2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
W e all leaned back in our chairs, our legs like jelly after the eight five-hundred-meter sprints we’d just endured.
‘Hell on Earth,’ said Ottie.
‘The worst,’ agreed Livia.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Belle. ‘I haven’t done anything like that in a while.’
We sat on the terrace outside the clubhouse in the sunshine, watching as the men came in off the water, all of us unashamedly ogling their naked torsos from behind the safety of our sunglasses. Not that I looked at Pete or Noah. Only Theo, who, although dick-ish, was built like an Adonis. And if Andrew happened to be standing beside him, I could hardly be blamed for casting an eye over his broad shoulders, chiseled lats, and perfect six pack, too.
‘Why do they have to walk around topless all the time?’ said Hazel. She leaned her head against the back of her chair, looking up at the cloudless blue sky as though it might contain answers.
‘Urgh, I don’t know,’ said Ottie, ‘but I’m here for it. Like, more than usual.’
Belle nodded significantly. ‘You’re probably hitting peak fertility.’
We all swiveled our heads to look at her. She, being a scientist, was want to come out with all kinds of fascinating information we never knew we needed to know. And a good many things we could have done without knowing, too.
‘Go on,’ said Livia, always the one to dig for more.
‘Well, when you’re fertile, your body wants to have sex,’ Belle said simply. ‘You emit pheromones, walk differently, your temperature rises, and you’re more interested in,’—she circled her hand in the direction of the men—‘that whole situation over there.’
Hazel made an o shape with her mouth. ‘Fascinating.’
‘And are they more interested in us?’ asked Livia.
I giggled at her tone, suspicious yet demanding.
‘Of course!’ said Belle. ‘They can smell the fertility.’
Ottie gave a sharp, shocked inhale. ‘They can … what?’
Belle raised her eyebrows. ‘Natural selection … what a thing. And they probably notice when we bat our eyelashes more, although, it’s not like they need much encouragement.’
‘Well, I wish there was someone I wanted to smell my pheromones,’ said Ottie. ‘Everyone at the university is so young , and there’s no one here at the club.’
‘No hot professor?’ I asked.
Ottie shook her head. ‘Nope. They’re all old and gross and arrogant; it’s not like in the movies.’
‘That sucks,’ said Livia. ‘But I feel your pain.’
‘Urgh.’ I joined Hazel in looking to the heavens. ‘We all do.’
‘Apart from Belle,’ countered Hazel. ‘How is your boyfriend?’
Belle waved a dismissive hand. ‘Fine, I think. I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks.’
‘Not at peak fertility, then?’ joked Livia, raising a questioning eyebrow.
We snickered while Belle pondered the question. ‘No, I guess not. I should arrange to see him next week.’ She pulled out her phone, wasting no time, and he pinged her right back. ‘I can let you know how he is after Thursday.’
‘Wow,’ said Ottie. ‘You’re a sniper.’
‘It’s always the quiet ones,’ Livia agreed.
‘She’s not quiet,’ I said. ‘She’s smart; there’s a difference.’
Belle smiled as she shoved her phone into her pocket, and when I turned back to ogle the men, I found them approaching. My chest tightened as my eyes clocked first Theo and then Andrew.
‘We’ve got to dash!’ squeaked Hannah, their miniscule, blonde-haired cox, pulling her husband, Pete, behind her. ‘See you tomorrow!’
‘Bye!’ we all chimed, as Andrew and Theo sat beside us on the step at the edge of the patio, leaning against the bollards. Andrew pulled a tee over his head while Noah lay back on the hard stone, draping his t-shirt over his eyes.
‘Good outing?’ I asked no one in particular.
‘Yeah,’ said Theo, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes roamed across the rest of my crew, then inside, to where the novices sat together.
‘It was good,’ said Andrew, tapping my foot with his. ‘How were your sprints?’
‘ Abominable ,’ Ottie said dramatically, drawing out the word as she leaned forward in her seat.
A smirk tugged at Theo’s lips as he took her in. ‘That bad, huh?’
‘Worse,’ I said, and then immediately wished I hadn’t because Theo’s features made it abundantly clear he couldn’t care less what I thought.
‘You’re an arsehole,’ said Ottie, getting up to refill her water bottle. ‘Presumably that’s why you have to date so many women, because as soon as you reveal your true self, they run for the hills.’
Theo laughed easily. ‘If you want to date me, Ottie, you could just say so.’
If Ottie heard, she didn’t show any signs, instead greeting Seb—the fifth member of the senior men’s squad—as she stepped inside.
Theo shrugged it off and turned back to face me, but before Theo could get any words out, Andrew moved to crouch beside me and slid his hand into mine, lacing our fingers. ‘Hey …’ he said quietly.
What the fuck? His hand. Into mine. His big, warm, callused hand, and his face was really quite close. The whole thing was entirely alarming.
He squeezed, and I looked from our joined fingers to his eyes and back again, glad my sunglasses must have been covering at least some of my shock.
‘Can I borrow you?’ he asked, his tone low and husky.
‘Uhhhh, sure!’ I said too brightly, aiming for something light and confusion free, but not quite nailing it. He stood and drew me to my feet, refusing to relinquish my hand, and I pasted a fixed smile on my lips and acted as though my heart hadn’t stopped beating. At least, I tried, my brain working overtime, attempting to discern what in the name of the sweet goddess divine was going on.
He was, undoubtedly, putting on this show for some benign, friend-zone-related reason. Probably just being nice and rescuing me from Theo, and if that was the case, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Everyone knew Theo and I had gone out a few times. That was the problem with dating anyone at the club. As soon as you so much as scheduled a dinner, everyone knew about it, and then they could be relied upon to put two and two together and come up with a whole range of numbers that had nothing to do with four, complete with corresponding speculations as to the outcome.
I’d told my crew the truth—that when I’d refused to put out, Theo had dropped me like a stone—but they wouldn’t have told anyone, so who knew what fiction the grapevine was spinning. Had Andrew heard something bad? Was that why he was doing this? I’d thought, given Theo’s rampant womanizing, that our dates were old news, but maybe I’d missed something …
Andrew still had hold of my hand, which was so very weird, and pulled me towards the boathouse, stopping out of earshot of the others—although still in their view—beside the open sliding doors.
I pulled off my sunglasses, and for a moment, all he did was look at me, standing too close. I looked back into his deep, green eyes, becoming twitchy, very conscious that if we gazed at each other for too long, we’d attract attention. Who was I kidding? We’d already attracted attention. I could practically feel the eyes of our crews burning holes in Andrew’s back, no doubt watching with slack-jawed interest. But seeing as my own jaw was somewhere near the floor, I didn’t have the wherewithal to check.
Andrew played with my fingers as he stared down into my eyes. The whole thing was bizarre. He knew it, I knew it, our crews certainly knew it, but only one of us knew what was going on, and it wasn’t me.
‘Andrew …?’ I said, my voice breathy, probably because my lungs seemed to have joined my heart in giving up the ghost.
‘You like him, right?’ he said quietly, swiping his thumb back and forth across my skin.
‘Uh …’ My mouth went dry, and I wracked my brain as I tried to work out what he meant. ‘Oh …Theo?’
‘Theo,’ he confirmed in a voice that sounded almost disgusted.
What the actual fuck? Why would he ask that? And what was with the tone? ‘Well, I … We’ve been on maybe two or three dates?’
I faltered, sure a shadow had passed across Andrew’s eyes, but he seemed to be waiting for more, so my brain sent signals to my voice box without consulting me about what should come out. ‘He’s hot, and has a certain charm, but …’
Apparently I'd said the wrong thing because Andrew pulled back a little, but I didn’t know what he wanted from me or what the hell was going on! Andrew and I never talked about dating. I’d seen him with women, and he knew I’d hooked up with guys, but nothing had ever lasted for either of us, and we’d always operated a strict don’t ask, don’t tell policy. I’m not sure why, really, but it felt awkward talking to him about men.
He raked a hand through his hair, looking tortured, hesitant, conflicted maybe? ‘Theo’s not a nice guy,’ he said, some deep-seated emotion in his voice I couldn’t decipher. ‘Especially when it comes to women.’
They were in the same crew, meaning Andrew couldn’t hate Theo that much, so I was surprised by the venom in his words.
He closed his eyes and exhaled. ‘But if you want him to want you …’
If I want him to—
‘He needs to know there’s competition.’
‘I … uh …’ I cast my eyes towards Theo, and he—along with everyone else—was taking a keen interest in our conversation, staring at our joined hands. And maybe it was because Theo’s earlier slight still smarted, or maybe it was due to other reasons I steadfastly refused to acknowledge, but I leaned closer. ‘You may have a point,’ I breathed, inadvertently looking at his full lips before hastily returning my attention to his stormy eyes, ‘but … why did you bring me over here?’
My lungs finally remembered their job was to ingest air, and his musky scent became almost overwhelming, wrapping around me as he looked so deeply into my eyes, so unwaveringly—apparently not caring half the club was watching—that I very nearly went weak at the knees. Must be the training session catching up with me, I decided, as I tried and failed to extract myself from his gaze. Andrew was captivating, and I was desperate for more words to fall from his lips, to hear what he had to say, what this was all about …
He half shrugged. ‘So let’s give him some.’
‘I … Andrew … I don’t … wait … what?’ My eyes went wide, my lips parting on a gasp as I realized what he was suggesting. ‘You want to … um … date me?’ The words came out like spears, too sharp.
He leaned back—practically a recoil—his brow furrowing. ‘Pretend to,’ he clarified, his face shuttering, a barrier slamming shut between us, locking his tenderness up inside. ‘It’ll drive Theo crazy, not being able to have you.’
My brain was a haze of shock, not keeping up at all. ‘I … you … want to fake date me?’
He smiled brightly, a plastic thing that didn’t look right on his lips and certainly didn’t meet his hardening eyes. ‘It’ll be fun,’ he said, looking down at our joined fingers, ‘don’t you think?’
No! It wouldn’t be fun at all! It would be torture of the most diabolical kind. ‘Well, I … guess?’ Someone else seemed to have taken over my mind because his proposal was something I would surely never agree to. I hated lying. With the burning passion of ten thousand fiery suns.
He brought the heel of my hand to his lips, hovering it in front of his mouth for a moment, giving me a chance to pull away. I didn’t, his touch winching my chest so tight I wondered if it was possible to crack one’s own ribs, and then he kissed my skin, or, more accurately, nibbled it, his eyes still on mine.
‘Andrew,’ I said on a breathy exhale, my eyes fluttering shut because whatever he was doing was doing unspeakable things to me.
He moved closer, until his breath caressed my ear. ‘Can I kiss you?’ he murmured. ‘Just a quick goodbye peck … Nothing showy.’
The sound I made in response was a cross between a whine and a groan and an almost hysterical laugh, and for a moment I wondered if I was in a dream. It was the kind of dream I’d been known to have.
‘Please?’ he said, and I felt the deep rumble of his voice low in my belly, so I leaned against him and hid my face in his t-shirt, smothering my blushing cheeks, clear evidence of the embarrassing effect he was having on me. He didn’t want me. Not really. He was doing this to help me with Theo, but even so, my blood sang at the closeness, taking as much contact as I could get because my skin loved it but so rarely found it available.
I resisted the urge to purr like a creature possessed as his arms wrapped around me, and I slid mine around him, too, seconds ticking by as we just stood there, neither of us moving, the heat of our bodies merging, some dizzying chemical Belle would probably know the name of seeping into my blood. The steady thud of his heart beneath my ear lulled me, turning me languid and malleable, and I pressed myself closer still. It was totally inappropriate.
‘Well?’ he whispered.
I tipped my head back, peeling my face away so my words wouldn’t be eaten by his chest, a thrill of excitement shooting through me as I met his insistent gaze. It was almost as though he wanted to kiss me, and that thought had my left eyebrow cocking of its own accord. ‘Well,’ I heard myself say in the most flirtatious of tones, ‘we are dating, aren’t we? So I’d be mad if you didn’t.’
A wide, slow smile spread across his lips, and my stomach flipped. Actually freaking flipped. And then his lips were on mine, and his hand was on my neck, and I didn’t know which way was up. And then the soft warmth of him was gone, and with a mischievous, victorious smile and a final squeeze of my hand, he stalked away, leaving me reeling, unsure if I could do vital things like pump blood around my body, let alone walk straight.
I watched his retreating back until it disappeared into the men’s locker room and then donned my sunglasses and returned to the others, my heart hammering, my whole body feeling shaky—no doubt on account of the infernal training session. Sprints were the absolute worst for jelly legs.
My crew and Andrew’s were all still staring as I returned to my seat, some of their mouths literally hanging open, and try as I might, I couldn’t suppress my giddy smile.
‘What?’ I asked with an innocent half-laugh, trying and failing to force my lips into a neutral line.
Theo sprang to his feet and raced after Andrew, the door to the locker room slamming against the wall as he yanked it open.
Ottie dragged her chair closer. ‘Spill,’ she demanded in a low, conspiratorial tone.
Seb’s lithe, dark-haired form joined our group, his eyes flashing delightedly as he took a seat and said salaciously, ‘What did I miss?’
‘You literally told us last night you would never be more than friends,’ accused Livia, folding her arms and shuffling so close our knees touched.
I shrugged. We’re not. It’s fake . Something in my chest cratered at the thought. ‘We are friends.’
‘So that won’t happen again?’ asked Hazel, a knowing smile taking hold of her usually mild features.
The feel of Andrew’s lips lingered on my skin, and every part of me hoped against hope it would happen again. It was likely, wasn’t it? We would need to be convincing because … why were we doing this again? Oh, yeah … Theo. It made no sense. I don’t even like Theo!
‘Well?’ Livia pressed.
‘Um … well …’
‘Oh my God, Miri!’ Ottie squealed, clasping her hands to her chest in glee.
‘Don’t make it weird,’ I hissed, trying to frown, but it was difficult, seeing as my brain was willfully disregarding my wishes, overridden by pesky endorphins, or some such thing.
‘You’re dating?’ asked Livia, needing clarity in all things. ‘Is that what’s happening here?’
‘I … um … think so?’
‘You think so ,’ Livia said slowly, pursing her lips as though trying to piece together a puzzle that didn’t quite fit.
‘It’s new,’ I said. ‘Really new. We’re not at the label stage.’
‘When did this even happen?’ asked Ottie, her chin now resting on her joined hands as she leaned so far forward it was a miracle the laws of physics kept her in her seat.
‘Are you at peak fertility?’ said Belle, easily the calmest of my crew. She lounged on the grey paving slabs, her back against a bollard, legs crossed in front of her, observing us as though we were lab rats. ‘That would explain his territorial behavior, and your openness to his so publicly staking his claim.’
‘Jesus, guys!’ said Noah, rolling to his feet. By the looks on my crew’s faces, they’d all but forgotten he was there. ‘Can’t you just let them be happy?’
‘Ha!’ laughed Seb.
‘Um …’ Ottie leaned back a fraction, looking as though she was genuinely considering it.
‘No,’ said Livia, dismissing the suggestion outright.
‘It flies in the face of our group dynamic,’ agreed Belle.
Hazel hummed. ‘We could try, I suppose. For Miri’s sake?’
But before they could reach a consensus, Andrew reappeared from the locker room, his kit bag slung over his shoulder, Theo a pace behind. We swung our gazes to gawk in a movement so synchronized it was as though we were controlled by a single brain.
‘But are you?’ demanded Theo, his tone edged with barely contained anger. ‘Because we’ve been dating.’
Andrew turned to face Theo, looking down at him from his two-inch height advantage, appraising him for a beat before calmly asking, ‘Is that what you call it?’ But underneath the calm veneer, his tone promised violence, and of a kind entirely different to Theo’s yappy dog variety.
‘Fuck you,’ spat Theo, squaring up to Andrew. My band of observers and I collectively inhaled.
It was absurd … ridiculous, and the words, it’s all fake! Don’t do it! were only nano seconds from spilling from my lips.
But then Theo seemed to remember that along with his height advantage, Andrew also had a not-inconsiderable weight advantage, and instead of throwing a punch, he exhaled a sneer and pushed past his would-be adversary, throwing a dismissive, ‘ Whatever ,’ back over his shoulder.
We observers exhaled, and my shoulders, which had crept up to my ears without my realizing, dropped back to their normal position, but before I could begin the inevitable debrief with my crew, Andrew’s eyes found mine and held onto them for a moment, a triumphant gleam in his gaze. My chest ratcheted tight once more, then Andrew turned and followed Theo through the gate, and I sagged back into my seat, wondering what the fuck was going on.
Ottie grabbed my arm with an excited squeal. ‘That,’ she said, waving her hand in the general direction of Andrew’s retreating back. ‘Whatever just happened over there … it was gold!’
‘He’s fucking terrifying,’ said Livia.
‘But hot,’ said Hazel.
‘And successful,’ said Ottie.
‘And clever,’ said Livia. ‘He convinced his company to sponsor all three of our new boats!’
‘And he has the best ergo score in the club,’ said Belle, ever the analyst.
‘And he’s Men’s Captain,’ said Hazel.
Livia nodded along. ‘Mmm hmm, there’s a lot to be said for a man with power.’
‘Guys!’ I protested, half-delighted and half-horrified.
‘But goddamn is he easy on the eye,’ said Ottie.
‘Yep,’ Seb agreed. ‘Very, very much.’