Head Above Water

3. The Meeting

I sighed and hung my head in defeat as I pulled off my pants and threw them at the bench. Only one or two swimmers were actually in the pool so far and they were walking around with their arms above the water as if it was toxic. The remainder of the team was inching their way slowly into the water in an effort to adjust to the temperature gradually. I rolled my eyes at them, pulled my goggles over my eyes and dove in headfirst. It was always easier to just get it over with all at once.

“Swimmers! 200 easy Free warm up, no rests. Go!” the coach bellowed.

I took a breath, ducked underwater and launched off of the wall like an arrow from a bow. When I finished my 200 plus the extra 50 (sigh), I was still done before all of the others and I was barely out of breath.

“Stewart! Looks like you could use a couple more laps to let the others catch up.” I rolled my eyes, but took off again for a few more lengths of the pool.

The rest of practice passed in the same fashion. I’d reach the wall before everyone else, even though I was doing more laps, then the coach would have me do even more. Eventually I slowed my pace to avoid the extra laps, but Hawthorn caught on and threatened extra sets if I did it again.

By the time practice was over I’d had a pretty good workout and I was seriously energized. It was annoying being singled out all the time though. If the rest of my teammates might’ve become friends before, there was no chance of that now. They all seemed to resent me already. Whatever. The pool wasn’t the place to make friends anyway. They may call it a team, but it’s really an individual sport and that’s one of the things I liked about it.

I pulled myself out of the pool and speed-walked toward the locker room, shivering from the cold. I’d forgotten to take my towel out of the dryer at home and put it in my swim bag. It was just barely getting light and I looked toward the soccer field in the distance to see a layer of mist looming over it. The grounds looked peaceful and quiet, everyone still at home sleeping.

All of a sudden my body came to an abrupt halt as I thumped into a warm, immobile object. My hands flew up to steady myself, landing on firm yet slightly giving surface that made my palms tingle. I quickly turned my attention forward, where I should have been looking in the first place, to find myself at eye level with a broad male chest.

I no longer felt the cold; in fact my body was now comfortably warm. The tingling sensation in my palms traveled through my arms and up the back of my neck, making me shudder involuntarily. A spot on each of my hips tingled as well and I knew I was holding my breath, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember why breathing was even important.

Still too stunned to pull away, I looked up slowly into a pair of glowing golden eyes. The look of surprise before me slowly melted into something else as his gaze roamed over me, taking in my face and wet hair before briefly landing on the neck of my low cut swim suit, where my chest was pressed tightly up against his, giving him a nice view, I was sure. For some reasons the majority of female swimmers tended to be moderately or even sparingly endowed in the chest area, while I had unfortunately, always been amply gifted. It gained me a lot of attention, particularly in the pool.

I was finally able to give myself a mental slap and I stepped back, taking in a deep breath. I felt instantly colder and the tingling sensations stopped. He dropped his hands and I realized they had been resting on my hips to steady me.

I managed to finally force something akin to words out of my mouth. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he said huskily. I shivered at the sound of his voice. “You should get changed. It’s cold out,” he glanced down at my body again, barely covered by my wet swimsuit. “Especially in such little clothing,” he finished, and his eyes flashed with that look from earlier, making my heart pound in excitement. Hunger, I realized. That was the look.