“Sorry, what?”
Coach scowled, giving me his bestdon’t fuck with meeyes. “I said, you need to knock it off with the ladies for a while. The national team looks at more than your performance in the pool when they consider recruiting you. You’re serious about wanting on the team? You need to either take a vow of celibacy or find yourself a girlfriend.”
Girlfriend. I tried the idea on for size and shuddered. I wasn’t a one-woman kind of guy. I’d been burned by that before and had no intention of going back there.
“What if I’m just more discrete? We can draft up an NDA or some shit. I’ll look good for the team and everyone gets what they want.”
Coach marched over to the bureau where a nice crystal decanter and matching glasses sparkled in the sunlight. Without missing a beat, he sloshed a couple of fingers’ worth of Scotch into one of the glasses and knocked it back hard.
“Isn’t it a bit early…” I started.
He nailed me with a glare that would have been scary if I hadn’t been used to it. He also had nothing on what I’d grown up with, so the whole sense of safety I felt with him ruined the illusion. “Dealing with you is giving me a drinking problem. You’re not drawing up a goddamn contract for your bedmates. You’re going to be on your best behavior for the next few months until you make the team. The local newspaper is sending a reporter to follow your journey, and they’re going to report that you were a god damned saint, so your reputation is squeaky clean. Nod if you understand because I’m sick of the stupid that keeps coming out of your mouth.”
I rolled my eyes but nodded obediently. Coach blew a hard breath through his nose, watching me with narrowed eyes for a moment before taking his glass to the sink and washing it quickly.
“We’re heading to the pool today, and you’ll meet the reporter. Be charming, but for God’s sake, if they’re female, donotfuck them. Understand? We don’t need the complication of a jaded lover in the first week of trials. We’ll find someone to play your girl for events — the same girl — so you can start building your new rep.”
“Why is that necessary? I’m too young to settle down.”
“Do you know the number one reason swimmers are kicked off the national squad? Sexual misconduct. You want your name added to that public list? You think they’ll even take someone on if there’s a hint that you’ll be a problem like that? No. Fake girlfriend it is. Now shut up and go get ready for training.”
Fuck.
Maybe he had a point.
I stood and stretched, feeling the crack in my back and shoulders as I flexed. The long hours of training were catching up with me, and I thought fondly of the big soft bed in my apartment. No rest for the wicked. Although, if I was going to be celibate for the next couple of months, sleep was likely to become my new favorite pastime.
With a nod to Coach, I left his apartment, wandering the length of the corridor on the fifth floor of our complex, and slid into my own shoebox-sized home. Our block of apartments wasn’t the most amazing place to live, but there was a communal pool that was mostly deserted, and the price was right. Some people would think I was crazy living spitting distance from my coach, but aside from the fact he was the father I wished I had, we spent so much time together with training that it made sense to live close.
Also meant I never got away with shit.
With quick movements, I pulled out my swim bag and filled it with a fresh towel, clean clothes, and a plastic bag for my wet gear when I finished training. Swim shorts went on under my sweatpants, and in no time, I was jogging down the stairwell to where Coach was waiting in his shit-box car at the curb.
“You could’ve brushed your hair, boy,” Coach muttered, batting at my head as he pulled into traffic.
I shrugged. There was no point. As soon as I got in the pool it would be a wet mess anyway, so why bother.
We wove through morning traffic, through the business district, and out to the aquatic center on the far side of town. The building loomed in the middle of a field of dirt, waiting to be built up with new developments in the near future. I had considered buying a condo off the plan, but it all came down to whether I could make the team or not. No team, no money for condo living.
That was the dream.
Growing up, we had less than nothing. My sister was the smart one. She ran away until CPS gave up bringing her home and sent her to live with our aunt. My father was good with his fists, and my mom… well… she was a ghost long before she ever quit breathing. Her body had finally caught up with her mind two years before, and I found that after so long, convinced I was protecting her from my POS sperm donor, I hadn’t had it in me to grieve her passing.
I really was a bastard.
The impact of Coach knocking me in the chest brought me back to the present.
“Come on, we’ve got a lot on today. No time for dreaming.”
I let out a jaw-cracking yawn before sliding out of the car, slamming the door behind me. Coach shook his head and locked up before taking the lead into the facility.
As soon as the glass doors slid open, the humid scent of chlorine slapped me in the face. I welcomed it like an addict, breathing deep and feeling my muscles relax, adjusting to being so near my element. With little thought, I kicked off my shoes and followed the blue carpet toward the pool area. Coach’s hand on my arm pulled me up short. “We’re going into a meeting room first. Have to meet the journalist.”
Damn it. I cast a longing look at the tiles below. So close. With a sigh, I diverted toward the meeting rooms that overlooked the pool behind the reception area. I hated the business side of things. If I could get away with leaving everything to Coach, I would, but as he often reminded me, I wasn’t a kid anymore, and adults took control of their own lives. Coach reached the door and flicked the overhead lights on as we entered the room. Were we early? Or was the journalist late? I didn’t really care.
Wandering idly around the room, I found myself drawn to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the pool area. From this height, I could see the whole space, from the Olympic-sized pool to the diving boards and all the way to the wading pool in the far corner. This was life. Freedom. In my mind’s eye, I could see myself, set up on the blocks. Could hear the starting gun and feel the moment of weightlessness before I smoothly broke the surface of the water. The suspended moment when your body sliced through the liquid, and you almost felt like you could hang there until the oxygen in your lungs gave out. Then you surfaced, and the body took over, powering through the water as though nothing could stop you.
Heaven.
