit you in.
It helped me a ton. And it saves you a lot of guesswork. ”
There it is. The Rory Shields brand. Always eager to help and fix the thing before it becomes a thing. Make life easier. Streamline the path.
The problem is, I don’t want easy. Easy feels like shortcuts and borrowed systems and someone else’s spreadsheet of goals. I want my own path even if it’s littered with messy, bad decisions.
“Maybe,” I say carefully.
He nods, encouraged. “Yeah, and if you’re still thinking about trials or Worlds—no pressure, just throwing it out there—getting the logistics dialed now makes the whole cycle less stressful. I wish someone had told me that when I was twenty-two.”
I know he means well. I know this is love in Rory language—let me save you from the mistakes I made. I know most people would kill for this kind of support.
But I didn’t move to Coral Cove to redo Rory’s story with fewer obstacles. I came back here because I’m trying to figure out if I even want the same finish line.
“I’m not sure I’m planning my cycle yet,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m aiming for.”
He doesn’t flinch. He just nods, thoughtful. “That’s fair. You don’t have to decide now. Just—if I can make any part of it easier for you, tell me. You don’t have to brute force everything alone.”
My chest tightens, because it’s a good offer. A loving offer. Just not the one I need.
“Thanks,” I say genuinely. “Really.”
He gives a small smile—the quiet kind, not the press-conference one—and backs toward the hallway. “We’re grilling out back if you’re hungry.”
When he leaves, I let myself exhale and fall back on the bed. For a second, I just lie there staring at the ceiling, feeling the leftover heat from Connor and the leftover pressure from Rory battling it out somewhere under my sternum.
I don’t want Rory’s career. I don’t want to be his understudy. I don’t want to be introduced as Rory’s sister at every meet for the rest of my life. I came to Coral Cove to figure out what swimming meant for me, not for the brand.
Dinner helps. It’s loud and messy, and Ren and Dani won’t stop talking about some lifeguard with “ridiculous lats,” and Summer keeps stealing fries off Rory’s plate. It feels normal, which I desperately need.
By the time I’m back in my room, showered and stretched and ready for bed, the sky outside is already that soft blue-grey that means tomorrow is coming whether I’m ready or not.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling.
I don’t want the easy path. I want my path.
And right now, my path is inconveniently horny for the one guy Rory would absolutely kill.