Page 64 of Whistle

“Not you,” he said, surprising me.

“What?”

“You don’t even know him, and the little you do is all bad. But you dropped everything and flew to Cali, used your good rep here to get him a second chance.”

I shook my head. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Rush. That’s the last place I belong.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

I paused, heart beating too hard. “Because I think people deserve a second chance and someone to believe in them.”

He nodded.

“Go easy on yourself. It hasn’t been rainbows and unicorns for you either. Just because stuff is better now doesn’t mean you still don’t have scars.”

Rush said nothing.

“Let Walsh talk to him. You know he lives for that shit.”

Rush smiled. “All hail Elite,” he said in his best Walsh impersonation.

I suppressed a laugh. “Go shower.”

Rush jogged off, and I turned back to the now-empty pool. The water was calm, the surface reflective.

In truth, I should have been the one talking to Bodhi. And I definitely shouldn’t have let him get away with missing three consecutive practices. I’d been trying to give myself some time. Time to get over this attraction until I could look at him as nothing but one of my swimmers.

But the more time passed, the more frustrated I grew and the more I feared this wasn’t just some chemical attraction but something with enough power to blow my world apart.

16

Bodhi

My new roommate was a flaming bag of dicks.

And I use the term “roommate” loosely because I was beginning to feel like this was more of a hostage situation.

The person holding me hostage?

Emmett Resch, the man I was supposed to call Coach.

He made me feel crazy. Like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute, I wanted to push every last button he had and drive him crazy, and the next, I wanted to beg him to touch me.

After his extensive list of rules and my new dorm assignment, I wanted to leave more than ever. Got as far as looking up plane tickets to get the hell out of Dodge. Added them to my cart and everything.

But there I sat in a less-than-bodacious dorm room with a roomie who made my old cellmate at Two Towers seem like a party. I hadn’t even seen him for three days, yet Emmett Resch still held me captive. To be honest, I thought after I no-showed one practice, he’d be beating down the door. I anticipated it. Waited even.

He didn’t come.

When I started therapy (court-mandated, ya know), I was going to ask the therapist what was wrong with me. The list was probably epically long.

At least then I could say, Oh, I’m only sitting here subjecting myself to this homophobic, judgmental, reefer head because I have X personality disorder instead of because I’m lusting after someone who clearly doesn’t want me.

“Honey, I’m home!”

See what happens when you speak of the devil? He appears.

The door burst in, and Ronnie—the aforementioned homophobic, judgmental, reefer head—shouldered his way in, bloodshot eyeballs already on a swivel. It was his newfound hobby to make me miserable.

---