Chapter 11
hollis
After-hours practice becomes the best part of my week and the worst thing that has ever happened to my self-control. Jude is back in the water for the third time, and I still don’t know how to look at him like a normal person.
Bishop always hangs on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water, stopwatch in one hand and clipboard balanced on his knee, acting like this is only a practice set and not a miracle happening three lanes from the office where Marsh keeps pretending he isn’t checking on us through the blinds.
Jude floats near the wall with his goggles on his forehead, shoulders bare, hair wet and curling at the ends from his cap.
He looks smaller on deck, sometimes, guarded, sharp, and ready to slip sideways if the room asks too much of him.
In the pool, all that caution turns into something smooth and fast enough to make my chest ache.
Bishop notices me staring before Jude does, because Bishop notices everything I’d rather he didn’t. “Hollis,” he says without looking up from the stopwatch, his voice calm enough to be dangerous, “if you miss another interval because you’re watching lane three, I’m adding distance.”
Jude’s head turns toward me. One eyebrow lifts above the edge of his goggles, and my face gets hot fast enough that the chlorine should start steaming off my skin. “I wasn’t watching,” I say, which is insulting to all three of us because I absolutely was.
“You were gazing,” Jude says, and then shoves off the wall before I can recover.
I follow a second late, mostly because my brain catches on the word gazing and makes a whole disaster out of it.
Bishop lets me suffer through the fifty before announcing that Jude’s turn was dramatic but mine was lazy, which is unfair because I am being personally victimized by feelings during an athletic activity.
The banter makes Jude softer, the pool giving him somewhere to put his hands, his breath, and the restless edge he carries on deck like a blade under his tongue.
Bishop gives him corrections without softening them too much, and Jude argues like every note is a personal attack even when he does exactly what Bishop says on the next lap.
I heckle from lane four because it’s my duty as a teammate, my version of a courtship, and a man who has never believed silence improved anything.
“Such a fucking tyrant,” Jude calls out after the third drill, though there’s a smile plastered on his face. I hope we get more of those smiles. The Omega swims up beside me in my lane, his gaze sweeping over my face. “You’re a beautiful disaster, you know that?”
I just stare at him, unconsciously leaning toward him when Bishop gently grabs my shoulder. I huff out a frustrated sigh, but pull back anyway. Jude clocks the movement, still as intrigued as the first night Bishop did that at the after party.
“He really always does that for you, doesn’t he?”
I grin. “Manage me? Constantly. I’d be unbearable without supervision.”
“You’re unbearable with supervision, babe,” Bishop muses, already writing something on the clipboard.
Jude shakes his head and pushes off the wall, but the smile stays with him for the first few strokes, small and stubborn at the corner of his mouth.
I watch him cut through the water and try not to make a sound over it, because Bishop already has the stopwatch lifted like he’ll use it as a weapon if I miss my next interval.
By the time Jude finishes the set, he doesn’t go back to lane three.
He slips under the rope into my lane and surfaces beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushes my arm under the water.
Bishop crouches at the edge and says, “You’re lifting your head too much on the breath, which is fixable.
” Jude’s mouth twists, but he nods, watching Bishop’s face instead of the clipboard.
Bishop turns more fully toward him, one hand braced on the deck, the other loose over his knee so Jude can see it.
“Again, but don’t fight the water like it insulted you. ”
“It did,” Jude says, still pressed against my arm. “Several times.”
“That was me,” Bishop says. “The water is innocent.”
Jude huffs, the sound dangerously close to a laugh.
The next drill goes too fast. Jude hits the wall hard, coughs once, then again, water catching wrong in his throat.
Bishop is still at the edge, staring worriedly at Jude.
“Spit it out. Don’t swallow it. Nose, Jude.
” Jude coughs again, flips him off weakly, and drags in a breath that sounds rough enough to make my chest hurt.
He turns toward me with wet lashes clumped together and annoyance all over his face. “Purr.”
The word nearly takes my knees out. I look at Bishop because I have no idea what my face is doing, and he gives me a small nod. “Low,” he says, quiet enough that it doesn’t become a production. “Let him come to it.”
I pull the purr up slowly, keeping it deep in my chest instead of letting it fill the room. Jude watches me for a second, then moves closer and rests his forehead against my chest. The vibration runs through him, and his shoulders drop a fraction.
Bishops taps the tile, stealing our attention. “I think we’ve done enough for one day, yeah?” He offers us both a smile and then to Jude, he offers his hand. Jude stares at it for a moment before giving in, Bishop pulling him up and into his chest.
I brace myself for the moment Jude pulls away but the fight is nearly gone in him, the Omega gently placing his ear over Bishop’s heart as well. “It’s different but I like it,” Jude murmurs. “I can sense your emotions like this without your scent.”
He’s always only done that to me. I thought it was mostly because of my Alpha purr.
Now, I’m just realizing that our thoughts and emotions match our heartbeat.
I lean against the gutter, smiling as Jude all but melts against Bishop, my Beta gently running his nose along Jude’s hair.
Even if he can’t tell, Jude is going to smell like us.
A possessive sound bubbles up my throat before I can push it back down. I climb out, splashing as much as I can to cover up what just happened but one look from Bishop and I know he knows. Fuck.
Bishop pulls away. “Time for the ritual again, you ready?” Jude tenses and then relaxes, heading over to the bench with his bag and offering Bishop the small tube. The ritual is much the same as it has been the last few days, before and after Jude gets in the water.
However, it’s become easier and watching Bishop’s hands on Jude has become one of my favorite things.
The tension in the Omega’s shoulders eases enough that Bishop finishes the last pass behind his ear.
When Bishop hands him the tube, Jude caps it himself and signs the sheet with damp fingers.
He reaches for his hoodie, then stops with the towel still dripping around his neck.
His gaze drops to my hands, then back to my face, and he shoves the towel against my chest like he’s annoyed at both of us for existing. “Can you... can you do that again?”
I blink a few times and then let my purr start up before Jude stands and presses his ear to Bishop’s chest again. Then he gestures for me to move behind him, my body covering his from the back as my purr moves between the three of us.
He lets out a soft hum. “I really like this,” he whispers. “God, I didn’t know it could feel like this.”
I glance over Jude’s shoulder to my Beta, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking down at the Omega between us, the one who’s finally realizing we’re safe. My purr grows a little louder, Jude going almost languid before he tugs himself from between us.
His face is flushed, his eyes darting around the pool before he clears his throat. “Right. Can we get some food? I’m starving.”
His obvious need to shift the moment is adorable as I grab my bag and a towel, no desire to sit in the showers and wait to eat. For once, Bishop doesn’t reprimand me as we head out through the side door to the parking lot.
Jude slots himself between us, his arms brushing ours. He tenses when a few Alphas pass us on the sidewalk, the Omega leaning into Bishop for protection. Any other Alpha would have felt disrespected but I love the fact that Jude’s realized who runs our little pack.
And it definitely isn’t me.
“Thank you,” Jude mutters. “I... I needed the push. The water... the...” He catches himself. “Thank you.”
I reach toward him and then pause, Jude leaning into my side anyway. He doesn’t pull away when I wrap an arm around his shoulders, curling him further into me. And when he makes that soft hum again, I realize that it isn’t just a sound.
It’s a purr.
His purr.
For me. For us.