Chapter 18
Swimmy. New word. It fits you
“Here you go, kids,” Mrs. Shepard said, placing a plate with brownie squares on the desk and two glasses of orange juice. “How’re the studies going?”
“By the end of this day, I should be the King of Algebra,” I said.
Melinda elbowed me in the ribs. “Cocky much?” She raised a brow, and I chuckled.
“Just around you, Mel.”
“I’ll leave you to it. Keep up the good work, you two.” Mrs. Shepard disappeared through the door, the sound of her footsteps echoing down the stairs.
“Your mom loves me,” I said.
A loud sigh echoed in my ear. “Mase, you think everyone loves you.”
“What? It’s part of my charm. Moms love me. It’s a fact. What can I say? I’m irresistible.”
“You wish.”
“C’mon, Mel, be honest here and now. Even you can’t resist me. See? You’re spending your Saturday tutoring me in math because you want me to succeed. You’re not indifferent to my boyish charms. Stop lying to yourself.”
“Ohmygod, your ego. Let’s finish this because you promised me you’d spend the afternoon timing my laps at the pool.”
“I’m almost done.” I stretched to grab the plate and devoured two pieces of brownies.
“Geez, Mase. You’re disgusting.”
I chewed with an open mouth, and Melinda burst out in peals of laughter, hiding her face in her hands.
“See? Irresistible,” I said once I washed the crumbs down with a sip of juice. “I thought I was the only one liking orange juice with dessert.”
“Nope. Chocolate and orange are the best combination.”
“Do you want some?”
“Nah. Not hungry. Thanks, though.” She held out her hand. “Let me see what you’ve done so far while you finish the last few problems.” She studied my homework. “Good. I think you understand it now.”
The truth was that math had always been a favorite subject of mine. One I aced and needed no help with. Melinda and I had never been in the same math class, so she had no way of knowing that fact about me unless she pried it out of someone, which I knew she would not do.
Earlier, we had gone on an eight-mile run together.
Melinda took that getting-back-in-shape challenge seriously.
If it had been left to her, all we’d do these days would be running and lifting weights in addition to our regular training hours at school.
I didn’t want her to overdo it and hurt herself in the process, so I had offered to make a schedule, starting next week.
We worked side by side in comfortable silence for a little longer.
Melinda’s bedroom resembled mine a lot. Posters of athletes we liked were pinned on the walls.
Hers were Olympic swimmers, while mine were pro-football players, whose footsteps I aspired to follow someday.
Her walls were painted in a cream shade.
The decor consisted of matching pieces of white furniture in the form of a double bed, nightstand, and dresser.
A golden velvet plush chair was positioned in one corner next to a shelf that had books along with trophies and medals she’d collected over the years.
A rectangular bright-pink rug was spread between the bed and closet, the same hue as the throw folded on the dresser and the comforter.
I glanced at Melinda, admiring her profile while she scribbled in a notebook.
By now I could decipher every telltale sign of hers. When she was deep in thought, she’d bite the end of her pencil. When she questioned herself, a frown that I longed to erase with my finger creased her forehead. When she got bored, she twisted a strand of her hair around her middle finger.
“I’m only smarter because of the tutor,” I said out of the blue.
Her gaze lingered on me for a long moment, her face unreadable.
“When you put in the work, Mase, you do amazingly.” Her praise beelined straight to my heart and blossomed there.
All of me loved it when Melinda Shepard gave me a compliment.
Even though I got accustomed to her eye rolls, and they kinda did something to me, I preferred her words of encouragement.
I finished the last two questions and passed the sheet over so she could check them out while I stuffed my books into my backpack, knowing I had nailed both problems. I jumped to my feet, ready to bolt, and pulled my black hoodie over my head, my jersey number gleaming in gold across the front.
“Wanna get some food before we hit the pool?” I kicked my legs to remove the numbness that had taken over my lower limbs before squatting to put my sneakers on.
Melinda stood and grabbed the powder-blue cardigan she had discarded on her bed earlier, buttoning it up over her white T-shirt. “Is your stomach bottomless? You just had a snack.”
“I’d like to think so.” I shouldered her gym bag over mine and carried the empty dishes to the kitchen downstairs before we headed for my car parked next door.
On the way to the athletic building behind the school, we grabbed takeout and ate in the car—well, I inhaled two chicken burritos while Melinda only nibbled on a side of guacamole and chips because she said her muscles would cramp if she trained with a full stomach, which kinda made sense.
Thirty minutes later, sitting by the pool, my feet dangling in the water, I timed her on my phone.
Every one of her motions was precise and perfectly executed.
I could see concentration taking over her features when she was in the zone, reminding me of myself on game day.
Melinda did a few warm-up laps before swimming three one-hundred-meter sets. She stopped in front of me on the last one, her hands clutching the pool edge between my open thighs, breathless. “How did I do?”
A whistle passed my lips. “Careful or Team USA will snatch you and train you for the next Olympics.”
“You think? That would be like the ultimate dream.”
“Definitive. Let’s see how you did.” I pretended to study my phone, feeling her sharp gaze locked on my face. “Okay, so… Fifty three point one seconds. Fifty three point seven seconds. Fifty two point six seconds.”
She whipped off the goggles from her face and blinked at me. “You sure?”
I flipped the device so she could read the screen.
“Mase…” She blinked fast, drops of water hanging from her long eyelashes. “The last one is my best time ever. I’ve never swum the one-hundred-meter under fifty two point nine seconds.”
Pride flashed in her eyes, and right now, I would have given anything to be able to claim her lips and kiss her senseless.
The timing still wasn’t right. Too soon.
We weren’t quite there in our friendship yet.
I swallowed, trying to chase the discomfort spreading through my body.
My blood felt like lava as it traveled through my veins.
My heart pounded like I’d put it through intense exertion when in fact I’d been sitting by the poolside for the last twenty minutes.
With my head tilted back, I stared at the high concrete ceiling, sucking air through my mouth to calm the tug-of-war playing inside me.
“You okay?” Her voice helped release the tension coiling me tight.
I cleared my throat. “Sure. I was thinking about something.” You. Me. Kissing. More than kissing. Your body. My body. Those kinds of things really.
“It must be serious.”
“Why? It’s no big deal.”
“Tell it to your face. You look like you’re in pain.”
I blew out a long puff of air. “If I were, would you help me out? Cure me? Give me whatever I needed to get better?” I was playing with fire, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
She tapped her chin with a finger, her arms now folded on the coping between my spread legs. Each time her elbow stabbed my thigh, I feared my dick would betray my poor self-control.
“It depends. Would you die if I didn’t?”
I bobbed my head fast. “Oh yes. I would die a very slow and painful death. You know where you bleed out and no one is patching you up. That would be excruciating, I swear.”
She enveloped one of my hands in hers. I was usually the one initiating physical contact between us.
I relaxed a bit as her damp skin brushed mine.
Everything inside me seemed to agree because it felt as if a big, sturdy knot had been loosened.
Melinda flipped my hand over so my palm faced up and followed the lines there with a fingertip—a feather touch that felt like a lightning bolt shooting through my body.
“Then I would never let you suffer, Mase. You have my word. If someday you’re dying a slow death, I’ll be the one patching you up, okay? ”
I swallowed. Fuck. How could she say all the right things and appear to have no clue I was really dying here? My words weren’t some metaphors. I was really desperate.
“Would you kiss it better?” The gruff sound of my voice surprised me, and I coughed to open my airways.
When she smiled at me, I got lost in the pool of her eyes. I swore she could do some black magic with these enticing abysses of hers. Yeah, it was easy to get lost in them. “Yes, I would.”
Now there was a full list of body parts I wished she could kiss better. The thought of it alone was enough to make me lose my mind.
Her tongue traced her lower lip. Was it a reflex, or had she done it on purpose? Was I putting too much thought into her actions? My brain spun in my head, and I felt dizzy. Was the action involuntary or deliberately done to let me know she yearned to kiss me as much as I yearned to kiss her?
Never before had I had such a hard time reading a girl’s nonverbal cues. It was usually simple. Lustful smiles, eyelash flutters, a bad case of flushed cheeks, and some eye-fucking.
Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I pushed back a wet strand of her hair that had escaped her cap with a shaky finger and leaned forward.
I could already feel her lips on mine, the taste of her skin, the silky texture of her hair sliding through my digits.
Anticipation erupted inside me. My body hardened in all the right places.
There was no one else but us here. No one to interrupt us or to mess this up.
My lips tingled.