I should be your Beta, not your Mate

36 - Moat

»Come on, one lane left!« I yelled and walked with them at the edge of the pool while clapping my hands.

After two lanes I let them take a break, they took it gladly. But I needed to admit that I was hard on them today.

It made me nervous that I couldn't get into the water myself, so I needed to be harder on them. But it seemed like they liked me being hard on them, because even though they were glad for a break, they now talked lively with each other.

»You're completely in your element,« Ethan grinned as he came up to me and threw me a water bottle that I caught with ease.

»Well,« I laughed and grinned back.

»Judging from your current mood it seems that you and Cassian talked it out. Though, you looked pretty angry while stumbling outside. By the way, who was the guy with you at the counter?«

I rolled my eyes while I thought about that.

»Yes, we talked it out and the guy is a cousin of Chat. He already felt familiar, but because of the alcohol I wasn't able to connect him to Chat. Well, and Cassian got in between before I could reject Valentin's flirting.«

»That dude's name is Valentin?« Ethan asked, and I nodded amused. »Pretty bad coincidence on Valentine's Day,« he mumbled and pulled a grimace out of pity. Two idiots, one thought.

»Captain Kyran?« Flustered, I turned my head away from Ethan and looked forward to where I found one of the younger swimmers.

»Only Kyran is enough. What's wrong, Eiji?« Hopefully, I remembered his name correctly.

He glanced over his shoulder where I saw three other boys standing who were younger members too.

»We wanted to ask if we could do relay swimming.«

Shortly I met with Ethans eyes but he only shrugged his shoulders.

»Why not, I have nothing against it. Ask the others if they want to join you by forming two to three other teams who you swim against or well, train,« I said and immediately he turned around with a big nod – broadly beaming over his whole face.

Only after ten minutes they finished forming three other teams who now trained the transition between swimmers and also tested out the different kinds of swimming – like on the back, butterfly and others.

Sometimes they exchanged a few words to discuss which kind suited them best and what they could do better and at the end of the training, it looked quite promising.

We saw each other off before I walked to the lacrosse field from which the players were about to leave.

In the middle of them was Cassian.

His sweaty hair laid almost flat on his head but still was shaggy and even from my location I could see the sweat beads roll down his face and neck. And damn it, I hated myself for the fact how hot it looked.

He laughed at a joke of one of his companions before his shining eyes found me.

In a hurry he walked up to me and pulled me against his chest before his lips brushed past mine for a short, soft kiss.

I immediately felt the gnawing looks of his team and also the hostility but that came more from the fact that I was a swimmer and not that we were two guys.

»See you, Cassian!« a few guys yelled to Cas before they left. »Yes, bye,« he yelled back and then smirked at me.

»Why're you beaming like that?« I asked and smiled gently.