Seven
WE SPEND TWO HOURS DOING INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY drills, yet I find none of the regular joy in practicing my specialty.
I prove why it’s my specialty, and I find no joy in that either. I’m joyless. I’m distracted. I’m . . .
Fuck me. I’m nervous.
No. I don’t think that’s the right word for it.
I don’t exactly know the word for the feeling encompassing me, inhibiting my natural ability to get the hell out of my head when I’m in the water.
I don’t know if there actually is a word for the infuriatingly off-putting sensation of wondering whether or not the fake boyfriend you’re using to get back at your ex-boyfriend is impressed by your aquatic prowess.
If he’s really watching me as I cut smoothly through the water, or if he’s sitting on the sidelines, fiddling with his phone like Ben used to do.
If he’s bored. Uninterested. Counting down the minutes until practice is over and our charade can end for the day.
I don’t glance over to find out. I want to so fucking bad, but I deny myself. I won’t. It’s bad enough that I care – I can’t go a mortifying step further by being so obvious about it.
By the time Coach calls an end to practice, I’m wound up tight, too tight.
Hauling myself out of the pool, I don’t head for Heath like I know I should, like I’m supposed to.
It looks bad, I’m aware, but I think it would look worse if I went over there and .
. . I don’t know. Flinched away from any advances he might make.
Couldn’t look him in the eye. Punched him in the face if he joked about my form.
Disintegrated if he complimented it.
Instead, I make a beeline for the changing rooms, busting through the door like a bull in a china shop, like I just had a really shit practice, not a really good one.
The girls already in there startle. Eye me like I am, in fact, an enraged beast ready to charge. Which honestly isn’t all that different from how they usually look at me, but there’s a certain level of . . . curiosity accompanying it today. A lot of it.
And, oh, they are so very subtle about it.
The first couple of whispers, I brush off. Ignore. Focus on wrenching off my swim cap and unravelling two wet braids, carefully combing my fingers through the knots.
But then they get louder. Even less subtle. Whispers become chat and snickers and a handful of burning glances, and fuck, I can’t just sit here and take that disrespect, can I?
‘If you’re gonna have a conversation about me, in front of me, do you think you could include me?’
Silence. A couple of coughs. And a quiet, cautious, wildly doubtful, ‘You’re dating Heath Belfort?’
Disguising a sharp breath behind a grunt, I brace my hands on my hips, head cocked at Erica, my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s best, bitchiest pal. A butterfly stroke enthusiast, like me. Not good like me, though. ‘What do you think?’
Erica flicks a glance at her pretty, blonde friend. ‘Since when?’
‘Why do you care?’
‘You and Ben only just broke up.’
‘Well,’ I laugh, my towel snapping as I shake it out. ‘Considering Ben moved on before we broke up, I think I’m allowed to do the same.’
Pitying eyes flit to Sienna, like she’s the victim, like I’m the bad guy for bringing up her indiscretions.
I scoff. Forgoing my usual post-practice routine, I drag a pair of shorts up my still-damp legs, throw my towel over one shoulder and my bag over the other, and march out of the changing room before I literally murder the next person to open their mouth.
I wonder, briefly, if it’s some kind of cosmic permission that the next voice I hear belongs to the person I really want to murder the most.
‘What the fuck, Daniela?’
As the changing-room door slams shut behind me, I suck in a deep, centering breath before fixing my face into an expression of perfect impassivity, the exact kind I know will infuriate my ex. ‘What the fuck, Ben?’
He’s bright red. Like, real scarlet. Practically foaming at the mouth. Furious.
I smile.
I don’t think he’s ever looked so handsome.
‘This is a joke, right?’
I purse my lips, feigning confusion. ‘I’m not following, Benjamin.’
Too quick for me to evade, fingers lock around my wrist. Squeeze hard enough to hurt. Curl into tight, furious fists when I use a combination of shaking, threatening, and pinching to free myself from their grasp. ‘Heath?’ he spits. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘What?’ My eyes widen, so innocent. ‘You don’t approve?’
‘Heath?’ Ben repeats, and I glance at the man in question, finding him lingering on the far side of the building, surrounded by his teammates, practically out of sight. ‘No one else would be your rebound, so you had to fuck him?’
‘Didn’t have to. Just wanted to.’
Ben sputters and swears and rakes a hand through his hair, and déjà vu slaps me in the face – déjà vu of a past damn déjà vu makes me wonder if it’s always going to be like this. Me pissing him off, followed by a public confrontation where he spits vitriol and tries to tear me down.
Oh, fuck. Who am I kidding?
It’s been like this. For longer than I ever should’ve put up with.
‘Were you fucking him the whole time?’
‘God, I wish,’ I sigh wistfully, staring longingly into the distance, batting my lashes dreamily. ‘Boy, was I missing out.’
‘Real nice, Dani.’
‘Why do you care?’
‘I don’t.’
‘That vein in your forehead sure says otherwise.’ Sighing, I let my face fall into an expression that mimics the one he flashed me only .
. . Jesus, was it really just a few days ago?
When he cornered me in the parking lot and spat the exact words that I relay back to him now.
‘You’re not jealous, are you? Because that would be pretty pathetic. ’
In a feat I didn’t think possible, Ben turns even redder. ‘I’m pathetic? He’s using you. You have to know that. You have to know that no one could ever—’
Like me? Want me? Love me?
I don’t get to find out.
A pointedly clearing throat cuts my ex off.
A soft ‘Baby’ makes that temper visibly soar.
Lips press to my temple, and I’m surprised the pool water doesn’t start bubbling, boiled by the ferocity of Ben’s anger.
‘Baby,’ Heath says again, his smirk hot against my skin. ‘Good practice.’
When I shift to face him, his mouth drags a hot line across my forehead. Reeling back, I fix a smile into place. ‘Gracias, carino.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ben flinch.
Right in front of me, I see the corner of Heath’s mouth lift even higher.
A warm hand slips into mine and squeezes. ‘C’mon. The team wants to say hi.’
I doubt that, but I’ll go with it, considering being around Ben is more tiring than two hours of pushing myself to the physical limit.
Heath tugs and I follow – or I try to, at least.
Ben makes another grab at me, he spits my name again, and when I rip my hand away and jab a finger against his chest, he has the audacity to look surprised by my fury.
‘That’s the last time you grab me. This is the last time you talk to me like shit.
Get the fuck over yourself, get the fuck over me, and leave me alone. ’
Ben scoffs, lips parting as he prepares to drop some more sweet nothings, I’m sure, but, again, he doesn’t get the chance.
Again, Heath cuts him off – by dragging me away, out of earshot, out of reach, and it’s as he silently guides me toward his team that I realize he didn’t say a single thing to Ben.
No jibes nor comments. None of the usual taunting.
‘You’re very tame today.’
‘What could I possibly say to him,’ he drawls, stopping so abruptly that I almost ram straight into his back.
Turning so slowly, a warning shiver tickles my skin.
Stepping so close, I have no choice but to breathe in that salty, smoky scent that somehow drowns out the stench of chlorine.
He continues, ‘that would beat me doing this?’
I wonder if he does it quickly on purpose. If he presses his lips to mine without warning so I don’t have time to brace, to react, to flinch or retreat or give us away completely.
It’s a chaste kiss. Barely a kiss at all. There and then gone in the same breath, in one smooth movement, in so little time that it really shouldn’t affect me at all.
Yet my breath catches.
My lips tingle.
A shiver traces a long, languid path down my spine and pools near the base, right below where Heath’s hand rests.
His thumb strokes the divot just above where my back dips and becomes an entirely different part of my anatomy. ‘Okay?’ he murmurs quietly, for my ears only.
Slowly, I nod. Silent. Slightly stunned.
Heath grins. Like he can tell how off-kilter he’s made me, and he likes it. He kisses me again like he likes doing that too, and, shit, who am I kidding? I like it.
I like it so much, I don’t register we have company until someone is socking me semi-gently on the shoulder, crooning something that snaps me back to reality. ‘Nice practice, Lola.’
I squint at Kai, who smiles at me like we’re best fucking friends. ‘Lola?’
Heath tugs on my damp hair. ‘The hot fish from Shark Tale.’
I laugh, and at least three people do a double take in my direction. ‘Thanks, I think.’
‘The siren lives up to her reputation.’
‘The siren?’ I laugh again, a real cackle this time. ‘Do any of you actually know my name or do you just prefer to make ones up?’
‘We know who you are, Daniela,’ some guy I maybe vaguely recognize chimes in as he saunters up beside Kai. Unfurling the arms crossed over a hoodie stamped with the Cove College Swim insignia, he flicks me a greeting salute as he introduces himself. ‘Ryan.’
I nod with some semblance of politeness, my eyes narrowing as his rake over me in a way that even someone as socially inept as me can decipher – he’s interested.
In me. Or in what I look like, at least. I grit my teeth to stop from snapping them at him, one inhale away from letting loose something suitably scathing when a clearing throat again snags my attention.
A hand curls around my waist, and my gaze shifts to the man it belongs to – the man who’s looking at me a little weird too. ‘See you later?’