Six
A PALE BLUE VINTAGE FORD brONCO THAT LOOKS exactly like the type of thing a tan, blond surfer named Heath would drive idles outside my apartment – the vehicular equivalent of a flashing neon sign that the tan, blond surfer in question leans against. Arms crossed.
Sunglasses shielding his eyes from the last of the year’s sun.
Loose shorts and a cropped white shirt working together to show off sun-kissed skin and a trim, muscled midriff and the waistband of a dark blue Speedo.
A girl on my team lives upstairs. The guy right next door is in at least one of my ex-boyfriend’s classes – I vividly remember many a time spent lingering in my open doorway, waiting for the pair of them to run out of things to say about economics.
Pretty much this entire apartment block is taken up by HCU students.
I imagine that, by the time I make it downstairs, the whole university will know that Heath Belfort picked me up this morning.
No less than five people will have texted Ben.
Which, I suppose, is good. It’s the whole point. It’s what this ridiculous, foolish plan is all about.
Stepping away from my living-room window, I sigh. Adjust the duffel bag hanging off my shoulder. Flex my fingers before curling them into a ball, clenched tight like the rest of me.
‘Suck it up,’ I chastise myself gruffly, as anxiety pulses beneath my skin, making me all clammy and twitchy. ‘This was your damn idea.’
This was your damn idea, I repeat, as I wrench open my front door.
And again as I hustle down the steps, flip-flops slapping loudly, the bag full of my regular practice gear smacking into my hip.
And once more for good luck as I get too close to my new fake boyfriend to ignore the deep grooves dimpling each of his cheeks, the dazzling smile he flashes, those damn sea-glass-colored eyes that sparkle as he slides off his sunglasses.
‘Morning, gorgeous,’ Heath hollers, and I’m caught between a wince, a blush, and a scowl.
I edge a little more toward the middle one when he brushes his lips against my cheek, quick and unhesitant and so damn casual, so natural, as nonchalant as the way he sets a hand on my lower back, guides me around the hood of his truck, and opens the passenger door for me. ‘Sleep okay?’
No. I slept like shit. Alternated between tossing and turning and not sleeping at all, and tossing and turning and half-dreaming, half-remembering a much less chaste kiss. ‘Uh-huh.’
That warm palm remains flush to my skin as I climb inside the Bronco, though it moves to squeeze my thigh, just below the hem of my shorts. ‘Are you ready for this?’
I bristle. I don’t like his tone, the softness to it. Don’t like how he’s looking at me, that softness neither. ‘It was my idea, wasn’t it?’
‘Just saying.’ God, I don’t even like his shrug. Not soft at all. A little tense. Like he doesn’t much like my tone either. ‘You look a little nervous.’
I huff, and Heath smiles. He pats my thigh once more before closing the door and jogging around to the driver’s side.
I watch him through the salt-stained windshield, wincing as he lifts a hand and waves at someone I can’t see, at someone who surely saw me, at someone whose fingers are likely flying across a phone screen right now, desperate to be the first source of this tasty morsel of gossip.
As Heath settles behind the wheel, I turn to him. ‘Run through the plan again.’
Clicking his seatbelt into place – and refusing to start the car until I’ve done the same – he adjusts the rear-view mirror so the only view he has is of me. ‘It’s your plan.’
‘And I want to make sure you remember it.’
‘It’s not exactly armed robbery, Dani. You think I’m an idiot?’
‘I mean, you are failing a class.’
‘Ouch, baby.’
I purse my lips. ‘Plan. Go.’
Heath sighs, pure drama, but he obliges.
‘I drive you to practice. Walk you inside. Hold your hand. Kiss you a little. Watch you, lovestruck and adoring, as you reduce your teammates to tears with all that talent. We kiss some more. Ben falls to his knees in despair. You cackle over his crumpled form.’
I flush from my hairline to the tips of my toes. ‘Ad-lib, much?’
‘Tell me, my love. How long did it take you to come up with that?’
I roll my eyes, batting him away when he pinches my chin playfully.
With an eye roll of his own, Heath sighs. ‘No one’s gonna believe you’re madly in love with me if you scowl every time I touch you.’
‘No one’s gonna believe I’m madly in love, full stop. You have nothing to do with it.’
‘Darling, you say the sweetest things.’
‘Stop calling me names.’
‘Why? It’s what couples do.’
I ignore him in favor of flipping down the sun visor and using the tiny, ineffectual mirror to fix my hair into twin French braids.
‘You should probably call me one.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘C’mon.’
‘No.
‘One name. That’s all I’m asking for. Give a man a little joy.’
I blink, frowning. ‘Why would I ever want to do that?’
‘Daniela,’ he laughs my name, shaking his head, smiling. ‘What did you used to call Ben?’
‘Ben.’
Another husky laugh echoes around the Bronco’s interior. ‘Exactly. Think how much it’ll piss him off when you strut in there, calling me the love of your life.’
‘I’m not doing that,’ I scoff, though I do pause. Think – mentally flick through the terms of endearment that don’t inspire my gag reflex. Hover over a vague memory of my mom and my dad, one doting on the other. ‘Carino. Happy?’
‘Very.’ Lifting one hand from the steering wheel, he grabs one of the reusable mugs in the cupholder between us and extends it in my direction, giving it a shake so the contents clink. ‘Earned yourself a prize.’
Accepting the mug skeptically, I peel off the lid, peer inside and . . . crack, just a little, when I find ice cubes floating in what smells like green tea and lemon and coconut water. ‘How did you know?’
‘I told you. I pay attention.’
I try to come up with a single scenario where Heath would be in the position to pay attention to the drink I make every morning, in the peace of my own home, before practice, and I come up blank. ‘Is paying attention a synonym for stalking?’
Another laugh. A wide smile and bright eyes that completely focus on me as we pull up to a red light. ‘Is it stalking if I’m just incredibly observant, and you are just incredibly not?’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘I can think of, like, eight times we’ve been in the same room and you haven’t noticed.’
My eyes narrow. ‘That’s an exaggeration.’
Except it isn’t. Not at all. Because he names, with ease, eight different instances when he was lurking in my general vicinity and I had no idea.
Stints in the gym and study sessions in the library and post-practice caffeine boosts at The Siren Pod – he spends a solid minute ragging on my ex’s preference for an espresso sunrise.
He flicks up a finger for each one and he keeps his eyes on the road as the light turns green, and he turns a little pinker with each admission, though his voice remains steady and honest and uncaring.
Like it’s a natural instinct to be embarrassed, but he denies it. He won’t let himself.
‘And I’m being nice,’ he says, once he’s done, and he chuckles like I’m not speechless and gaping in his passenger seat. ‘I’m not counting almost every meet you’ve ever competed in.’
‘I know you’re at those. You’re competing too.’
He hesitates. Seems to think twice about admitting something else, but goes ahead anyway, ‘Not all of them.’
‘Then why do you come?’
Again, hesitation. A thought mulled over twice. Another admission that doesn’t sound entirely as truthful as the first. ‘I have friends who compete in your bracket.’
‘Oh.’
Clearing his throat, he reaches for his own mug. ‘Yeah.’
‘What’re you drinking?’
‘Oat milk salted-caramel matcha.’
I commit that to memory. And then, because I can’t resist, I quip, ‘And that’s supposed to be better than an espresso sunrise?’
‘Bite your tongue, vicious woman.’
A sharply cleared throat stops me in my tracks as I start toward the front entrance of HCU’s natatorium.
Glancing over my shoulder, I frown at Heath, standing still a couple of steps behind me, two light brows raised and a hand held out in my direction. When I stare at it for a second too long, he chuckles lowly and wiggles his fingers. ‘You’re supposed to hold it, Daniela.’
‘Is that necessary?’
Evidently, it isn’t.
Because instead of holding my hand, Heath closes the distance between us and loops an arm around my shoulders, practically strangling me with the thick, veined forearm that locks across my upper chest.
‘You’re right.’ Tattooed fingers tickle my collarbone. ‘This is much better.’
I can’t say I agree. Although, it doesn’t feel bad, exactly. Just different. A little awkward because while Heath seems perfectly comfortable, I’m stiff, hands hanging limply at my sides.
With a dramatic sigh, Heath lifts one of them. Guides my fingers so they wrap around his wrist. ‘Are you against PDA or do you just have no idea how to do it?’
My grip tightens as his words strike something sensitive, but fuck if I’ll admit how big of a sore spot that is. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
‘Enough with the sweet nothings.’
My face fixes in a glare, but it’s half-hearted.
The closer we get to those big double doors, the more my nerves kick into overdrive, and the less I can remember why the hell I’m doing this.
My heart hammers in time with our footsteps, the building looming before us getting bigger and bigger, scarier and scarier, and I’m flustered and flushed and, Jesus, shaking as I reach for the door handle.
Only to be stopped by Heath. Turned to the side. Assessed.
Offered, ‘Last chance to change your mind.’
I almost do.
Except I tilt my head up to look at Heath – I revel, for a minute, in him being so much taller than me – and find his expression calm. Unbothered.
He’s not freaking out, so why the hell am I?
I swallow hard and straighten my shoulders. ‘Scared, Belfort?’
‘Of you? Terrified.’
Yet he takes my hand and drags me inside anyway.
Pretty damn quickly, I remember why I’m doing this.
I’m rewarded for my nerves and trepidation. Rewarded with dropped jaws and wide eyes, and my ex-boyfriend turning a particularly glorious shade of red, my new favorite fucking color, as every eye in the building lands on me.
And the hand holding mine.
‘What the fuck?’ more than one person voices aloud. Quietly, sure, but audible all the same. As audible as the surprise, the shock, that stains the atmosphere, steadily increasing as Heath tugs me a little closer.
He pecks my temple, and someone chokes.
His mouth drags a long, affectionate path to the curve of my jaw, and I hear someone ask if this is real life.
My smile comes easily. My smile is very real. My smile is my finest attempt at lovestruck, and it has something in the near distance clattering to the tiled floor.
It makes Heath jerk. Those eyes, those stupid, hypnotizing eyes, widen. The rise and fall of his chest suddenly ceases, and he doesn’t move a muscle as I rise onto the tips of my toes and brush a nervous, clumsy kiss on a warm, freckled cheek. ‘I gotta go change.’
A deep, ragged noise rumbles in his throat. ‘Okay.’
I drop to my soles again. For the benefit of our audience, I raise my voice, just loud enough to be overheard, not quite so loud that it’s obvious I want to be. ‘You ready to see what real swimming looks like, carino?’
Heath blinks. Nods slowly, like he’s in some kind of trance of his own. Says nothing, no sharp quippy comeback, and I temper my disappointment with a hefty dose of this is fake this is fake this is so fucking fake.
With a wonky smile, I start toward the changing rooms, only making it a couple of steps before I abruptly come up short – before I’m made to come up short.
By a long, strong body darting in my path.
By fingers interlocking with mine once more.
By sparkling eyes and a rough, throaty noise, and hot mouth brushing the corner of mine.
My ears ring a little. I definitely flush. My gaze fixates on the lips hovering an inch from my own, and my mind fixates on what would happen if I leaned forward just a little.
I lean back just a little instead, and common sense comes rushing back to me like a slap to the face.
Because Heath isn’t looking at me. He’s looking just beyond me. I don’t have to follow his gaze to know exactly who he’s looking at because he tells me. ‘I think Ben just passed away.’
Fake, I remind myself sternly. Focus. ‘Excellent.’